The Everyday Branding Project

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There's a reason it's called #engagement, which is the word we use when two people decide they want to spend a lifetime together. #brand #brandmanagement #everydaybranding #thebrandcaretakermentality #wednesdaywisdom

All thriving brands know how to define their own success. This distinctive vision is the foundation everything else is built on, which means it determines how strong the rest of the structure will be. What are we all REALLY here to do? In our system, your brand's statement of success becomes its raison d'etre, the ultimate onboarding tool, the primary metric for measuring performance and the first and most important input in your system for intuitively making brand-authentic choices every day. It's also a great source of keywords, design cues and other ways to create a clear brand identity. And, as Simon Sinek points out in his famous 2009 TEDX talk, and his book on the same subject, Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action, your why is how you genuinely motivate others in ways that surpass any attempts to simply manipulate them. That includes getting you and everyone else on your team out of bed for reasons beyond just collecting a paycheck and building relationships based on trust, loyalty and shared values rather than just cost, location and the latest lead capture technology. So, what inspires you to put in all the hours of work when you could be doing almost anything else? When you ask others what attracts them to your brand, what is the most common answer? And, what brands have you connected with based on their own philosophies and motivations and how did they attract you? #brand #brandmanagement #everydaybranding #inspiration #simonsinek #startwithwhy #thebrandcaretakermentality #wednesdaywisdom

The most important part of marketing is being ready to deliver on the promises you make. #brand #brandmanagement #everydaybranding #mondaymotivation #thebrandcaretakermentality

One of the best ways to remind people that brands existed long before the Internet and social media came along is to make sure they read Dale Carnegie. His folksy yet timeless advice about relationships and customer experience is as relevant now as it ever was and this quote from How To Win Friends & Influence People gets to the heart of it all. With all the current talk about algorithm changes, AI prompts and sales funnels, it's easy to lose the thread that we're all just people trying to make connections with other people. Not leads, not hires and not followers, but people just like you and me. And, just like in Carnegie's time, the best way for people to build and maintain relationships is to provide honest-to-goodness value to each other. Long-term relationships are built on trust, gratitude and loyalty. If you and your team feel this way about your brand, so will your customers. If your customers feel this way about your brand, it will become a part of the life story they share with others. The only real leverage a brand has is its ability to provide this kind of value-based connection, which is to say empowering someone else to be the person they want to be. It's also the best possible return on your investment. The shortest path to becoming a successful brand is to help others succeed first. #brand #brandmanagement #dalecarnegie #everydaybranding #thebrandcaretakermentality #wednesdaywisdom

What kind of stories are being told about your brand and how could you make them better? #brandmanagement #brandstrategy #everydaybranding #mondaymotivation #thebrandcaretakermentality

We conclude this week's review of the five things everyone should know about brand management with a look at the work ahead. 5. Building a brand isn't something you do once and check off your list. Brands are amazing. Each one is constantly evolving as it helps more and more people make choices, provides a clear and direct path to success for others and becomes a new and integral part of countless life stories. This dynamic nature is part of what makes managing brands so exciting, but it also means the job is never done and the work is never finished. Each morning is a fresh chance to achieve your definition of success, better articulate your vision and values, engage new faces and act more authentically like the brand you want to be. This can be such a beautiful and forgiving opportunity, but it can also feel like a daunting challenge, depending on your point of view. The more people on your team, the more variables are involved, as the shadow your brand casts now reflects the movements of everyone working together at once (or not). And, as a brand grows, so do the number of points of engagement with the rest of the world. Our approach at The Everyday Branding Project is to embrace these challenges and use the realities all brands face to excel and thrive. Actionable definitions, simple truths and basic frameworks for making choices. Managing a brand will never be easy, but it doesn't have to be complicated. Like any skill worth having, it all begins with the fundamentals. If you need help learning these fundamentals and building the right system for your brand, please reach out. We look forward to connecting with you. #brand #branding #brandmanagement #brandstrategy #everydaybranding

We continue our week-long look at the five things we think everyone should know about brand management with an important reminder. 4. Your head is the most effective branding tool there is. While the term has certainly evolved over time, people were talking about brands long before the Internet and social media came along. What brands do now might look different than before, but the same old motivations are still there guiding those actions. Technology gets most of the attention these days, but managing a brand is much more about seeing, listening and learning then it is about tweeting, scrolling and boosting. Brand management is a mindset, a philosophy and a framework for making choices. Even the most amazing new device, platform or app only exists to share what you already know how to create. As shiny and cool as they are, they're still just tools in a toolbox. And, like any tools, they work great if they're right for the job and they're used by people with the knowledge and experience to use them properly. But, when it comes to actually managing a brand, the work starts long before it's time to grab one of these fancy hammers or screwdrivers. The brand that exists behind those actions, and the people who decide what that brand is and how it will make its choices, are what's really important. If you want to start managing your brand like a pro, whether it's your personal brand or the brand of a business or organization, focus on the fundamentals that make a brand a brand. When you know what it is you want to build, the values that define it, the words that best describe it, and the people who will be best served by it, the tools you need to do those things will become obvious. So, if you're feeling frustrated, intimidated or overwhelmed by all the latest trends, don't worry. You're in a very big club that includes the rest of us, too, especially people who use those daunting new tools for a living. Managing your own brand isn't about doing what those folks do all day, it's about creating something worth sharing. Be kind to yourself and don't forget to have fun. Becoming a more effective brand caretaker doesn't mean you know everything about everything or that you never get anything wrong, it just means you find ways to keep moving in the right direction with clear intention. #ai #brand #branding #brandmanagement #everydaybranding #brandstrategy #marketing #socialmedia #thebrandcaretakermentality #value

Here's day three of our week-long look at the five things we think everyone should know about brand management. 3. Brands need to offer a clear and direct path to success. Your brand should be creating opportunities for itself, its employees and its customers to succeed. All the time. Every interaction with your brand should provide someone with something they need, including you. Think of it as the vehicle that takes everyone where they want to go, like the magical cat bus in the Studio Ghibli film, My Neighbor Totoro. This is where we start talking about value. What is value? On paper, value is cost vs. benefit, but to an individual, value is visceral, not academic. Real, tangible value is helping others create a future that is authentic to their own distinctive vision. If your brand is empowering others to become the people they wish to be, it's delivering value. Every successful brand adds value to the world, so understanding the value yours can offer is a critical piece of your brand management strategy. Plus, it's the perfect engagement tool. When your brand helps someone become an ideal version of themselves, they're doing the same for your brand. Ultimately, we choose the brands we work for, support, and recommend to our friends and family based on their ability to fulfill and validate an ideal picture of ourselves. Brands can make us feel like we're healthy, fashionable, attractive, savvy, generous and so much more. The only real leverage a brand has is its ability to provide this kind of value to others. It's also the best possible return on investment, if that's the way you like to look at things. We call this highest level of connection brand affinity, which is a combination of gratitude, trust and loyalty. Of course, the opposite is also true. Fail to provide this value, or betray that trust, and you show someone a very different picture. Your brand is scamming people and we fell for it. It's not fulfilling to work here, everything is a mess and the whole staff is unhappy. This brand doesn't care about its customers. Now people feel wronged, foolish, unsupported, ignorant, and, in this world of online reviews, vengeful. Your brand just made an enemy instead of a friend. So, think about the brands you support the most. What do they do to keep you coming back? What vision of yourself do they fulfill and how do they help you become the person you want to be? In a world full of brands, if you can give someone a reason to consistently choose yours, your reward will be your own special place in their life story. #brand #brandaffinity #branding #brandmanagement #everydaybranding #brandidentity #brandstrategy #success #thebrandcaretakermentality #value

James Clear writes a lot about the relationship between our goals and our systems in his book, Atomic Habits, and I always quote him when introducing new students to the value of building a brand management system. He really gets to the heart of the matter when he adds, "When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.” This kind of systemic thinking is a game changer for effectively implementing positive change. So, teaching students how to build their own systems is a big part of what I do as a brand educator. There are lots of reasons why a system pays exponential dividends down the road in exchange for a little extra work in advance, but if you're not thinking in those terms yet, here are a few examples of how a system can help your brand. + Clarity of purpose Everyone, including leadership, has a clearly defined role and knows exactly what they're responsible for accomplishing. + Defines the brand culture If leadership doesn’t give the team something worth believing in, someone else will, often to the detriment of the entire organization. + Ready to collaborate Now you're one step ahead when it comes time to outsource creative work, recruit the right talent, onboard new team members, etc. + Choices, choices, choices A brand is the sum of the choices made in its name every day. A simple system helps everyone make the right ones at the right time. Even if you're a solo creator and your main concern is your personal brand, a system will help you do all these things and more, including organize your time, codify your values and navigate the inevitable changes that lie ahead. Building a customized system for your brand is a process, but it’s an essential step in making brand-authentic choices every day. #atomichabits #brand #branding #brandmanagement #everydaybranding #thebrandcaretakermentality #thoughtleadership #wednesdaywisdom