Branding

Jul 05 2020

Personal Branding is Vital Now

Personal branding is something I’ve thought a lot about for years. Branding is about a business, product, or service. Personal branding is about helping the person behind the product to stand out. It’s a way to drive a strong perception of the type of person you are and by extension, to earn a little credibility in the process. The goal is for people to see themselves and see you in the product or service you’re selling.

Brand Yourself But With Your Buyer In Mind

The weird yo yo trick of personal branding is that the best people in the world at personal branding are the ones who make YOU feel like the star. This work isn’t about saying how great you are. It’s talking about how wonderful the people you serve are, but in such a way that people think about you.

In brand positioning terms, you’re a service brand or a community brand or a lifestyle brand (or all 3). Katie Robbert and Kerry O’Shea Gorgone created Punch Out as that place you go to learn about the rest of the lives of your favorite marketers. Their personal brand thusly becomes about being generous, lifting up others, enriching the brand promise of other people. They act as a community brand.

Tone of Voice is Critical

I built my own strong brand identity around a few bedrock details. These translate into the “tone of voice” of my brand. See if this sounds like me:

My personal visual brand is casual, cartoonish, and almost a bit sloppy
My core values are service, honesty, and inclusiveness
The branding concept of me is “anyone could do this – YOU could do this”
An emotional connection is core to all the material I share with people
The only “consistent brand experience” you’ll find with me is that I’m always experimenting

To shape your brand is to demonstrate what you stand for and for it to be a recurring part of your expressions. If you’re frugal, don’t show off your matching Teslas. If you’re trying to say you’re down to earth and spontaneous, don’t be buttoned up all the time.

Think through this:

What does your word choice say about your brand? Are you using big words when your brand is supposed to be down to earth?
Even if you’re shy, you need to show yourself. Can you dress in a way that matches what you believe and how you want to be perceived?
Beyond selling (but also during selling) what do you talk about? What do you share? Does it match what you want people to think about you?

“Influencers” are the Devil

Before we had people trying to be “influencers,” we had people trying to be “authentic.” (After I typed that, I took my hands off the keys to accentuate air quotes – two pumps of my fingers each – because that word is Satan.)

The ways that people try to walk around and represent your brand are almost always about positioning and telling a story that isn’t true. If you normally eat hot dogs, you’re not a foodie. If you’re ever trying to be something you’re not, and it’s part of a business pursuit, I’ll save you time: it rarely ends well.

Communicate Your Brand

Ze Frank once said “a brand is an emotional aftertaste” that comes from experiences. You know “show, don’t tell.” That’s the point. The more you talk about what you are, the less likely you are that thing. So show it.

Establish brand experiences by talking about the kinds of people you serve in terms that echo your intended brand voice. “We’re moms who love to help teachers get time back in their day. We know you’re busy! Let us help you get better results with your students. Your students are our kids. Let’s be on the same team!”

“You have smarts that someone else needs. Sell your brains.”

The best personal branding revolves around “you” stories (the kind that enrich your buyer) but that reflect your part of that equation.

How to Build Your Personal Brand

For your brand to thrive, you need the following:

Clear and unique voice and perspective as it relates to the people you serve
Consistent publication of media that reflects that voice
A recurring delivery of value from the media you create and share

Think about that before your next Instagram post. “Am I saying something in my own way or am I someone else’s echo?” If someone else reads this, is there a chance they’ll take something from it?

“But can I build a brand and stay anonymous?”

I mean, you can build *a* brand, but it’s not a personal brand. The word personal and the word anonymous really don’t mean the same thing whatsoever.

What people want from you as it applies to personal branding is the following:

Are you like me?
Do you share my values?
Can I trust you?
Will you help me win?
What happens when something goes wrong?

Think about your own experiences. When your car needs engine work, do you wonder about those five questions? The last three are definite. The first two might depend on what you’re buying for some people. I want someone to be honest like me, obviously. I want them to be understanding.

The last and maybe most important step about personal branding is perhaps the hardest.

Can You Be “Sticky?”

The most powerful part of branding is whether what you create is memorable. Advertising is a powerful tool when it comes to this. Think of all the ads you remember to this day:

Who is the “quicker picker upper?”
Plop plop. Fizz Fizz. _______
The best part of waking up is _____

Advertising works through a combination of something being memorable to begin with and then being repeated enough that you can’t forget it. That’s an element of personal branding that gets lost often.

The key to being sticky, then, is a formula. An equation maybe. Luckily, Julien Smith and I wrote The Impact Equation for just this purpose. I’ll give you the quick rundown here:

Impact = Contrast x Reach + Exposure + Articulation + Trust + Echo.

Contrast – Does what you say or do stand out
Reach – How far does your message carry
Exposure – How often do people see it
Articulation – Can you say it succinctly
Trust – Are you believable
Echo – Can people see themselves in you

That’s the impact equation and it really means a lot for the personal branding effort. More than most anything else I’ve written thus far. If you master that little gauge: CREATE, you will see the value of putting your marketing and outreach efforts through that lens before publishing.

Beyond saying something useful, you have to say it in a memorable way. That’s the gold.

Brand Management for Personal Brands

I don’t know if this is “management” per se, but what I mean is that it’s upon you to create information frequently and share it often, information that serves their pursuits. “They” being the people you serve, naturally. The management aspect of personal branding is that it’s so easy to fall out of being top of mind. What stops that from happening?

Reach + Exposure from the Impact Equation help. Take your Articulate and sticky phrases and share them often and far and wide, especially if they help others. Do this often. Do this in new ways with new words. Don’t let anything get too old, but say things repeatably enough that others can sing along. Write the hits. Play the hits.

And now you’re well on your way to mastering personal branding. It takes work, practice, and all the luck of saying something that catches the attention and imagination of others. I hope this was useful. If it was, share it?

Finally, I’m always available to help you with this through coaching. Just use my contact form or drop me an email: [email protected]

Jul 03 2020

Content Marketing in 2020

Content Marketing 2020 — Photo by Marc Fanelli-Isla on Unsplash

Content marketing gets a bad rap because a lot of it is so badly wrapped. What happens in the land of marketing and business (b2b marketing or B2C – it doesn’t matter) is that someone takes a good concept and sullies it with poor execution. A strong intention becomes a watered down effort to lure people into a sales funnel with search terms. While SEO is a useful part of earning attention, it’s not the soul of content marketing. Let’s talk about that.

Content Marketing Strategy is About Being Helpful

Attention spans in 2020 are shot. The COVID-19 pandemic and other world events pushed us into having to consume more than our share of news. It’s built an intention of shutting out too much information. But what types of content earn attention? Helpful material never goes out of style.

One way to help: brevity. People want the payload, not the fluff. Whether it’s business goals or personal pursuits, skip the backstory and cut out the fat.

Guide people by making all your content simple to scan, easy to read, and worth bookmarking for later. By this, I mean: use subtitles and bullets. Create transitions and straightforward messaging. Don’t make people work to consume what you create.

Content Types for Context Types

Video marketing is an undeniable part of 2020’s content marketing landscape. It’s useful for when we feel like being nurtured, or when people’s content needs also match a desire to lean back and simply absorb the material. But what if many of your target audience are in a car for long stretches (like truck drivers or suburban commuters)? Then a portion of your marketing methods would be better suited for audio. If not a full fledged podcast, then at least audio content you can invite the recipient to play while commuting. Remember that just because you might prefer text, the most effective way to reach people is the type to choose. Never let your preference guide this choice.

Use Different Types of Content But Tell the Same Story

While matching content to the customer journey, remember that it’s preferable to tell your story across a variety of marketing channels. If a prospective customer is evaluating your product, shoot an Instagram video showing why your product is the better choice for them. Follow it with an infographic comparison chart or the like. Remember that you can get quite varied in delivery methods. Make a Slideshare of “How to Convince Your Boss to Buy Our Product for You” and arm your internal allies with what you know. But be sure that you use an editorial calendar or content calendar (however you prefer to call it) so you have an eye towards optimizing earned attention.

Perform a Content Audit

It’s easy to mistake content marketing efforts and published material for being actually useful. But there’s so much at stake. All content is a reflection of your branding. If the content marketing your organization creates doesn’t serve both the consumer of that material and the sales team, it’s not content marketing. It’s just content.

A content audit investigates whether your organization’s marketing strategy and tactics align with its business objectives. If funny dance videos don’t make the phones ring, then who cares? But at the same time, if your company still pushes bland white papers circa 2000 because you’re “doing b2b marketing,” then you’re missing far too many opportunities. There are so many ways to reach more people and earn more customers. But it takes effort and it can’t be phoned in. It’s 2020. Let’s get you ready for the years ahead.

May I Help?

I offer consultation around business strategy and marketing as it applies to content marketing and much more. I’m quite available to help, should you want to talk that over and see how I can get your company’s content marketing to serve you better. Just drop me a line via this contact form and I’ll get right back to you. Or email me directly: [email protected] . Either way. I’m here to help.

Jun 27 2020

Business Storytelling

Business storytelling is the act of using story as a way to interact with others to convey business values and/or business information. I like to say that “story is the best unit of memory” (tweetable) and that’s because the goal of business storytelling is to help information stick, both internally among various teams and leadership, as well as externally in alignment with marketing, sales, customer service, and other parts of a company.

Stories to Tell

There are three types of business stories the way I teach it:

Mission stories – stories that help people understand and align with the mission of the organization. “We work to give every mother the tools she needs to raise compassionate athletes.”
Belonging stories – these are stories that inform people that they are in the right place, so to speak. “Moms of athletes don’t always agree, but they all want their kids to have what they need to thrive.”
Growth stories – part motivational talk and part “corrective” language, this helps employees stay aligned with the mission of the organization. “While we want you to sell as many coaching packages as possible, it’s important to work within the budgets and schedules of the mothers you’re supporting.”

One doesn’t have to be any kind of master storyteller to make this happen. Remember that the definition of story is simply “an account of people an events.” While I’ll show you some story structure as it applies to business storytelling, essentially the spirit of your work here is to learn that a story helps people remember important information better than most any other tool.

Business Storytelling Approach

The goal of every story you tell should be to convey information in a memorable (and maybe even repeatable) way. Because these are business stories, and the goal isn’t to become some kind of master storyteller of fairy tales or something, let me give you a few more details to consider:

Clarity – Business stories must be succinct and clear. There should never be a surprise. Instead, people need their information to be straightforward and understandable.
Brevity – The attention span of people these days is diminished from stress, from too much information, and from a shift in how we prefer to consume knowledge. Create brief stories. Snacks more than meals. And seek to be as brief as possible while staying clear.
Metaphors – To craft a compelling story, sometimes an easy tool is a metaphor. “Life is a stream. It flows in one direction and when we step out of the water, we can never get back in at the exact same moment.” That sort of thing is a metaphor.

The first two should be used all the time. The last is a tool you can use more as a condiment than a meal. (A metaphor.) “Think of metaphor as a condiment, not a meal.” <– that’s a tiny business story to remind you how to use metaphors in your writing. (Not much in the “account of people and events” department, but we’ll stretch the definition a little.)

Content Marketing Thrives on Compelling Stories

I’m working on a project with my friend Saul Colt. The goal is to help physical stores and galleries all across Canada to build online storefronts to enable these organizations to sell online. While brainstorming ways to earn more sign-ups for this project, I came up with two different ideas (stories) that complement the project and can be told as content marketing (in this case, on Instagram).

The project is called “shopHERE powered by Google” and because I want to encourage more people to sign up, I proposed storytelling elements that are a play on “shop here.” The first is built around regional business pride and uses the hashtag #myshopishere . The second is about women-run businesses and the uses the hashtag #shopHER (minus the e. Get it?) They’re meant to be quite relatable (as good stories are).

If I didn’t tell you much else about the campaign, can you imagine the kinds of photos people will take for ‘My shop is here?’ Pizza places. A favorite nail salon. Maybe a cool pawn shop would be part of it. And of course ‘Shop her’ is about empowering women owners, like an auto body shop, and an MMA gym, and so on.

The projects are content marketing designed to drive awareness and signups to the shopHERE powered by Google project, but the STORIES are about regional pride and woman-owned businesses. Make sense?

Storytellers Invite Their Listeners to be the Protagonist

The power of storytelling works best when it becomes a collaboration between the creator of the story and the consumer of that material. The reader or listener or viewer best experiences compelling storytelling when they are invited to tell the story from their perspective and participate in it themselves.

Star Wars has stuck with us better than many other media properties because the stories are bigger than the main characters. Even if you don’t want to be Luke or Leia, you can decide if you want to be an Imperial Tie fighter pilot or a rebel scout or someone else in the captivating stories that follow.

Story, as it turns out, works best when it is a collaboration.

In business, this can happen in branding. On the day I wrote this to you, Nike’s website has a tag line that says “Where All Athletes Belong.” They’re pushing inclusivity and this goes beyond a marketing strategy and instead pushes deep into the fabric of their brand stories overall. It matches.

Story Structure is a Powerful Starting Point

You’ve watched a TED talk before, I presume. Reserved to no more than 18 minutes (there are very few exceptions to this online), presenters are trained and drilled in how to craft stories that start with cores of data visualizations or case studies and add an emotional connection to the material. Sometimes these are funny. Other times, they make us see what we thought we fully understood in a new light. And even other times, we simply enjoy the experience and go along for the ride.

The structure of TED, the little details, how it all gets wrapped together into a compelling narrative is worth understanding for your future business communications as well. I recommend Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo, a book that is every bit as useful today as the day it was published.

How to Get Started

With business storytelling, you might be thinking: “Okay, I don’t disagree with you, Chris, but I’m not sure what to do now with this information.” Fair enough. I’ll help.

Write a story of what your product/service is and who it helps. The agile user story template works well for this: As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>. Being able to answer this succinctly helps you see your business more clearly.
Work on a few sentences around this: The type of people who buy from us are ___ . They like __ and they don’t want ___ . (This is a belonging story.)
If you were hiring a new employee today and she will be working from home, what story does she need to know that sums up the culture of your organization? Are you sticklers for timeliness? Are you a very collaborative company? Are the rules cut and dry and there’s not really a lot of flexibility? (Remember, this isn’t always a bad things: franchises must follow the systems that are in place.)
Write a few sentences around the ideal customer experience. “If everything went flawlessly, a customer would start on our website and click here. And then…”
At a team meeting, host an exercise around “A meal we used to have at home.” Have people write down some details or a paragraph to explain something about food that inspires at least a little emotional attachment.

End Clearly and Strong

Another detail. For whatever reason, it seems that the art of ending a story is lost on the world. The best endings point to what might come next. In many ways, the best endings are beginnings. This piece ends with me offering help, which might lead to a beginning. Your stories might end in different ways. But “stopping” and “creating an ending” are vastly different efforts and exercises. You want to end clearly. Like this.

If You Want More Help

My core business at StoryLeader™ is dedicated to improving your success with expressing yourself within (and outside of) your organization. I help you convey your intentions, clearly express your business goals and values and needs. And I’m an expert at turning that terrifying blank page into something you can run with and complete on your own with confidence. Never hesitate to drop me a line either by email ([email protected]) or by just filling out my contact form.

Jun 22 2019

10 Years After Trust Agents

Just about ten years ago, Julien Smith and I wrote and published a book called Trust Agents. It talked about the rising experience of companies being able to use the web to reach people directly and connect with them in a world where companies could no longer really control the information out on the web about their brand. It was a rallying cry to invite companies to be real and transparent and to connect with the people they most wanted to serve.

The book did well. It was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. It won awards from Inc Magazine, USA Today, 800-CEO-Read and more.

Ten years have past and I want to share what’s changed in that time. (I’ve written some thoughts on this already at LinkedIn, if you’re interested.)

Ten Years After Trust Agents

In 2009, I wrote: “Companies can no longer hide behind a veneer of a shiny branding campaign, because customers are one Google search away from the truth.”

It’s more true today. And people have endured ten years of feeling unseen and unheard. As companies adopted the tools (but not always the spirit) of the social web, they pushed information blindly to people without thinking much about who they were addressing. It felt the same as telling every woman at a bar that they’re beautiful and hoping the line worked eventually.

In 2009, I wrote: “Trust agents have established themselves as being non-sales-oriented, non-high-pressure marketers. Instead, they are digital natives using the Web to be genuine and to humanize their business.”

I would change this a bit. Sales isn’t bad. Bad sales are bad. A trust agent sells you something they believe will help you win the game you’re trying to win.

Make Your Own Game

The first of the six tenets of a trust agent was to make your own game. It means to define your own space. Be specific. Create the rules of the story instead of competing against other similar products. Amazing books like Play Bigger have really expanded on this in smart ways in recent years. I stand by this.

Julien wrote about how creating your own keywords was a much better way to win at SEO instead of competing with existing words. He pointed out that if you could earn enough media attention for a phrase you coined, all roads would naturally point back to your site. I’ve been using this trick since 2009 and if you look at the traditional SEO markers of my site, it stinks, but I have massive authority around all the terms I created for myself.

In 2019, there’s something more. We are in an age of identity, where people want to be very specific about who they are, what matters to them, and they want to support only those companies that share their values. If you can buy the same kinds of products from multiple sources, why buy from a company you don’t respect? Or most importantly, who doesn’t see you?

We’ve made our own games, and we want companies to see and speak to who we are.

Companies keep saying they know what people want.

“A black guy can’t do a country song.” On the day I’m writing this, “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X is on its 11th week at number 1 on the Billboard Top 100.

“No one will want to see a black-led superhero movie.” – Black Panther made $1.3 billion at the box office.

“Women superheroes won’t bring in movie viewers.” – Wonder Woman made $800 million; Captain Marvel made $1.1 billion.

Inclusivity matters. Seeing people for who they are matters. REPRESENTING THEM IN MEDIA AND MARKETING AND YOUR BUSINESS PLANS matters.

One of Us

This chapter pointed out the importance of connecting beyond advertising. Not that ads are bad. They’re just one tool.

In 2009, I wrote: “Gaining the trust of another requires you be competent and reliable. It also requires you to leave someone with a positive emotional impression, which is something the Web has the potential to do quickly and well.”

We included our first of many references to the work of David Maister and Charles Green who wrote the amazing work, The Trusted Advisor. Julien was already friends with Maister, but we befriended both authors, and I still talk to Charlie Green about once a month to learn at the feet of a master.

Of all the chapters in Trust Agents, this is the one I feel companies discarded. I think very few marketing departments held conversations about the trust equation (even though Maister and Green helped companies make millions on this detail alone). And I know that very few companies set about trying to humanize their brands to reach people.

The Archimedes Effect

I’ve always called this “Julien’s Chapter” because he had a much stronger bead on what was going on here. Leverage was the topic. How do we understand leverage? What are the ways we can use arbitrage to our advantage. It’s still heady stuff, but if people spent a little time investing in this chapter, they often reported some great results.

The parts I contributed were about leveraging time better, about building stronger relationships, about making the most of your appearances.

One fun detail about this chapter is that I cover the first inklings of the rise of Gary Vaynerchuk, when we all started to realize that this guy was going to fly to the stars and back. It’s laughable now that I covered him in the book because he was already on the way to being a massive star.

Agent Zero

I believe with all my heart that nurturing a network of great people you want to serve is the absolute most important work of a person or a company. To be the connector that helps others thrive is a powerful business driver, even if it isn’t an instant kind of reward. (It never is.)

This talks through the concept of having to become more visible. To put your presence out there on the web. To be seen on the social networks.

Over the years, companies seem to only put their CEO, CMO, and a few very junior people out on the social web. They never did quite adopt the belief that having people reachable via the social web was a benefit to the company. And frankly, many people were afraid of this kind of visibility. These tools seem foreign. Interactions on places like Twitter feel fraught with peril. And so many brilliant people worry that they’ll “do it wrong” or “look foolish” and so their brilliance is withheld from the many who would benefit from this.

The people within companies who work on “Agent Zero” type work see great rewards. Sales professionals get it. Deal makers get it. But I wish more of the folks who have non-selling jobs but massive amounts of helpful ideas and thoughts would come out and play on the web.

Human Artist

I might have said that no one cared to do the “One of Us” work. Human artist is married to that. It was our effort to point out that the Golden Rule was alive and well. So many great works focus on this. Bob Burg’s Go-Giver comes right to mind. Same-Side Selling by Altman and Quarles. Many more. Tim Sanders and Love is the Killer App.

We wrote about transparency and empathy and intimacy, all topics that most every company in the world would rather pretend doesn’t exist, though they’ll talk about it in speeches or ads.

People are SO sick of feeling invisible, being lied to, having to “find out” that a company has done them wrong. They’re so fed up, and when there’s a chance to pick another company to deal with, they will.

In a 2017 study, Cone Communications found that 67% of people wanted to align with companies that shared their values, and that furthermore, most people wanted to align with companies who would move their values forward in some way.

Identity matters to individuals more than ever before. My 17 year old is both gay and trans. He spends a lot of time online finding and listening to like minds, learning how to navigate his life, and so on. He pays attention to which companies really support trans and gay causes and not just in June.

We all want people to love what we sell, but it is only when people feel seen and understood that they’re ready to pay attention.

Build An Army

This chapter is about scale. How do we grow beyond where we are? How do we find more hands to lighten the load. Of all the chapters in Trust Agents, I could never have predicted the outcomes that companies have developed in this area.

Automation is nearly the norm in so many areas. Robots talking to robots. Everyone agreed that we needed scale, but sometimes to the detriment of human contact.

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of places where automation is preferred. It’s the best. I love when companies reduce friction where they can (Roger Dooley has an amazing book on Friction).

But the human touch matters. We want it more than ever. And in a world where automation is doing the lion’s share of the heavy lifting, it means we have opportunities to earn more attention, retention, and stronger business relationships.

Trust Agents in 2019

I think there’s a lot to update and revisit in this book. I’ve been talking with Julien Smith about looking this all over again. I spoke to my publishing friend Matt Holt. I’ve talked with all kinds of people who I’ve known for the last ten years or more.

Keep your eyes posted. You might see a lot more about this. And regardless, it was super fun to look back on it all.

I help companies earn the right to sell and serve the customers they most want to nurture. Connect with me, if you want some ideas and help.

Mar 07 2018