Dropping Some Branding Knowledge | Resound Creative Blog

Accounting firms are all the same, right? Nerdy, dad-joke-telling professionals who drive sensible cars and wear beige suits to work every day. Unless they’re feeling saucy, in which case they throw caution to the wind and go with the branded polo.

Of course, these accounting stereotypes come straight from the ’90s and, more recently, Parks and Rec.

But the industry isn’t exactly doing its job in busting that myth.

Most accounting firms:

Of course, we know these stereotypes don’t reflect the people working in the industry. And we’d like to help.

https://youtu.be/GRal1TSGuGU

Here at Resound, we thought it would be interesting to see exactly how differentiated—or how homogenous—the industry actually is. So we grabbed 40 data points across 1,485 accounting firms, crunched a little data, and named it the “Remarkabrand Index for Accounting Firms.”

The index reflected our desire to give firms a measurable standard against which to judge their branding efforts. Basically, “Are we different, or are we undistinguishable from our competition?”

Why? Because differentiation is a real challenge. Accounting firms struggle to distinguish themselves in a competitive market. And until now, there was no quantitative, benchmarking tool to objectively measure brand differentiation. 

…until now.

Tons and tons and tons of manual, sometimes painful, data entry (we’re working on automation for this now).

But other than that, it was easy. We looked at 40 data points, including SEO scores, naming conventions, word-choice differentiation (e.g. in tagline), and color and logo style ratings, to name just a few.

The index revealed insights into effective differentiation strategies used by top firms.

Here’s an overview of the data collection:

We used a standard measuring tool called Domain Authority from Moz, which acts as a good summary indicator of SEO strength. For additional context, we looked at inbound links as well.

Toward the end of data collection, we started asking what company size and revenue had to do with the index score. Surely, bigger firms by revenue and employee count would do better, right?

We’re glad we asked, because the results were a bit surprising, with many of the top-performing firms having fewer than 200 people.

Some of the data wasn’t so straightforward from an evaluation standpoint. After all, there’s no math formula we know of to evaluate the quality of a logo or even the decade that inspired it.

So we brought in the professionals.

And lest you think designers are kookie, impractical, blocky-framed-non-prescription-glasses-wearing artsy types with no grounding in reality, we’ll have you know…our designers are pros.

And it’s a good thing they are because we have deadlines.

We asked them to evaluate based on design and branding principles. They tagged the logos and websites, collected colors, and, yes, even estimated the decade of the logo based on style.

In addition to how firms differentiate, we wanted to know: is it time for a rebrand? Has there been deferred maintenance on the brand? Who needs a new brand makeover?

To get to the bottom of this, we ask a few questions:

Design Era Classification: 

Was the logo designed in the 2000s by a guy who’s been unemployed ever since he designed the Windows 95 logo? 

Was it designed only this year by a design school student who’s so progressive that she lives in the future where styles from 20 years ago are cool again? 

To find this out—or at least assign a decade—designers went all antiques-roadshow and used style indicators to put the logos on a timeline.

The industry loves blue. If it could, it would marry blue. It has eyes for no other.

Except green. If it was going to have a mistress, it would be green.

The point is that the industry lacks variation in color.

Firms love to use their founders’ names. It’s a near obsession.

Over 90% of the firms used the founders’ names or an acronym based on the founders’ names in their branding. This suggests a huge lack of imagination. It also suggests a great opportunity to differentiate.

Taglines were a lot of fun too. In fact, once we found the most popular words and themes in taglines, Sam Pagel created a script that amalgamated the perfect cliched tagline: 

“Beyond numbers, we deliver clear solutions for business success, helping clients secure a trusted financial future since 1982 with personal service and value that goes beyond tax accounting.”

Because which one of us doesn’t wake up at night all “I want to secure a trusted financial future, especially if it’s beyond numbers?”

Rebrand: The industry is competitive, but the branding is not. Maybe the biggest opportunity is for brands who decide it’s time to re-evaluate. Because if you’re ready to do it, you have at least 6 months—at least—before the rest of the industry realizes what’s going on and decides to own its space.

Need proof? Get your copy of the index and see the actual numbers. You’ll have all the data you need in just our first annual report to justify your rebrand. Now it’s up to you to sell it.

Cross-platform video: We didn’t see firms using a lot of video, which gives you a way to stand out with knowledge, education, and thought leadership. LinkedIn, YouTube, and other platforms present an opportunity to address people personally, whether that’s new business or recruiting.

We’re like the guy at the party who’s ready to show off some sick dance moves. All we need is an excuse.

Cue the disco and the mirror ball, because we’re about to get down.

This first year created a monster. And for better or for worse, the positive response from the industry got us all worked up. 

It’s almost like the industry needs this kind of data. 

So we’ve been working on a list of ideas we think will make it a richer, more useful report in future years. 

We may not get to everything in the next edition, but we’ll try:

We know all accounting firms aren’t the same. But in order to fix a problem, sometimes you need to make sure those in charge of marketing see the opportunity.

You see, when an entire industry fails to differentiate, the ones who decide to move—to initiate the conversation in the firm—to get started. They’re the ones who can give their firm an advantage.

All firms aren’t the same. But differentiation can be a real challenge. Especially if you don’t know what an advantage it gives you.

This is our attempt to show the accounting firm the state of affairs and let them know it’s possible to distinguish themselves in a competitive market.

Every brand gets its power from connecting with people and delivering on its promises. And that starts with internal branding.

We’ll explore why internal branding should be your first focus, the pitfalls of neglecting it, and how to implement it successfully within your team.

By aligning your internal stakeholders first, you set the stage for a more cohesive and powerful brand presence in the market.

https://youtu.be/hlG0ojbxGo0

Nobody advocates for your brand like employees. Their words and actions tell everyone what your brand stands for. If they know your brand—and you hire well, based on your brand—your employees will see the connection.

And that consistent brand experience—through the words and actions of your employees—connects with customers more than your claims ever will.

Create clear guidance and your employees will give you a cohesive internal brand that enhances customer service, employee satisfaction, and overall business performance.

Here’s what happens when external branding fails to connect with your employees.

Neglecting internal branding can have real financial consequences, from lost sales to increased employee turnover.

Branding starts at the top but doesn’t stay there.

We’ve all seen companies that embrace amazing-sounding values but don’t live up to them.

You might be at the counter at the car rental desk, and you can’t get the agent to live up to their own values. The values are literally on the wall behind the person helping you.

They’re just not lived out.

So how do you build out those brand values properly and honestly?

Internal branding uses different tools than external. But they all do the same thing in the end: instill an understanding of the brand to humans who can either be encouraged and excited about values or eventually forget.

Here are some ways you can keep everyone engaged internally.

Employees get engaged when they see the commitment from the firm’s leadership. The most obvious way to do this is through a brand launch event. However you do it, make sure you launch in a very visible way that involves everyone in the firm.

Here are a few ideas for how to launch your brand.

If you have a remote team, a virtual event may be your best bet. Use a mix of pre-recorded videos and live sessions to unveil the new brand. Include interactive elements like polls, Q&A sessions, and virtual breakout rooms for team discussions.

Maybe you can get everyone together. This is the best option. Whether it’s at your firm’s headquarters or a rented venue, set up different booths or stations where employees can engage with various aspects of the brand—like a “Brand History” station, a “Meet the Designers” booth, or a “Brand Quiz” area.

Combine elements of both virtual and in-person events. Stream the in-person event activities online for remote employees and include them through interactive digital platforms. This ensures that everyone, regardless of location, can participate in the brand launch.

Tailored Communication Understand that brand engagement isn’t one-size-fits-all. Customize your approach based on the experience level of the team member.

Everyone wants to rebrand. That’s the fun part. But keeping momentum is the big payoff for the business.

Want to build your value and the value of the firm? Then you’ll want to maintain the brand.

Here are some ways to do that.

Not everyone will understand, and not everyone’s a perfect fit for the brand. Here are some ways to bring people on board. The most resistant can sometimes turn into the brand’s strongest ally. So don’t give up too easily.

In today’s landscape where name-brands dominate, your strong brand gives you more value than ever, providing guidance for how to make policy, how to communicate, and how your brand works, from the inside out. 

Inspired by a conversation with David and Sam, we discussed why your team should be the first focus in your branding efforts. We also explored the risks of overlooking internal branding and offered strategies for successful implementation. 

Remember, by aligning your internal team first, you pave the way for a unified and impactful brand presence in the market.

Mergers and acquisitions can ruin a B2B brand. Even the best-intentioned M&A can take a toll on a brand when rushed decisions lead to a lack of coordination in the culture and a timid approach to the market. I had a conversation with Jaimi Koechel who’s a veteran of both a firm rebrand and a B2B brand merger about how to execute a merger well, from a branding perspective.

https://youtu.be/YjBNFIHU0BU

Firms take different views on M&As. Some see it as just an opportunity to expand, adding a book of business and making the firm’s strengths available to a wider audience and geographical area. But while the firm’s management may be thinking about expansion, and making higher-level decisions about naming, the accounting firm marketer’s job is to think about how the brand gets lived out over the course of the merger.

Anyone who’s been through a merger knows that, although the technical aspects of a merger take only months and end when the announcement is made, everyone gets new office signage, new email signature lines, and t-shirts with the new logo, the effects of the B2B brand merger last until everyone understands the new brand.

It can take months and years to get everyone to embrace the new brand, especially when two companies form a merged brand, and two cultures come together.

As a marketer, your job is twofold:

We can’t control how quickly people grasp the culture at the individual level, but we can think ahead and make the path clear.

The Remarkabrand podcast was joined again by award-winning accounting marketer and former client Jaimi Koechel to help us understand what’s coming down the pike when two firms form a single, merged brand.

https://youtu.be/YjBNFIHU0BU

I asked Jaimi about some of the challenges accounting marketers face during a merger. How do you maintain the strength of a brand when a merger presents every opportunity to dilute the brand? How do you help everyone make sense of the rebrand and keep them focused on what’s important?

Brand managers face a unique challenge when their firm merges with another firm since planning isn’t always straightforward. How do you make a merged brand that makes sense?

Let’s continue on and talk about things you can do to solidify the brand during a merger or acquisition.

Nobody’s more likely to see potential brand disagreements than you are. As the caretaker of a brand you may have had a hand in developing, you’re likely more aware of the conflicts you see coming. And if you can express your concerns well—and think of ways everyone involved can work together to solve them—you could turn a problem into a big win for everyone—especially you and the firm.

After all, it’s not the order-takers who help the leadership make sense of things. Rather, it’s those people who can solve problems, make decisions and get people working together.

If you can make sense of these questions by defining the goal and then fostering the process, a stronger merged brand will result.

Once the day the merger officially arrives, you’ll want a plan to let people know you’re “from around here.” You don’t want people thinking a big, outside accounting firm, with no connection to the community is descending on your town from above, seeing it as its next conquest. Whatever the new name is, let the town know you’re there and you’re invested.

Consider:

Get support from marketers who’ve been there—join AAM (the Association of Accounting Marketers). Although less directly related to branding, this step supports your career and your role in the firm, as it puts you in direct relationship with other marketers who’ve been through M&As and can help you see around corners.

Membership in the Association of Accounting Marketers gives you everything you’d expect from an association. But according to Jaimi, and from my experience, you develop a camaraderie that transcends professional relationships. AAM members are more than people you see once a year at the annual conference; they become friends who you consult with in the day-to-day.

Maintaining a strong brand during a B2B brand merger takes vision, clarity, and skill. But if you can think ahead, form your thoughts, and communicate clearly, you’re steps ahead of many problems that could cause you to compromise your brand during a merger. And AAM membership—and the relationships that come from that—only help you as you think through your actions, develop your leadership and orchestrate a successful merger.

There’s plenty more where it came from—both in my book, ‘You Are Remarkable’ and on Remarkabrand, the podcast I host with Sam Pagel. 

The Resound team specializes in helping professional firms unlock their authentic identity and express it with a winsome, engaging brand identity. 

If rebranding, or simply making the case for branding to your firm’s leadership calls for backup, we’re always eager to consult. Whether that’s leading your team through a workshop or working closely to help set you up for a successful branding journey, we thrive on helping organizations like yours tell their story. 

Check out our resources, or give us a shout. 

And don’t forget that you are remarkable.

Accounting firm rebrands hardly ever happen in perfect conditions. But it’s those challenges that grow us into leaders who can push through and win. For example, in my Remarkabrand podcast conversation with former client Jaimi Koechel—an award-winning marketing director with deep experience in accounting firms—we covered accounting firm branding, rebranding during transitions, and what a successful, inside-out brand build looks like. 

Jaimi’s approach to demonstrating the value of branding to her firm’s partners reminded me of a few things.

https://youtu.be/nfJdZkyioY4

As I am wont to do, I’ll bring in my first point with an illustration from a TV show—the historical drama series “Chernobyl” that came out a few years ago. After the Chornobyl nuclear reactor melts down, the secretive Soviet government meets in Moscow to discuss what happened. 

One scene in particular puts us right in the shoes of Valery Legasov, a nuclear physicist who figures out that the reactor’s core exploded. But at the table with Premier Gorbachev and his top advisors, Legasov realizes that his country’s leaders have no idea what happened. They don’t understand that millions might die from lethal radiation if they don’t act fast. This gives him no choice but to speak up—and risk his life and career in the process. Fortunately, Gorbachev hears him out, and after telling the horrifying truth no one wants to hear, Legasov finds himself advising the entire containment effort.  

It’s a far stretch from nuclear meltdowns, but the problem of preoccupied decision-makers not understanding something’s critical importance is one we can all relate to.  

Someone, perhaps even you, might need to demonstrate that value before the branding effort can begin. As Jaimi, a longtime accounting firm branding advocate put it on my podcast, “They won’t know they need you at the table until you show them that they need you.” 

Instead of assuming a killer logo will just do the trick, firms that want to build relationships with their clients need to put the work in on the branding front, to the point of owning their authentic brand identity. 

Neglecting, misunderstanding or undervaluing brand identity makes for thorny problems: diluting brand and reputation or confusing the audience, to name a few. 

Outside of building out a true, authentic, consistent brand identity, how will everyone else know how remarkable they are? 

With these takeaways and Jaimi’s story as a starting point, here are my quick thoughts on what every firm should know about accounting firm branding, branding advocacy, and how brand identity helps firms build remarkable, lifelong relationships. 

Let’s dive in. 

First, I’ll pass a little more of Jaimi’s advice to anyone who might be in this position. If you have a seat at your firm’s leadership table, or if you’re simply making the case for some kind of branding effort to your firm’s team members, you probably need some wind in your sails. 

Hopefully, this will lend you some. 

As you think about how to show your firm’s partners the value of brand building, don’t forget…

Even with Jaimi’s marketing background, adjusting her rebrand proposal to suit her firm’s needs took time and persistence. Eventually, as she won trust and got to know the firm’s specific needs, her firm’s partners saw the value in what she was proposing. After partners warmed up to the idea of a complete rebrand, Jaimi led the way.  

Even if you majored in graphic design and have the perfect new logo ready to go…remember that accounting firm branding isn’t about your ideas per se. To get people on board, you’ll have to make the case that this branding effort is what they need to reach their audience in an authentic way and move closer to the firm’s business goals. Like it or not, branding isn’t a blank check for spending money on new (i.e. “your”) ideas. 

Authentic brands that build lasting relationships do drive long-term success—and here’s my article on that very topic. Communicate that in a way that demonstrates branding’s present and future value, and makes a good case for someone getting behind it. 

Along with seeing your passion and drive for brand building, your firm should know that you have your fingers on the pulse of what’s going on. 

Where is the accounting industry going? Where should it be going? 

Little known fact: Jaimi’s former accounting firm Henry and Horne (it merged with Baker Tilly in 2002) began blogging in 2008. At the time, Jaimi showed her firm the forward motion of brand-centered blogging with one fact—only sixty-four accounting firms in the whole country had a blog. 

Whether you’re on a pickleball team or your firm’s leadership table, there’s only one way to build your credibility—start small, and when the time comes, show people the wins. Show the impact one branding-based approach can have on marketing content or social media (to give a few examples), and when the time comes, make the case for duplicating those efforts.  

Time and time again, Jaimi’s partners told her “no.” 

But instead of giving up, Jaimi learned that “no” was not a negative thing—in fact, it usually meant an opportunity to regroup, understand the firm’s needs and situation better, and eventually come back to advocating for an internal brand build. 

If you’re told “no” don’t lose heart. 

While you’re hanging in there, here are a few more brand-building tidbits that accounting firms should consider. 

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating.

Accounting firms should care about brand identity because brand identity is ultimately about building an authentic relationship with a target audience. In the digital age, very few potential clients make their first impression over a handshake or even a phone call. It’s more likely to be through a digital touchpoint: email, social media, a website, or a monthly article like this one. 

Creating and maintaining a consistent brand identity puts the truth of who you are front and center across all of those digital touchpoints. 

By showing everyone how you’re remarkable, your brand identity also sets you apart from the competition. As they get to know your firm’s look, personality, service, and unique values, a brand identity goes a long way in acclimating a potential client to who they’re dealing with—and that process should start from the first interaction. 

If you’re an accounting firm, then there’s a decent chance your name and logo reflect the partners who started it. 

That’s great actually; it doesn’t mean you’re behind the times. On the other hand (and this bears repeating), accounting firms should know that a spanking new, non-accounting firm-sounding name or logo is not a brand in and of itself.

Rather, a brand embodies a firm’s whole identity, right down to the foundation. Authentic accounting firm branding is an effort to get at the heart of that foundation—its purpose, location, history, story, values, and unique personality. An honest brand-building effort digs into all those foundational areas and brings them to a clear, winsome, compelling expression (I actually prefer the term “brand anthem”) that engages people.

What does it engage them with? 

The truth of your organization, the fact that who you are and what you offer is truly remarkable.  

As with most things, there are no shortcuts, and accounting firms should not assume that everyone can grasp what they offer or what they’re really about from the name, logo, or services alone. Consistency, of course, will always win. 

A brand identity that builds relationships, captures that firm’s story and anthem with confidence, and ties a firm’s team together usually starts with a holistic effort on the inside.

That effort could look like an inside-out brand build involving input from the entire team, or it could look more like a transitional, internal rebrand that positions a firm toward its new corner of the marketplace. 

Either way, an authentic brand identity comes from the heart. And given enough time, the audience you’re trying to build relationships with can usually tell if that’s the case.  

Firms that merge with other companies or branch off to form new ones often position themselves through a rebrand. 

On this last topic, let me bounce back to my conversation with Jaimi one more time—after all, she led an accounting firm with over a hundred team members through a successful, inside-out rebrand. 

What should accounting firms (or any professional service firm) be thinking about as they consider a rebrand? 

What priorities should they pursue and how should they go about it? 

From Jaimi’s advice and my own experience helping B2B companies in their branding efforts, one huge advantage of a rebrand is that it presents an opportunity—the chance to get your firm’s whole team on the same branding page.

Down to the foundation.  

Once everyone understands what a firm’s brand is, what story it’s telling, and how values, history, and core purpose are navigating, or perhaps even shifting slightly, in a very visual change, then the whole process gets a little more straightforward.  

However a firm does that, (group sessions set aside from regular hours, an extended brand building workshop – conference, input from surveys, or equipping each team member with my step-by-step branding book ‘You Are Remarkable’ like Jaimi did…) everyone should be involved. 

Getting everyone involved is the first and key step to another huge goal of your rebrand, getting everything about your new brand identity consistent. From your graphics, logo, and social media, down to a client’s experiences when they walk in your lobby, consistency means that everyone your firm meets will be treated a certain way. 

Each and every impression should work in tandem to communicate your brand’s truthful, authentic identity to your corner of the world. 

If you’re an accounting firm, you’ll find this helpful. 

We recently released the 2023 Remarkabrand Index for Accounting Firms, a comprehensive guide to the names, logos, colors, taglines, awards, and digital presence of 1,500 U.S. Accounting Firms. 

With over forty data points, the Index is both a guide and a brand-building driver. Reinforce your branding decisions and stand out in a sea of sameness. 

It’s a free download – our gift to you and your remarkable organization.  

Finally, rebranding strategies are increasingly changing on the digital landscape. 

Advances in AI and automation, in particular, are opening up chances for accounting firms to look at their brand identity via digital footprint and express that brand consistently while positioning themselves in the marketplace. 

But more on that later. 

There’s plenty more where it came from—both in my book, “You Are Remarkable” and on Remarkabrand, the podcast I host with Sam Pagel.

The Resound team specializes in helping professional firms unlock their authentic identity and express it with a winsome, engaging brand identity. 

If rebranding, or simply making the case for branding to your firm’s leadership calls for backup, we’re always eager to consult. Whether that’s leading your team through a workshop or working closely to help set you up for a successful accounting firm branding journey, we thrive on helping organizations like yours tell their story. 

Check out our resources, or give us a shout. 

And don’t forget that you are remarkable.  

If you know so much about it, why don’t you write a book? 

Imagine being able to say: “Yeah, I did that… and here it is.” 

Mic drop. 

Here, in part II of taking your brand anthem to a thoughtful, well-developed book that demonstrates your expertise, I’m making the argument that every firm (including yours) should chase that feeling. Building on last month, when I made the case for writing a book with co-authors with the partners of your firm, and over a calendar year of recorded conversations, I’ve got more thoughts on the writing process itself. 

But before I dive in, I’ll go ahead and tell you why. 

https://youtu.be/tNio5GpRXxU

Why take the effort to plan, write, edit, and publish a piece of content that based on your brand anthem, if we’re being honest, probably won’t be a bestseller, or even a moderately successful seller?

Because publishing a book is a powerful long-term strategy to build your firm’s reputation for thought leadership, and at the same time, define its position in a marketplace filled with noise. In another article we’ve published, Chief Operating Officer Chris Stadler puts it this way: 

“If your firm writes a book, it’s a sign that your thoughts and processes are time-tested and organized. Anyone who can talk deeply enough about a topic to write a book demonstrates depth and experience.”

This is especially true in professional services, where brands develop their reputation and define their place in the market through knowledge, competence, word-of-mouth, and in-depth experience with a particular topic. If you’re in accounting, law, or engineering, then your respective knowledge of case law, financial trends, or the geographical layout of the Colorado River basin is your bread and butter. With that in mind, a brand anthem book gathers all that knowledge into an eye-catching, tremendously helpful brand asset. 

Of course, knowing what you do is different from communicating that to everyone else. 

Before you get cracking on a book, your best bet is having your firm’s brand story right. 

This is where your brand anthem comes in. 

Whatever your content strategy looks like—and trust me, articles, brand videos, a podcast, a killer website, and social media accounts filled with clever posts are all a pretty great start—it should be centered on a clear, memorable brand anthem. That is, on a memorable story of how you help guide your clients to the solution they need in your unique, unduplicated way. 

The same goes for a book; it should wave your brand’s banner in an unmistakable way, even as it dives into your point of view, experience, and comprehensive knowledge of a particular topic. Even where it dovetails with your regular ongoing strategy, a book built from a truthful, memorable brand anthem should take things further. More than standalone blog posts, and even more than a viral brand video that’s trending with your target audience, a book fleshes out your brand anthem in a definitive way. 

One that commands your audience’s attention. 

A book takes all the content strategy that you’re already putting out, and condenses it into a sophisticated, reputable piece of brand content. 

All together in one package, with a clean title and an author from your firm on the cover, and listed on Amazon or stacked on a table at an annual convention, a book speaks volumes. It produces a level of reputational trust that I haven’t seen with other pieces of content that firms put out in the marketplace. 

As you can imagine, a book is even more than a summary of your brand anthem, or one source volume of content strategy. Rather, it’s a valuable, sophisticated asset for your firm and your firm’s brand. Not to mention a reputational investment in your firm’s role as a thought leader. 

You’ve probably heard that you should ‘write you know.’ But in the professional service and B2B corner of the world, a better saying would be ‘write what you want to be known for.’ 

That obviously means tapping into you and your firm’s expertise—the refined experience and thought processes you’ve acquired over years, or even decades of day in, day out business and interactions—and aiming it squarely at your target audience. 

It might mean elaborating on simply ‘what you know,’ even though the topic is one that you probably eat, breathe and sleep. Research, reading other books in the market and for the same audience, and of course gleaning as much as you can from co-authors all goes a long way in building out your book.

If nothing else, translating your proven experience into expository or, at times, instructional writing conveys another quality. It suggests that you’re capable of teaching others about your thinking—not just what you think, but how and why you think a certain way.  

If you do it well, writing as a teacher can even push you, your firm, and your co-authors into the realm of being a thought leader on that topic—something that’s much more valuable than simply sticking the book on your website and telling people to buy it.  

If they buy it, that’s a bonus. 

But the real tactical advantage of writing a book comes when your firm can use that book and the expertise it conveys as a reputational, brand-building platform. With a book to your name, you’re more likely to land speaking events, or to make an impression at conventions with people you want to work with.  

Handing someone a book is like handing them a turbo-charged resume. 

It’s proof of your knowledge, your proven experience, and your conceptual thinking, all rolled into one. 

No shame in asking. 

Nearly everyone wants to have written a book… and that writing, editing, and publishing part of the journey looks pretty daunting. 

No doubt, there is a ton of work and planning involved—but as I explained in last month’s article, the writing process itself also pays dividends when it comes to monthly content marketing. 

One strategy I talked about was writing a book by talking to people. That is, get together with the partners of your firm, or any co-authors, and schedule twelve in-depth conversations (one every month) that you’ll record, draw from, and eventually turn into chapters in your book. With that strategy in mind, I’ll be talking more about the writing and editing process, and about how your book should differentiate your firm from others in a unique, remarkable way… obviously. 

Here are a few tips on the writing process. 

Or, and to the extent that writing is nothing but refined thinking, I should probably say the thinking process that will go into your book. A good process, along with a one year, one-topic-a-month strategy, goes a long way in making the whole writing journey a worthwhile investment. 

Writing a book is a huge commitment. For every finished book, there’s a handful of would-be authors who got started but then changed their minds. 

You’re probably not writing a book about something unless it’s something you really believe, and everybody knows that. When people see a finished book, the commitment that went into taking it over the finish line speaks for itself. Even more than case studies, a website, or marketing materials that share your philosophy while laying out what your firm does, a book gives your reputation and your way of thinking a backbone. 

So what goes into this backbone? Chapter by chapter, page by page, and even paragraph by paragraph, how do you stack it all together? Aside from a keyboard, voice to text—or by the time I publish this, some flashy new copywriting bot—is there a silver bullet for translating that thinking into words and sentences? 

Beyond carving up your book into a minimum of twelve chapter topics and then filling out those topics with recorded conversations, there’s no prescription for how you stack and organize your content knowledge. At the end of the day, someone will have to transcribe those conversations, edit the writing, and publish it.

Probably more than once.

But I can say that the backbone of your book should be particular details, focused on your target audience. The common thread through each detail, as well as each chapter, is that they demonstrate your proven experience.

Here’s where you’re in luck.

Your proven experience is made up of details you already know. 

Say you’re telling someone all about your brand anthem book topic: someone like a hard-hitting journalist. While you talk, they’re hitting you with a ton of questions that force you to get more particular, more example-driven, and even more focused. 

“Okay,” they say, thinking about accounting software, jury selection, or start-up strategies, or whatever you’ve just told them. “Tell me more about your take on that.” 

“How is your take different?” they ask. “How is it Special? How is it unlike what I’ve already heard from other firms who know this topic?” 

“What have you thought about or realized that nobody else is saying?” 

“Can you demonstrate?” 

“Can you give me an example? Something from your experience that stands out and illustrates your point?”  

The more you answer these questions, the more you’re responding to an unspoken challenge: prove it, prove it, prove it. By the time you’re done, you’ve probably got a whole chapter’s worth of content, just in answering their questions. Maybe you’ve got several chapters, or even a whole book’s worth. 

This exercise forces you to get particular. Answering questions means fleshing out your proven experience in a way people can understand. If you’ve spoken to someone who’s curious about your work, but not an insider, you know that dry, flavorless exposition will leave them bored or scratching their heads. Instead, give them stories. Memorable examples. Details about the process. Give them jaw-dropping facts, anecdotes and general stats (or estimates) so they have a baseline and proper perspective. 

And when they ask how you approach your process, you’ll answer directly: ‘here’s what this means to me, and maybe even to you.’ 

In other words, in an authentic, reputable way, you have to prove it. Regardless of chapter topic, chapter order, or paragraph by paragraph flow, proving it is a pretty good plumb line. At every step, you’re showing that your way of thinking is a trustworthy map: a graspable system that helps people understand your profession, your industry, your valuable insights, and how you approach common challenges with a unique solution.

When you stack all this in a book, people can do more than grasp your way of thinking—they can test it out for themselves. They can compare something you said in chapter one to what you say in chapter nine… and see if the numbers add up. In other words, part of your thought leadership’s backbone means being falsifiable. Not stepping out on a limb for no reason, but rather, taking stand after stand that can potentially be proven false. 

It’s a scary thought, but remember that your reader is asking you, your co-authors, and book one thing: prove it. 

Nonfiction writers like to say that every book makes a promise to the reader at the very start. Any book worth its salt, from a how-to book to a sophisticated work of investigative journalism, answers that promise. 

By filling out your book’s content with falsifiable, but thoroughly supported, claims and proven experience, you show the reader your thought system works to the nth degree. You show them that you’ve used it so much (as the case should be if you’re writing about what you know) and so often over the years that it’s trustworthy and convincing. 

Writing your book means more than refining your thinking—and when all is said and done, proving your role as a thought leader in the marketplace. 

Another advantage (and another reason to do it) is that putting your knowledge or your firm’s philosophy into a falsifiable, focused book filled with proven experience means getting all your co-authors on the same page. The monthly, recorded conversations are an excellent way to do just that… and when the writing and editing process comes full circle, having co-authors weigh in, make corrections, and keep an eye on the overall project is a kind of brand refining process in and of itself. 

With the goal of carving out your firm’s position in the marketplace, you want everyone involved on the same page… singing from the same tune from the same hymn book, you might say. 

To that end, your book doesn’t need to read like a textbook.

Believe me, it doesn’t have to be this super academic, footnote-packed product you might find in a college bookstore. 

You can build your backbone and flesh out your claims with facts, details, and proven experience in a substantial way…while being approachable. Many businesses who want to write a book envision something thick and substantial, but the reality is that putting out a massive volume overestimates the number of people who might actually read it. 

Even if your book is brilliant, it faces a harsh reality. 

Most people that you encounter as potential clients will never actually read every word of it. They’ll read the parts that matter to them, or they might not even read it at all. Seeing the book and browsing its contents might be enough to make them go “Wow, you wrote the book on that? I want you as my firm.”

So if you’re thinking of putting out a brand dictionary, something that will take vast amounts of time, resources, and even budget… keep this in mind. 

As I mentioned last month, manage your expectations accordingly. 

Of course your piece of thought leadership needs to be good—I’m not saying a stylish book jacket is an easy swindle for getting people’s business. 

But while you’re writing, podcasting and recording, or editing the book into the best, most substantial and thought-through version of itself, take a deep breath… and remember why you’re doing it. 

Don’t expect a New York Times bestseller… or even to see your book on any physical bookshelf in a store. Rather, remember you’re doing this as a sophisticated way to validate everything you think internally about your firm, your industry, and your brand’s unique place in the market. 

With a book, and for those who read your approachable, systematic outline to your thinking and proven experience, you gain a little bit of monopoly power against your competition.

And that stakes out your firm’s position. 

If you love the idea of a book that can build your remarkable firm’s reputation with your audience, then ask for the help you need to make it happen.

Having written a book on B2B branding with some incredible people, I know the process back to front. I’m glad to help remarkable brands plan, outline, and even get the words right. If the end result is a proven, authentically-reading piece of thought leadership that builds your firm’s reputation, then I’m all in. 

I’d love to help make that happen. 

So if you need help, you can give the Resound team a shout. You can even check out my book ‘You are Remarkable’ on Amazon to see what the finish line looks like. 

If you’re itching to get recording or writing, that’s splendid. 

But don’t forget that you are remarkable.

As we all know, there’s more than one way to get your firm’s brand out into the world. Traditional content strategy with a website, ad campaigns, articles, social media, and a skillfully edited brand video is increasingly common—and not necessarily ineffective. If it’s done well and authentically, not by a long shot. 

Trust me, you don’t have to go super-outlandish with free air guitars or pregnancy test coupons in magazines to get your brand seen. 

As I wrote about last month, short videos are probably the most potent, shareable way to capture your brand anthem and communicate it with a wider audience. Video taps two of the five senses, taps memory and emotion, and speaks the common parlance of phones, tablets, and computer screens that take up people’s time. 

But even if you’re dropping money on filming or professional editing, there’s one final strategy you should not overlook. 

Writing (and, of course, publishing) your brand anthem in a book. 

A brand book, or perhaps a book containing your collected thoughts on a relevant business or marketing topic, gets people excited—especially in professional services. 

Think of a brand book as a printed, sophisticated piece of thought leadership: a respectable piece of developed, long-form content that contains your brand anthem and even raises it to a higher level of conversation. 

But writing a book raises pointed questions, with the first one being: 

How do I get there? 

How do I get my brand anthem into an actual book someone can hold in their hands? 

Do I have to write? 

What about editing and publishing—aren’t those lengthy journeys in and of themselves?

Great questions. 

But before I dive in, let me recap what any brand or topical book should be doubling down on: brand anthem. 

If you want to do something right, there’s no getting enough of the basics. 

https://youtu.be/7eJqjJevgEc

If your brand anthem is the starting point—your north star for a killer video, slick visuals and marketing, or even a product rollout—you should know exactly what it is and why it resonates with people.

 Lest we forget, a good brand anthem builds on elements of a good story (one about your clients, and how you help them) and waves them into a clear, vibrant banner. I walked through the elements of a brand anthem in detail, but they’re worth repeating—there’s the hero (your client), the problem they’re facing, the guide (that’s YOU), and then the solution. As you can probably imagine, the story goes like this: the hero had a problem, and with the help of a trusting, knowledgeable guide, the hero solved that problem. 

That story, of course, contains your brand’s unique traits and values. If it’s uniquely you—and don’t forget, whether you’re an accounting firm or a law firm or an engineering firm, you’re still the guide—then your brand anthem should set you apart from the stories that other brands are telling… in a pretty big way. 

How do you uniquely help the hero?

Which kind of hero (or better yet, which problem) are you focused on solving? 

How do you uniquely solve it? 

With what philosophy or fresh vision of a better world? How is your solution different from other brands? 

If your brand story sounds a little too familiar… then it might be time to tease it out a little more. Getting your brand anthem clear, and polished, and getting your message about who you are on point means carving out your position in the marketplace.

What’s your approach to the hero’s problem? 

What’s your unique solution? Your answer for a segment of the market that’s not being fully served? 

Potent brand anthems are usually the focused ones… and if we’re talking about writing a book on it, the more potent, the better. 

Say you’ve got all that—a brand anthem with a tight, well-messaged story, and maybe even a tagline to go with it. Say you’re developing that brand anthem with your website. Maybe you’ve started to write some blog posts that break it down for everyone. 

Great. 

If you’re there, or getting close to that state, you’re well on your way to building out the thoughtful brand book I mentioned earlier. 

If polishing up your brand anthem is step one of the process, then writing, publishing, and promoting the book is step two. 

I mention blog posts as part of step one because, for many brands, they’re an incredibly helpful content strategy… and at the same time, a helpful, preemptive, book writing hack. 

But here’s a better one. 

I mean it… but not literally. 

If you walk away thinking you can convince some ghostwriter that they’re really cranking out Mark Cuban or Elon Musk’s next business book (and for a hefty fee when the draft is done), please think again.  

I’m talking about writing your book with other people’s input, and with a content strategy that lends itself toward developing a thoughtful, in-depth book over the course of a year, even while you’re pressing out monthly, brand anthem-grade content. 

It’s no one size fits all… but it is a strategy worth considering. 

Typically, it won’t be just you writing the book; it’s a process that will involve the partners and leadership of your firm. So give yourself plenty of time. 

Start out by carving out twelve months (not five, not three) and making a calendar of topic questions. By topics, I mean every content angle, area, or conclusion you’d like your book to cover.  

A twelve month content strategy calendar is necessary because the next step is involving the key brain power behind your brand… although if that brain power involves thirty or more people, you may not get to all of them.  

Once you’ve got the brain power lined up, ask the tough question—who’s going to spearhead this? Will your book have one, or two, or even three authors? Assuming those potential authors have other full-time responsibilities, families, and a generally busy life (and assuming you’ve got one partner willing to step out with you and take the lead), how are you going to get them to dump out all that knowledge and experience they have?

How about one drip at a time, through conversation? 

Generating enough content over twelve months that can be turned into a book is not easy. But one way you can get your partners to commit to is by planning time for you and them to sit, hit the record button, and talk about the things that need to go into the book. 

That calendar, and those conversations give you plenty of material to work with, both for your book and for the monthly social media, audio, or even visual content that you want to be dripping out.   

And that’s what I mean when I say trick your leadership into writing a book. 

I’ve found that this works for one key reason—those people who are knowledgeable, experienced, and interested in being authors of a book are usually verbal. 

Think about it. 

They’re used to talking to clients all day. They’re used to having to sell and pitch the business with their mouths, with speech, communication, and facial expression. Getting them in front of a microphone is one of the best ways to get the content out of their heads and eventually into a manuscript page, paper or digital. 

I’ve also found that getting those key people involved in planning that outline pays dividends. For one thing, if your co-authors understand the strategy, you’ll get buy-in right from the beginning. 

Who knows?

By tapping your firm’s brain power as co-authors, you might also be tapping them as podcast hosts for twelve podcasts at the exact same time. One podcast episode a month can follow, and fill out a chapter in the book. 

Or not.

Keep in mind that your conversational writing sessions don’t need to be a podcast. If you’ve got a twelve month, one year content strategy set, then you and your co-author don’t need to pull out some fancy, expensive microphone when topic one rolls around. 

If it takes some pressure off, use your iPhone. Or, and with the high probability that you’re both working remotely, hop on Zoom for an hour. Just say ‘we’ll record it and we’ll see what happens.’ As long as you’re able to get their voices recorded, you’ve got content you can start to utilize—and pull from if you need quotes or soundbites for brand marketing.  

With a twelve month content calendar, and a commitment from co-authors to sit down and record twelve conversations, you can’t go wrong. 

Having built that twelve-month calendar, you might be outlining your book and deciding on its structure at the same time. Simply enough, each month’s topic is a different chapter of your book. 

Chances are, you’ll be building off your brand anthem—unless, of course, everyone at your firm just happens to have a Ph.D. in the same, unrelated subject and wants to write about it. But more likely, you’ll be drawing closely from your brand anthem with whatever topic you tackle. 

With that in mind, you can generate an outline from your brand anthem and pencil them in quite easily. If you just did a chapter on your hero, well, next up is your hero’s problem. If you just did a chapter on the guide, then move on to your unique solution and how that unlocks a new level for the hero. Next up? The outcome…

And so on.   

Or mix things up a bit. 

However you slice it, twelve months should give you twelve themes for you and your partners to talk about… and twelve fresh podcasts, (or if you’d rather not publish them as podcasts, interviews…) Or twelve wells of thoughtful, quotable content, perfect for blog articles, email newsletters, social media, or mini-marketing concepts. All for each month of the calendar year. 

How’s that for a book writing hack? 

I want to peek behind the curtain of your future here. 

Assume you’ve sharpened up your brand anthem. 

Imagine that you’ve interviewed twelve knowledgeable people, (or even, three co-authors four times each). 

Take one more leap and imagine you’ve published it. 

Why have you published it?

Believe it or not, and unless you’re extremely lucky or super well-connected in the New York City publishing world, you didn’t necessarily publish the book to sell millions of copies… enough for an advance on the next book and a ranch in Montana.

In fact, you probably didn’t even publish it to sell thousands.   

Bear with me: you published your book to establish your firm, build your credibility, and show people why you’re unique beyond any shadow of a doubt. If you think about it, those co-authors you brought on board are probably among the foremost leaders of the unique way you approach and do business. By mining their experience and expertise, and by writing it up and publishing it in a book, you’ve distilled their unique view, their philosophy, and their way of serving clients into a satisfying, readable product. 

That speaks volumes about your firm, and even reminds people that your firm truly is remarkable. 

I’m not saying that the book isn’t a product in and of itself (of course it is, even if you’ve given away much of the content for free in monthly blog posts or podcasts)… but it’s not the overarching fruit of your intention. 

Of course there are strategies to recoup the cost of writing, editing, publishing, and promoting it… but think of those benefits as incidental to the real value: establishing deep credibility for your brand.

In a way, it really does. 

The effort, time, planning, knowledge, and elbow grease that goes into a published, thought-leading product often speaks for itself. Hand someone a book and you’re a lot more likely to get invited on their podcast, or to give a lecture at a conference coming up…or win the contract with a new, big client.

That’s because a brand book shows people your unique, remarkable process, and what it looks like crossing the finish line. 

Now THAT’s a business card. 

What a way to tell, and show, and, insofar as you get some readers, continue telling them about your unique process, your unique solution to the hero’s problem, and your one-of-a-kind position in the marketplace. 

Going around and saying you have a unique position unfortunately, means nothing. 

But having written and published a book about it usually means you’ve lived it. It means you know that position from every angle, and furthermore than you’ve owned it through experience. 

All this to say, a book isn’t the only way of telling people that you’re remarkable. 

I’ll probably talk more about publishing in another article, but a book lends itself to a number of mediums. As part of the publishing process, there’s plenty of room to branch into an audio version, an e-reader or digital copy people can share or download… or like I mentioned earlier, a sign leading back to those twelve months of blogs or podcasts. 

Adding a book to twelve months of existing content is in many ways, a force multiplier. 

You’ve come to the right place. 

Having planned and written a book on B2B branding with some pretty amazing people, I can tell you all about the ins and outs of gathering audio content, getting it into words, and organizing those words into a publishable, potent, brand anthem product. 

It’s no cakewalk, but I believe it’s worth it.

If you think planning a book would be a worthwhile part of your brand’s content strategy, and if you’d like some help or consultation with that, the Resound team stands ready. Give us a shout.

You can even check out my book ‘You are Remarkable’ on Amazon to get a sense of what I’m all about, and why I love helping brands and companies share their story with the world. 

So dream big. 

And don’t forget that you are remarkable. 

“Do you have videos? Videos are the best! Oh you’ve got to have videos,” … said every SEO and marketing guy ever. 

For the most part, and in a world that’s increasingly defined by phone screens, video uploads, and short, watchable content, I’m on board with that.

Of course, I’m not talking about tapping your inner Hollywood director and going wildly off color—if you’re a highly-ranked law firm with a long standing reputation, would you really run a cheesy, late night T.V. commercial?

Or if you’re a no-nonsense wholesale store, do you really want to post Tik Tok videos with customers getting their twerk on?  Maybe you do… but I digress. 

Having made the case that every brand should be telling its remarkable story in the form of a potent brand anthem, I will say that video, more than any other mass media or medium, captures that anthem in a shareable, authentic way.

More to the point, and remembering that your remarkable brand identity boils down to you, video far surpasses written copy, visuals, or even audio as a way to show your authentic self. Provided it’s done well, and built on the truth of your brand story. 

Keep reading and I’ll gladly tell you why. 

https://youtu.be/qtfnej5C4pQ

Why are videos so effective? A short answer is that they tap into two of the most important senses people have—hearing and sight—at the exact same time. When it’s done correctly, (and you don’t need $30,000 cameras to do that), video weaves sight and sound together in a seamless, memorable way.  

That being said, I will say that at least half of a video’s effectiveness is actually the sound. Being able to hear someone speak without interference, or choosing the right music track to go behind the visuals might be just as important as what people see when they watch your video. Recording garbage audio usually makes for a terrible video, even if you’ve got A-list actors, perfect lighting, and so on. 

Of course the visuals are important—I’m not talking about radio shows or podcasts. Video is, of course, visually moving, unlike still graphics and illustration. As such, the visual, even in the old time, black and white motion picture sense, is stirring.

If we think of brand video as a trifecta that brings our senses together, its elements would be visual, audio, …and the story expressed through both of those things. 

You might have a great video. Killer sound, a visually compelling subject that captures the eyes with style and color… but if you’re completely missing the final element of storytelling, you probably won’t be holding anyone’s attention spans.

On that note, they’re increasingly short and getting shorter by the day. 

More than written content, visuals, or even audio in isolation, a video with a story packages all those elements together in a way that quickly gets someone’s attention and then keeps it long enough for you to show your brand anthem. 

I talked more about this in previous articles, but here’s a recap. In your own brand story, you’re not the hero. Rather, your customer or client is the hero, and you’re the guide, the one making the difference that enables the hero to achieve their goal and make the world a better place.

When you set to making that Oscar-worthy brand video, remember this template: hero, (your client), guide (your brand), the hero’s problem, and solution.

The solution, the thing that solves the hero’s problem and enables them to cross the finish line, is what you offer: your benefits, what you deliver, and what makes it unique and suited to the hero.

On a deeper level, it’s also the benefits you (through the hero) deliver to others at the end of the story. What’s the difference that you, as a guide, make in your hero’s world? In the broader world for your customers and your clients? Framing your video’s message and any marketing content within a story makes things crystal clear for anyone watching. 

Authentic identity should shine through every brand video. Authenticity engages people and resonates in a way that much of the video content being uploaded every day does not.

Rather than straight information, how-to videos (‘three easy steps to fix your clogged sink,’ anyone?) or the coming tons of AI generated video b-roll that will no doubt be dumped on the internet on every conceivable topic in the coming years, brand videos that bank on story, and show real, authentic people will be the ones that stand out. 

Think of the last time you broke through the automated customer service hotline to a human voice. Brand videos that tell a relatable story with authentic people in a memorable way, can activate trust. And in getting your brand or message to stick in people’s minds after they’re done viewing, trust is no small thing. 

Usually, our strongest memories are the ones that stirred our emotions in an unforgettable way. In fact, I’d put it this way: our memories are embedded by emotions. I talked about how video captures the two most important senses: sight and hearing.

I mentioned brand story as a way to communicate effectively and bring an authentic level of trust. But most importantly, and even on top of all these important qualities, video captures the memory of the viewer by evoking emotion. 

When you call someone, you hear their thoughts and single reactions in real time through tone and inflection—and you don’t get those things in a text message. In a video call, you get both of those things, and you also get the added subtleties of facial movement.

It’s in our communication wiring to trust the responses of people we can see and hear; we’re less in the dark about who they are, how they communicate and what they are, or are not saying.   

Remember, our memories are embedded in emotions. This means videos are memorable because they evoke emotion. Where written content or even audio just tells you, they show. Why do short, random videos, like videos of cats doing ridiculous things, dominate our break time? Distract us from work? Because they stir our emotions.

If a video is funny, sad, thrilling, or awe-inspiring, that comes with a powerful emotional draw that makes the story, visuals, audio, and whatever content all the more memorable in our eyes, ears and mind.

Our emotions are deep-seated, and even if someone’s only got a few seconds of video playing time to capture them, they can do it through repetition, through showing us the same kind of funny, touching, or thrilling content more than once, in a way that links to our senses, emotions, and memory.

For the record, I don’t recommend that brand videos go for negative emotions… even if a negative emotion (like the dread, disgust, or surprise evoked by a good horror flick) tends to stick. 

But touching on memory through emotionally engaging videos, and doing that in a way that makes your video seen again and again is a way to make your brand anthem stick. In most cases, someone’s not going to pick up the phone or fill in a lead gen form the first time they see your video.

But if your brand video tells a story, shows the authentic you, and stirs emotions in a small but decisive way… the more someone sees it, the more familiar they’ll become with your remarkable brand.  

In short, through compelling brand videos, someone will get to know you and your brand in an intimate, relatable way long before they interact with you… assuming of course, that your videos and brand story are all showing your authentic self.

Lest we forget, and like I usually say in every discussion, you’ve got to know your authentic self before you can communicate to the world. 

Watch out for distractions. By ‘distractions’ I don’t mean rounds of minesweeper. I mean anything that can get in the way of your brand anthem, the emotions you want to evoke, and your viewer.

A word of warning—if you’re putting together your own brand video, you (and in the end, the viewers you want to reach) are up against a world of distractions. What I mean is that writing, location scouting, shooting, editing, and publishing each come with their own set of hurdles…and in the final analysis, every little detail matters. 

If you’re doing everything yourself, and assuming you’re clearing each hurdle on your way to the finish line… you’re probably going to get caught up in all the details of what you did.

If you’ve seen an amateur video, you can tell immediately that something’s lacking. Whether it’s bad video, wrong music choice, terrible acting, bad editing, or extra black space at the end… those distractions stick out like a sore thumb, and the emotional connection that will embed that video in your memory is distorted at best, or outright broken. 

It’s a lot of work to craft videos, and edit out any missteps or distractions. That’s probably a good pitch for all the professional brand filmers and videographers out there.

Of course, anyone making videos for their brand can learn and practice those elements piecemeal, but with the time and attention that takes, many brands hire outside pros for shooting, editing, or even brainstorming and fleshing out their brand story in a visual way. 

If your goal is to be authentic, and to produce a video without all the potential distractions and small stumbling blocks… then you’re probably going to want to invest in somebody who knows what they’re doing with a camera, with a microphone, and with editing software. Unless you’re going for some dancing interns in grainy footage that won’t really matter on Tik Tok.

Whatever you choose to do, it’s worth asking what is the point of this video that we’re about to produce? Is this just a quick hit for social media fodder? Is it a piece of your brand story really quick with a human element? Or is it an event or a human interest project highlighting the staff, an update, or the release of something new?

Or are we talking about a longer, informational recruitment or training video, something that’s essential for people on your team but also meaningful, authentic, and memorable?

Take your time to brainstorm. Outline. Write the ideas out in a treatment, a creative brief, or even a short script. Then give yourself the advantage of finding the talent you need to produce and finish it. 

Brand story, brand identity, brand expression—brand video ties so many elements together it’s incredible. Done well, and cleared of distractions for a memorable final cut, brand videos amplify your brand in an unforgettable way.

They’re much more than putting a set of values together on your homepage, or slapping an amazing new logo or tagline on everything. Videos are powerful because when they come together, they’re authentically you. 

Authenticity, and showing who you really are, (don’t get me started on cheesy stock video clips instead of actual footage of your team) is critical to building relationships with everyone around you. If you’re able to show people who you are, it’s almost like they’re meeting you before they ever talk to you. If people can see and hear it, and if it taps their memory by stirring emotion, then they know inherently.

They feel it. And if they don’t feel it, or if a rushed brand video throws the whole experience off with terrible audio…then it’s just another distraction. One of the billion and half videos out there right now.

When you make your brand video—do it right from start to finish. Be aware of what you’re saying, the emotions you’re evoking, and the story you’re telling. That’s the way to cut through to people. 

For brand builders with video ideas, and an honest sense of what they need with scripting, shooting, editing, and publishing, I’m all ears. From dairy co-ops to tech companies and on to nonprofits, the Resound team has shot, edited, and shaped award-winning brand videos that help remarkable brands tell their authentic story. Here’s a few we’ve produced recently: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44RVYTAzn0Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw9xpRgcELE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wu4J2M2U5c

If you’d like to see your brand anthem in a killer brand video, give us a call—or check out the articles, videos and podcast on our website. You can also check out my book ‘You are Remarkable’ on Amazon. Until next time, don’t forget that you are remarkable. 

When you think of the American National Anthem, what comes to mind? Is it the melody? Or the first lines that many of us sang in grade school, or before a baseball game with thousands of people? 

‘Oh say, can you seeee…by the dawn’s early light.’ 

If you’re more pedantic, you might think of more lyrics and the imagery of the ‘bombs bursting in air.’ Or if you’re into history (like I am), you might think of the context—author Francis Scott Key, who watched the all-night bombardment of Fort McHenry from a British vessel in the Chesapeake Bay, and then scribbling down the words when the Fort’s flag was still flying in the morning.  

All those things touch on the anthem in meaningful ways. 

But if you think about it, a country’s anthem is really more than the words, the melody, the history, or even our own memories of it. All of those things spring from it, but stripped to its core identity, a country’s anthem is a collective story—a lyrical one to be sure. It’s a story that embodies national history, values and aspirations, but also, and more powerfully, the feelings, ideas, and associations people have, and share about their country. Pride, camaraderie, historical events collectively remembered, honor for those who sacrificed for their country—everything’s wrapped up in that story and what it means to people. 

You’ve probably heard another country’s national anthem…but unless you’ve lived or spent some time in that country, hearing it probably didn’t prompt all of the thoughts and feelings that come with hearing your own national anthem. 

There’s nothing wrong with that. 

The point is that people are wired with deep, personal loyalties, and those loyalties are tied to stories. Just like someone who appreciates a national anthem, a good brand builder does well to understand that. 

https://youtu.be/7xW8aeSrQCw

I know what you’re thinking…great topic for the Fourth of July. 

Fair enough. 

But when it comes to thinking about your brand’s story, how you tell it, and how that telling of it makes people think and feel, thinking in terms of a national anthem makes sense. 

With that in mind, your brand’s ‘anthem’ is more than good content, great marketing, or obviously, an incredible product or service that keeps people coming back. Rather, it’s your unique, remarkable story, and telling it in a way that unifies all those things with personality, emotion, and authenticity that people relate to. 

I’ll talk more about this later, but I will say that one of the best ways to express and share your brand anthem is through video. As far as putting your brand anthem out in the world both visually and audibly, it seems to be a natural way to do that. Obviously, you can do that in other parts of your brand, your website, your collateral, and the way that you talk to clients, but the video side is an optimal way to capture and communicate it. 

Of course, there’s a temptation to cram everything—every service or product you offer—into your brand’s communication. But more than likely, that will come across as confusing or overwhelming to your audience. If you find yourself cramming everything in, take a step back, because you shouldn’t be. 

A solid brand anthem video dodges that problem while communicating something evocative—starting with your brand’s story. 

As I’ve said and written about before, your brand story is the foundation, the starting point for everything you’ll communicate through marketing, visuals, and a cohesive brand expression. Along with your brand’s purpose, history, and mission—your brand’s story is no small ingredient in your brand’s anthem. 

There’s any number of storytelling formulas. For more digging, I’d recommend reading up on Joseph Campbell’s (no relation to Campbell’s soup) template called the Hero’s Journey. Campbell based his template on what he found after looking through thousands of stories spanning ancient history to the present. 

The Hero’s Journey breaks down into twelve steps that many novelists and screenwriters swear by. But for those looking to build a brand anthem, we can translate a few aspects of traditional story to the business environment. 

Two characters: the hero and the guide. 

The first element in every brand anthem should be two characters—the hero of the story, and that hero’s trusty guide. If we think of the very first Star Wars movie as a classic template, it kicks off the journey with these two characters: Luke Skywalker, the hero, and his guide, Obi-Wan Kenobe.

While Luke eventually meets his second guide in Yoda, we can safely say he wouldn’t have made it off his home planet and successfully rescued Princess Leia without that first guide. 

Every hero needs a guide, and that’s where your brand comes in. 

You’re the guide to your customer, who is always the hero.

The hero has a problem. 

What’s really interesting about heroes in stories is that they have a problem. 

When we think of Luke in the first Star Wars movie, one of his main problems is that he has this power called the force. When Obi-Wan introduces him to it, Luke is bewildered. With a little training, he sets off on his journey, but he still hasn’t mastered it… that doesn’t happen until he’s done more training with Yoda, and then tested himself by facing Darth Vader two movies later. 

The guide offers a solution 

So both Obi-Wan and Yoda play huge roles in shaping Luke, mentoring him, and passing on their knowledge of the force. With their guidance, Luke masters the force, a power he had from the beginning, and even before he was aware of it, but could not have possibly mastered on his own.  

Along the way, and with both guides helping him, Luke becomes the Jedi Knight he was meant to be. 

However you look at it, it’s an engaging story. And there’s a lot more brands can learn from Star Wars, or a few elements of the Hero’s Journey when they start telling their stories, and then using those stories to craft their brand anthem. 

One last thing about Star Wars and why it resonates—Luke doesn’t just become a master of the force. He becomes the savior of the galaxy. He overcomes Darth Vader, the evil emperor, and leads the rebellion in a war of liberation. 

It’s ultimately satisfying because by overcoming his problem, Luke empowers those around him. He makes the galaxy (or at least, his corner of it), a much better place. 

So, all the way back to brands. Brands need to tell stories with a hero and a guide. But the big challenge I see is that a lot of organizations confuse who the hero is in their story. They often think, well, the hero is the focus of the story, so, therefore, that should be us. Our brand should be the hero. But remember, the hero is the one with the problem; the hero is stuck in some way, shape, or form, and the guide is the one with the solution. 

If your story is about how your organization is stuck and how you can’t overcome the problem that you’re trying to solve… that’s not a compelling story to anyone else. That might be a story that’s important to you, but that’s not your marketing story—and while solving your problems and fulfilling your brand’s purpose might be a great story that’s worth remembering, it’s not the basis of your outward facing brand anthem. 

Rather, your brand anthem should be the story of how you, as a guide, help your clients overcome their problems and realize some new state of being. That could be growth in their business, a promotion, a hassle-free cooking experience—whatever they’re defining as success.

It’s hard, but worth it to figure these elements out. Thinking, and building your communication in terms of hero (your client), guide (you), the hero’s problem, and solution means understanding what your audience will see about themselves, their concerns and problems, and how you can help them achieve a new state of being when they encounter your brand story. 

Having worked through your brand story, and from the point of view of your client or customer as the hero… you’re in much better shape to start telling it to people. 

Does the story you’re telling paint the picture of how you help heroes overcome their problem and realize a new state of being, and make their corner of the world a better place? If so, you’re on the right track—and that’s the story you’re going to tell through your brand anthem.

How does telling your brand story play out in terms of content, marketing, and internal communication? 

Here’s a few ways: 

A specific hero 

You can’t be all things to all people. Even if your brand offers multiple services or sells products in different industries, your brand story can’t be about how you grew to offer all those services…remember, you’re the guide, not the hero. Over time, most companies specialize, offering sophisticated products or services to a specific demographic… and even if that’s not where your business is headed at the moment, you can apply that principle to your brand story. 

Through customer personas, or your own research and client feedback, narrow that story down. 

As the trusted guide, who are you helping, and how, specifically? What’s unique and remarkable about how you help this hero on their journey or mission? What will be better and different about their world as a result?

Brand taglines

Take your story and shorten it to an elevator pitch. 

What do you offer, what’s unique, or different about it, and most importantly—who is it for? Who do you help and why? 

Don’t forget the elements—hero, guide, problem, solution. If you’re a financial lender, maybe those elements go something like, we empower entrepreneurs for long-term success by loaning them the working capital they need to break ground. 

If you can get your tagline as short and memorable as Nike’s mantra… ‘Just Do It,’ even better. 

For the record, ‘Just Do It’ applies broadly to Nike’s whole team and organization, but it’s foremost an exhortation to every customer. If you can frame your tagline with the point of view of the hero and their journey, that’s even better. 

A memorable mission statement 

Similar to the tagline, a mission statement is a short, sweet sentence with active (not passive) verbs. A memorable one captures the mission and even touches on how an organization empowers the hero or seeks to usher in a better world… but it’s mostly for the troops. 

Crafting a mission statement that tells your story, and one that everyone in your organization can know, relate to, and apply to what they do and how they interact with others, is one way of crafting a cogent, compelling internal-facing brand anthem. 

Think of it as one of the most memorable lines of the anthem. 

I could spend more time on the do’s and don’ts of company mission statements, but they’re worth mentioning as a way to buttress your brand anthem with a brief, rallying statement that embodies your purpose and story for everyone onboard. 

Here’s a few that leave an impression: 

Linkedin: ‘To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.’

Tesla: ‘To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.’ 

Ever seen a TED talk? 

The TED organization has their mission statement down to two words: ‘Spread ideas.’ 

Marketing content for a website and collateral 

A brand anthem that’s narrowed down to the constraints of your business, and built on a truthful brand story should capture everything in a concrete, creative way. 

Working from the story in mind, and the elements of hero, guide, problem, and solution, a brand anthem can be built outward into compelling, catching copy for your website, printed marketing materials, and social media accounts. 

When it comes to offering more specific expertise, promotion, or products and services on your website, unifying everything under a brand anthem makes your story clear to anyone who sees it. More than that, it reflects collaboration and thoughtfulness while speaking to the client (hero) on their terms, about their journey and the solution they’re looking for.   

Content for a great brand anthem video 

As I mentioned earlier, a brand anthem takes your purpose, your story, and the flair and associations people will make with your brand, and packs that into a killer visual format that people can share.

Along with short videos or clever commercials, you can elaborate on your brand anthem through a regular podcast, or through multiple episodes that break your brand story down—one about the hero, one about the guide, another about the problem, and so forth. 

There’s plenty of ones to generate content from a brand anthem, and then drip that content out through videos, articles, podcast episodes, or even a book. 

However you do it, remember that your brand anthem will be more compelling if you talk to your audience about them—not just about yourself and what you offer. By considering their problems, their challenges, and what they need to grow, flourish, and become who they want to be, you’re setting up your brand as the trusted guide the hero needs.

One really interesting part of the brand anthem process is that it forces you to figure out who the hero of your story is. It can’t just be the whole world, everyone,  or humanity in general. 

With any luck, and while you won’t be for everyone, your brand anthem will show people the exact guide you are—and that you’re intrinsically remarkable. 

Every firm has an intrinsic remarkability to it. 

I know I use that word a lot, but it’s the truth. There’s remarkable, and one-of-a-kind traits that come together in every brand or organization, and it might take a lot of digging to discover them. 

But once you’ve unlocked the process and found your authentic brand identity, building a brand anthem that condenses these elements in a creative, compelling way is quite the journey.

If that’s a journey you’re on, and if you’d like a guide whose purpose is helping B2B’s unlock their authentic identity, then you’ve come to the right place. 

Browse some of the articles, videos, or podcast episodes on the website, check out my book ‘You are Remarkable’ on Amazon…or give the Resound team a call. 

And remember, you are remarkable. 

More than ever, everyone works, meets, and shops online. 

It’s no surprise that companies which previously insisted on a brick and mortar location for their workers are now almost completely remote. 

But regardless of that steadily encroaching fact, your brand’s geographic, physical location still matters. In fact, and for a few primary reasons, I’m going to spend this month’s article arguing that it matters even more than you think.

The main reason why location matters—and a kind of catch-all summary for more reasons—is that we’re physical beings…obviously. We exist in physical locations. Even with the likes of e-commerce, virtual reality, and opportunities to work online embedding themselves into the fabric of daily life, geographic locations and all their sensory, historical-cultural, and experiential particulars still pique and intrigue us—or in some cases, repel us. You don’t need to look very far to find examples of this, (unless you’ve been dutifully under a rock this last month.) If you think physical locations and all their colorful baggage don’t matter, look no further than people and companies moving from coastal states to other states in record numbers. Or just look at all the hype and controversies that surrounded Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. 

As the old realtor’s adage goes, there’s no beating—or at least, no factoring out—location, location, location. 

Fair enough. 

But what does all this have to do with brand building? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ1H7SugaeY

Here’s a brain-teaser. 

Each of these brands and companies drew closely from a physical location for their name and brand identity. Can you guess that founding location for…

And, last but not least: 

There you go. I’ll include the answers at the bottom of this article…scroll ahead if you can’t wait to see them. 

As you can probably tell, I really enjoy this topic. 

In fact, I wrote and published a previous article on location branding, how important it is, and how B2B’s can incorporate their location into the winsome mix of an authentic brand identity. Here, I’m keeping this topic up-to-date with a more horizontal focus on location, and its role in your organization’s day-to-day, operational landscape. 

Even if your workforce is all remote–or if you’re like most companies in that you’re still trying to figure out this work-from-home, shop-from-home, some people back in the office hybrid thing out–your location matters.

Even if you’re an e-commerce business that sells to customers who don’t interact with you, and who simply buy your product without ever coming into any kind of physical, real-world environment.

Nevertheless, depending on your brand strategy and perhaps to a lesser degree than other circumstances, location is still important. 

With that in mind, the question I’ll be focusing on is how. 

How does location matter to a brand or company? 

In what ways and to what extent? 

As it usually turns out, the branding’s in the details. 

Historically, and before it became hard to find a company’s physical address on their website, physical location embodied a large part of a brand’s identity. More than that, claim to a particular location often, and still, shapes a brand’s strategy and expression, playing on how people around the world perceive that location. While that claim takes many different forms and shapes a brand in countless ways, a lot depends on branding efforts that might or might not be taking location into account. 

Because locations are intriguing and evocative, many brands go with loud, on-the-nose ties to a certain location as an optical effort to market themselves. 

Nothing wrong with that.

From Arizona Iced Tea (made by a company in upstate New York) to Texas Roadhouse restaurants (owned by a company in Kentucky), there’s a huge number of brands and products that claim a location as their name without having existed there. Texas, Hawaii, Florida, Japan, London—any iconic location that captures people’s imaginations in certain ways finds itself in a product name…and for good reason. 

In terms of pure brand naming—and by the way, even the word ‘branding’ comes from location, from the act of branding cows with a symbol to tell them apart from one ranch or another— certain locations punch above their weight. 

If a hot sauce company puts ‘Texas’ or ‘Louisiana’ in their name, that conjures up a world of sensory, and in this case, culinary associations in people’s minds. In effect, that hot sauce company might be saying: ‘we’re a flavory, cajun kind of sauce,’ (Louisiana) or rather, ‘think of us like you’d think of a mouth-watering Texas brisket, served up in a roadhouse with sawdust on the floor’ … and so on.

We might roll our eyes, but chances are we’ll get the idea.

To some extent, that’s also why we might drive a ‘Tucson,’ a ‘Sienna,’ or a ‘Sedona’ …but probably not an ‘East St. Louis.’ Invoking a desirable location gives a flair and a cadence to products that we otherwise wouldn’t think about.

To that end, and whether or not it’s always based in fact, location is a guiding force for marketing strategy, conversations, and brand expressions that resonate with people. It’s not for nothing that companies who may or may not be from Florida ask questions like:

“Is our company a Florida brand? Do we have a laid-back, sunny-tropical day kind of vibe? Or are we more of a rugged, Rocky Mountain kind of brand?” 

In terms of value, aesthetics, norms, and associations that people quickly recognize, location means a lot. If a location syncs with a brand’s values, identity, and authentic expression, that meaning will carry over and we’ll see it—regardless of where we’re working, shopping, or browsing. 

This also raises the question of whether or not location is a simple way to tack-on an association that bears no relationship to the actual product. 

It certainly could be. 

If your brand is adopting the style and swagger of a place it has nothing in common with, then you should probably rethink that approach. In the end, people don’t respect copycat brands, or anchorless, superficial brands that try to be everything to everyone. With few exceptions, tacking on a location just to move more product is a losing, short-term strategy that doesn’t build a loyal audience over time. 

One way to avoid this pothole is owning the place that birthed, or influenced your brand’s history and values in indelible ways. 

Of course, many companies wear their original locations like a badge.

More than that, they take that location’s associations and let them define the company’s brand identity, brand expression, and growth and marketing strategy. Where everyone else is pressing for a digital, or international flair, sticking with one’s hometown is a bold choice, but not a surprising one. 

There’s pros and cons to doubling-down on where you came from. Companies like Chrysler have even tried it with Detroit—a bold, calculated move because most people don’t find Detroit exotic, evocative, or even positive as a location.  

But in a world where it’s harder to pin a brand down to a particular location, drawing from geographic roots to develop one’s brand identity has clear upsides. Of course, people want the option of working from home, or from anywhere in the world, but that leaves us craving a sense of sensory physicality that zoom meetings and even virtual reality increasingly lack. 

Rather than simply being a way to imbue meaning into a product, location, and even local culture, both matter to brands and their customers. 

After all, brands are made of people…and people have to live somewhere.  

If you’ve gone fully remote, or if your workers and customers interact online from different corners of the planet, places still vibrate with meaning, flavor, and identity.

That’s because, while workers and management, or customers and vendors, may not be ‘located’ together, in a sense, everyone’s in ‘locations’ together. Think of your last few work-related zoom calls. If I had to put money on it, I’d bet that you, or someone you spoke to on zoom asked something like “Hey, how’s the weather where you are?” 

Or at the very least, (and if they didn’t already know), someone said, “So where are you calling from?” 

Even if we’re gathering online from different places, geographic location still piques our curiosity. Places are a common point of connection in the online workplace. For online companies who want their workforces, team members, and ultimately their brand to thrive, recognizing, sharing, and celebrating locations is a smart move. 

And even though the remote workforce presents considerable challenges, there’s ways that brands and companies can turn everyone’s location to their advantage. 

One of our values at Resound is local culture. 

Even though our workforce meets online every day, and even though our roots are in Tempe, Arizona, aren’t always visible publicly, tying local culture to our mast means wanting all of our team members to flourish in their own local communities. 

In the work-from-home era, and with an office in Tempe and remote workers around the world, we’re still learning how to do that. 

In conversation, and in monthly meetings, we talk with team members about what’s going on in their neck of the woods. We celebrate when they celebrate, and in the other direction, we tell them all about what’s happening where we are. As an added boost, and as something we proudly incorporate without a front-facing name like ‘Arizona Iced Tea,’ we’re deeply connected to our location. 

Many of our clients and colleagues are also in Phoenix. In more than one case, they’re right down the street, or in the same building as our office. 

Caring about communities and taking an interest in them comes from our willingness to celebrate our own location, to fly our hometown flag wherever we can. Just like we want Tempe, Phoenix, and the state of Arizona to flourish, we want our team member’s communities in Idaho, Ohio, Kentucky, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere to flourish. 

Finally, and in a time when people working and shopping remotely are craving physical, in-person experiences like never before, location can be a tactical advantage. Whether it’s front and center in a brand name, or present in undertones and accents (like a ‘Texas drawl’) physical locations come through in a number of ways, letting people connect the dots as they form their impression of a brand’s history and personality. 

Done well, and with a clear approach that reflects a company’s identity, location helps people experience brands in a particular, potent way. 

People who experienced formative challenges in a particular place and time, (say, raising a family, playing on a football team, or studying together to survive a particular medical school), bonded from those in-person experiences. They bonded because physical interaction with touch, smell and other physical people builds memories in a way the digital world can’t…and probably never will.  

Sorry, Metaverse. 

Nothing personal. 

To a lesser degree, walking into a store or an office is still inherently different and much more memorable than buying something online. In a zoom chat, nobody shakes hands. Physical location brings in elements (like more of the five senses) that are hard to incorporate in an all digital experience. 

In fact—and even if you’re not launching your own flashy copy of the Apple store or the Rainforest Cafe—there’s a huge opportunity to flip the ‘all digital experience’ on its head by offering some kind of real-world experience for your customers. 

A remarkable one that only you can offer. 

Even if you don’t have an office or a physical headquarters, can your brand create some kind of pop-up or temporarily real experience that has a sense of location to it? If so, that might be a way to offer something people are increasingly craving: physical locations and experiences that offer variety, entertainment, and in-person interaction. 

All in a specific place and time. 

I’m all for working and doing business online. But I could talk about location (yours, mine, or the site of future World Cups to name a few) all day. 

People, more than ever, crave physical experiences, even as everything goes digital. This means location still matters, and that brands need to think carefully about their ties to geography, their physical presence, and what those things communicate about them to their customers. Owning, recognizing, and embracing location (whether it’s a real-historic one or one you’ve adopted) in authentic, purposeful ways helps your brand resonate with physical, location-based people. 

And that’s a good thing because your brand is remarkable. 

If you need some help working through your remarkable identity, building it into a strategy, or shaping it into a thoughtful, confident brand expression that will grow your customer base, check out the resources on our website or give the Resound team a call. 

And we’ve got plenty of wind for your sails in our B2B branding book: “You are Remarkable”, available on Amazon.

Wherever you are… and wherever you’d like to be, we’d love to hear from you. 

Happy branding. 

Get your red pens ready. 

And finally,

Here’s a riddle…although if you’ve been reading or listening recently, it’s more of a review question. 

What do slick, wildly successful brands like Salesforce, Nike, and Apple have in common with England’s historic royal families? Aside from hype, hefty name recognition, sky-high valuations that might compare to the Windsor family’s personal fortune, what’s the common thread? 

Give up? 

From a brand-builder’s perspective, there’s a right answer—they’re all distinguished, organizational, or ‘household’ brands that stamp their values, history, and reputation on every product. 

Or in the case of the Windsors, every family member. 

When we think about branding for individual products versus branding for organizations, household brands present one kind of overlap. 

Usually, it’s the good kind. 

Whether they’re putting out a new pair of basketball shoes, a line of kids’ athletic shorts, or an app that can track your biometrics while you work out, all of Nike’s products are clearly Nike. Though varied, built for different purposes, and even aimed at different audiences, each product reflects Nike’s core values. Those shoes, sorts, and app all exude its mantra of just do it, and carry that same reputation for stylish, athletic excellence. Each has the swoosh logo in a place where you can see it. 

In other words, that strong, overarching brand carries a lot of weight and communicates a distinct identity. But while they all get a lift from that household brand, all of those individual products need to maintain trust and consistency.  

Of course, Nike, Apple, and even Disney are not indestructible. 

If a company with a high-flying reputation puts out one bad product, and then another…soon enough the entire brand will suffer.

https://youtu.be/k2T7EFVG5g0

Last month, I talked all about product branding, and how making really amazing products (or, if you’re a business to business company, offering really amazing services) is a prerequisite, but not enough. Without a cohesive brand expression, marketing, and a strategy for gaining the trust and attention of those who might need that product, or service, chances are few people will know about it. 

To that end, thoughtful product branding strategy hinges on the audience. 

Knowing who your audience is and what relationship you’re building with them by way of your service is the starting point—and for many successful companies (Jeep, for one, comes to mind), it’s one way to build a widely recognized organizational brand.

People get to know that overall brand, and in the future, they return to them, because of their relationship with a product or service they really love. The association of the product transfers over to the household brand, and hopefully to more products or services that household brand might offer.

While this makes sense if you’re building outward for a product, or a service, there’s another, and I’d argue, a more advantageous way to approach branding for an organization. 

No, I actually mean that. 

While it might sound somewhat corny or on the nose, please bear with me: 

Rather than starting with the audience (as you might with product branding…or as you’d probably have to if your whole brand is wrapped up in one product), start with yourself. 

I’m not saying your audience, your customers, or the corner of the world that you’ll be interacting with day in, day out is irrelevant. 

Don’t throw everyone else overboard while you go on some pilgrimage to another dimension. 

Instead, do yourself the courtesy of realizing you, your team, and your entire organization is remarkable. From there, start digging…and just like you’d examine your audience, their needs, their history, their location, their purpose, their unique traits, values, likes, and dislikes as if you were marketing a product, examine those things in your own organization. 

Take the time, and possibly take the whole operation through a discovery workshop, and come to a clear understanding of your history, location, purpose, unique traits, values, likes and dislikes…and so forth. 

While audience may be the biggest consideration in product branding, organizational branding starts closer to the famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘To thine own self be true.’ 

True that, Polonius. 

Building a strong, organizational brand that will lend coherence and name recognition to your products while relaying your values and purpose starts with building on your own true identity. While I could (and while I have in previous articles) run through all the pitfalls of building a brand on anything other than one’s truthful, authentic, purpose-driven identity, the short and quick summary is that brands built on truthful identities resonate with people. 

And at the organizational level, overarching brand identities that resonate lend that authenticity and clarity to every product or service that reaches someone. 

Yes, let’s do that. 

After all, product and organization branding for business to business (rather than business to consumer) companies comes with its own particular flavor. Even if principles—like building on a truthful identity, or strong organizational brands giving a lift to that brand’s individual products—carry over, the specifics are worth looking at. 

Assuming you’ve done the hard work of building an authentic brand identity for your organization (with all the soul searching and elbow grease that goes with that), there’s a number of things to know about branding an organization based on services. 

Again, and to circle back to some aspects of product branding, this is where your company’s identity, values, and truthfully crafted brand expression meet and build relationships with an audience. 

In the B2B sector, customers need services for a variety of reasons. 

If you think of an accounting firm, for example, it’s clear that people hire them in different capacities, to different degrees, and for a number of reasons. 

A small business, or even an individual—say, a freelancing graphic designer—might need tax filings come February. So they’ll hire an accounting firm to complete those filings. 

But a larger business, or a family with considerable wealth to manage might hire the same accounting firm that does their taxes to track their day-to-day finances and consult accordingly. 

The conversation might even sound like: ‘Hey, our bookkeeper is just not cutting it. Can you do some bookkeeping for us and fine tune the process?”

And if that same business is growing, merging, or moving across state lines, the question becomes: ‘can you help us with state tax and local tax issues?’ 

And so on.

We begin to see why strong organizational B2B brands (again, Salesforce comes to mind), offer different services, or even bundle services into different packages. When a new situation opens up an opportunity to help someone with other problems…each solution stands ready. And the stamp of the household brand offering that convenient service becomes more trustworthy.  

While each service has its own identity, audience, and purpose, it stands within the larger brand identity—and customers can find them, identify them, and understand what they’re getting because they have some familiarity with the organization brand. 

One that’s built out those services from a clear, truthful identity, but tailored them to reach and help people in different ways. 

Like the old chicken and the egg analogy, it’s hard to think of product branding and organization branding as existing in the abstract. 

Organizations exist to offer services and products to a distinct audience…but those services and products would not exist without the underlying organization and its purpose, values, and identity. 

When the rubber meets the road, organizational brands who know themselves (that is, they present themselves truthfully and their products and services are in sync with that true identity) will present themselves and their services to the right customer in a targeted way. 

If they’re an accounting firm specializing in corporate finance, chances are, they’ll know how the CEO wants to be approached about a solution to tax issues. Or if they’re in the business of helping car dealerships, they’ll know what’s on the mind of the guy managing the lot…and knowing his needs, they’ll approach him with the right solution. 

Brands that offer different solutions will know that those solutions need to feel like they’re part of the same family, like they belong together. 

That brand’s tone, voice, brand expression, and marketing strategy will all cohere under the household’s purpose and values. 

And if they’re successful, people will see it and hear it a mile away. 

Done well and with an eye on both a product’s audience and how that product carries the household brand, a strong organizational brand helps people fit what they see into a larger story. Values, history, and a purpose built on authentic identity all pay dividends when a customer goes: “Yeah, that makes sense. I understand why you guys offer that.” 

One last warning would be keeping an eye on new, flashy services or products that companies hope will take off. The temptation is to spin a new product or service as the latest, greatest thing…but how will that newest thing feed your larger brand and drive it forward? 

If it’s wildly different and confusing for your audience, or if it has all the success of a tissue fire, how will that affect people’s perception of your other products? 

Of your brand as a whole? 

Building and maintaining a solid organizational brand is no small task. And while most companies offer new products or services at some point in their history, that shouldn’t be done in a way that detracts from other services or products the household brand might offer. 

There’s even times when launching a wildly new product means considering a new brand to fit that product…or even rebranding. 

But outside of those cases, new products and services should cohere with everything else, and they should strengthen your brand’s image in your corner of the world. 

Here’s a few concluding thoughts to wrap up product versus organizational branding. 

-It’s important to understand how branding a product differs from branding an entire organization. 

-When a product fits within the organizational brand well and resonates with customers, you can build a strong relationship with them. 

-Trust and a relationship can help you house similar products and services within your organizational brand…but only insofar as they represent your brand well and make good on its promises. 

-While organization branding starts with yourself…always consider your audience—what they need, how they want to be approached, and the relationship they have with you through your services, products, and brand expression. 

That’s all for this month. 

For more resources on discovering your remarkable identity and building a brand that resonates, give the Resound team a shout. Or check out my book ‘You are Remarkable’, available on Amazon.com. 

Until next time, happy branding.