The Brand Shepherd Podcast

Zachary Green's new book, Warrior Entrepreneur, is a book written for the times we live and work in due to the continued challenges and fallout from COVID-19.

Every business is experiencing some kind of challenge due to the pandemic and the responses to it. Warrior Entrepreneur is a book that speaks to the entrepreneurs who are making their way through these challenging times and reminds them (us!) that they (we!) are not alone – that there are myriad lessons to be learned from fellow warriors.

This was a conversation that wasted no time getting into some heavy topics like the seasons of trials - what the book calls Crucibles - entrepreneurs face, what it means to "never give up," and how to wield fear in the favor of the true Warrior Entrepreneur.

Zachary is not an aloof author writing from the sidelines. He's a fellow entrepreneur in the trenches with us and offers us insights and hope from the perspective of the Warrior Entrepreneur.

Innovation! is the rallying cry of brands, businesses, orgs, and causes today. 

One cannot flick through their LinkedIn feed more than a few posts without seeing some kind of content about Innovation. 

At the same time, our culture - especially consumer culture - wants authenticity. 

Yet that which is authentic tends to come from longevity: doing the same thing or making the same thing the same way, reliably, for a long time. 

So there should be tension between innovation and authenticity, right? The classic tension between the old and the new. 

To sort this out, Jon Hirst is our guest on the Brand Shepherd Podcast. 

Jon is the Chief Innovation Officer for SIL International, an org that "works with local communities to develop language solutions that expand possibilities for a better life." 

Did you know that Jon and his team work with 7,000+ languages worldwide and that roughly every 40 days a language dies with the deaths of great-grandparents? So innovation is the tip of the spear for SIL and Jon has the kind of perspective to help us navigate how Innovation and Authenticity work together in a very pragmatic way. 

This episode is packed with practical tasks you can do to implement an innovation strategy for your brand, business, org, or cause so be ready to take plenty of notes. 

Want to be a guest on the Brand Shepherd Podcast? Let's chat.

Below are the notes used for the 2020 Year In Review podcast episode. The best way to understand these points is via the audio podcast which you can listen to through the player above or on your favorite podcast app.

Key Takeaways

Three trends to watch for in 2021:

How 2020 changed Brand Shepherd

Onward. It’s where we go from here.

Attorney Derrick Davis is our guest on this episode of the Brand Shepherd podcast. 

TOPIC: COVID-19 will spur a lot of new entrepreneurs, new businesses. Legal Guidance For Starting A New Brand.

STARTING OUT: navigating legalities of getting started

GROWTH: businesses/brand that is using this time to work ON their brands/businesses

MITIGATE RISK & TROUBLE

HOW TO REACH DERRICK

[email protected] | 865-524-1873

Brand development is an exercise of examining what the brand is and is not, and then codifying the discoveries in a way that the brand owner(s) and stakeholder(s) can easily leverage to grow the brand.

Here are what I know to be the second of the 5 key ingredients for building a brand:

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INGREDIENT 5: The Chef

These 4 ingredients we have covered so far are vital to brand development, but there is a 5th ingredient that needs to be mentioned as well:  A chef (aka, guide, shepherd) to help work through the process of brand development.

That would be us, Brand Shepherd.

Having a chef to guide brand development is obviously important from an expertise level. Brand and business stakeholders use experts for anything, from HVAC service to CPAs to facility maintenance and, yes, brand development.

Yet a guide is also important because having a mind from outside the brand will give the development process the perspective it needs to be successful.

Read the accompanying post to this episode on our website here » 

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Questions & Feedback? Contact Brand Shepherd Today: brandshepherd.com

Brand development is an exercise of examining what the brand is and is not, and then codifying the discoveries in a way that the brand owner(s) and stakeholder(s) can easily leverage to grow the brand.

Here are what I know to be the second of the 5 key ingredients for building a brand:

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EPISODE 4: The Brand "Why?"

Over the last decade, Simon Sinek's "Start with 'Why?'" TEDx talk has created a mandate for brands to know Why they exist and then communicate it to customers at every level. Tall task, right? Well, no. In this episode, we will give the "Why?" question its due respect, but also demystifying it. As always, a simple how-to is also included so you can put this information to work for your brand today.

Read the accompanying post to this episode on our website here » 

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Questions & Feedback? Contact Brand Shepherd Today: brandshepherd.com

Brand development is an exercise of examining what the brand is and is not, and then codifying the discoveries in a way that the brand owner(s) and stakeholder(s) can easily leverage to grow the brand.

Here are what I know to be the second of the 5 key ingredients for building a brand:

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EPISODE 3: The Brand Identity

The brand identity is made up of a mix of vital elements that customers identify with your brand. These proprietary elements are each important, and collectively (Gestalt Theory, anyone?), they make up your entire brand identity.

Read the accompanying post to this episode on our website here » 

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Questions & Feedback? Contact Brand Shepherd Today: brandshepherd.com

EPISODE 2: Customer Personas

by Dan Crask, Creative Director & Co-Owner, Brand Shepherd

Brand development is an exercise of examining what the brand is and is not, and then codifying the discoveries in a way that the brand owner(s) and stakeholder(s) can easily leverage to grow the brand.

Here are what I know to be the second of the 5 key ingredients for building a brand:

Equally important to the brand's voice is the customer persona the brand is talking to.

Brands that lack focus are not successful brands. You need to know who you are talking to, what their buying habits are, lifestyle choices, etc.

The brand voice will be compelling and even familiar when it speaks the sub-cultural language of its customers.

Mix demographics and habits together, and we get a customer persona. The persona is an average, an ideal person that would love to buy from the brand. The customer persona has all the demographic and habitual data that makes our brand’s offering attractive and needed.

It’s always best that a customer persona is written out, and documented as part of any brand guidance resources. Just as the visual parts of the brand have guidelines, so should the brand’s ideal customer(s) be documented in quick, brief write-ups of what the customer persona is made up of.

An example might look like this:

Jack Doe is a blue-collar man, aged between 32-45 years old, who drives a pickup truck, loves to hunt, and is fiercely patriotic. As part of Jack’s daily rituals, he loves a good meaty meal. He will prefer a steak, brisket, pulled pork, or a hamburger over a salad any day of the week. Jack’s living spaces are populated with products that use simple visual branding – he doesn’t go for loud, clever, or modern/minimalist design. He likes bold, earthy simple colors and is proud to display logos that align with his values.

A good example is the sport of basketball. I sometimes love watching and listening to basketball because I have no idea what the announcers and advertisers are talking about. It's a sport full of language and assumptions that make absolutely no sense to me. Yet it makes a lot of sense to its fans, and those fans become customers.

Customer personas will help identity the age, location, lifestyle, buying habits, values, and more of the people who we want to become loyal to the brand.

[FTR: I came of age in the greater Chicagoland area watching Jordan win 6 rings with Da Bulls. Today's basketball product is a vastly inferior product compared to yesteryear; once I've had steak, it's hard to chew on cheap ground chuck.]

In the next segment, I'll cover Part 3: The Brand's "Why", where I will tackle the big question of "Why does our brand and products exist?," which has become entirely more complicated than it needs to be. In Part 3, I will simplify it for you.

If this has helped you identify that your product brand needs to define its voice, please get in touch. Brand Shepherd would be delighted to consider working alongside your product brand.

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Questions & Feedback? Contact Brand Shepherd Today: brandshepherd.com

EPISODE 1: The Brand's Voice

The brand is always speaking, always communicating.

Product brands are always persuading, selling, and providing delight for their users.

But what is the tone of voice the brand uses? What words, specifically, make up its lexicon?

Would the brand use humor or maturity to describe itself?

Does the product brand know what is important to its users – what they find valuable?

Speaking of value, does the product brand share the same current values that its users do?

While it's true that the brand should reflect the values and even personalities of its key stakeholders, the brand ought to present as an entity of its own: Its own personality, unique value propositions, and tone of voice.

Developing the brand voice is done through a number of exercises with key stakeholders, product managers/owners, and user research – all with guidance from experts who know how to sort and organize the information into useful, actionable data.

Let's get into some of these exercises in this foundational episode to creating an exceptional product brand.

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Questions & Feedback? Contact Brand Shepherd Today: brandshepherd.com