Brand Identity Is Not What You Think

Brands don’t break all at once, they drift. When culture, economics, and identity shift, the story you’ve been telling can turn from engaging to empty, and fixing your logo won’t save it. We dive into why the brand you think you built isn’t the brand people are actually choosing, and how to close that gap to align with where the world is right now.

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Transcript

Culture Shifts And Decision Making

Founders, Constraints And Creative Freedom

The Brand You Think You Built

Geopolitics, Economics And Consumer Mood

Safety Messaging Over Lifestyle Fantasy

Values, Voice And Founder Identity

From Holding Back To Trailblazing

Finding The Uncomfortable Truth In Strategy

Specificity, Niching And Clarity

Three Red Flags Your Positioning Is Off

Case Study: Reframing A Candle Brand

Process Over Hurry And AI’s Limits

Market Parallels And The Return To In‑Person

The Core Question To Realign Identity

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You're listening to Brand and Butter. For straight talking, occasionally in your face, no BS, branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners. For those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and how pairing association, consumer behaviour, and design thinking can impact what people see, think and feel. I'm your host, Tara Ladd, for sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable, and often unapologetically blunt, founder and creative director of Brand and Design Agency, your one and only. Hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Brand and Butter. I feel like this year is just flying, which is crazy to me. So there's a lot going on. I keep saying this, but I think it just feels like it's just compiling on one another and everyone's just freaking out. But what I actually want to talk about today, I think is a good one. And I'm getting a lot of a lot of uh attention on LinkedIn at the moment, and I think it's just because people are ready to hear what I've been trying to say for a really long time, which is fantastic. But when we are talking about I guess systemic change and cultural change and where everything is going right now, we need to be really observant of what culture's doing and what people are saying and how people are acting. And I'm now in week two of my uni degree. So I've already done a couple of subjects, which was super helpful. So I've got a foundation already. So I'd already done like consumer psych, behavioral neuroscience, and uh understanding the brain at Wharton. So I'd done like a good four subjects before I'd started. So I've got a really good base. So kicking off the the I guess the subjects have been, it's psych science, by the way, if I didn't say that already, has been really validating. It's like, oh, this is what I've been trying to say. So it's actually pretty cool because some of the things that they're touching on is things that I'm speaking to, but it's also super validating as well. But what I want to talk about today, because it aligns really well with that, is how people are making choices and how they're they're choosing. I mean, from a consumer point, but also from our point. If you are a founder or someone that's a decision maker within, I guess, marketing or can or the comms team, like this is kind of for you and more for founders than it is for those in comms teams, because I do know that you have to go through a an elimination process of what you can and can't do. I hated working for um a I guess a bigoteered agency where I had to go through so many different layers of approval before I could get my ideas through the door. Uh starting my own thing was the best thing I could do creatively. But I do know that there's limitations to that now. So what I want to talk about today is really the thing that you think your brand actually is and why it's not what you think it is. Which is wild, right? And I say this because I think well I'm always talking about the moving consumer because who can't be moving? What we're seeing at the moment is systems breaking, systems moving, conversations changing, there's now a bloody war in Iran with anyway, there's a whole there's a whole bunch of stuff going on, you know. Like, could you feel my eye roll through that? It really just is how are we here again? Like, how how are we here again? Vibe. Anyway, so what I'm looking at here is Um how the world now responds to that. So we've already seen stock markets, you know, start taking a dive. We've seen petrol prices rise or gas prices, depending on where you're listening to. These are all direct correlations from the things that are happening geopolitically, but they're also things that happen to us personally. So uh not understanding politics or following politics is going to bite anyone, everyone in the ass anyway, because it has a direct correlation on what happens in your life. When I get really fast, I sound super bogan sometimes. Sorry, I don't mean to. Anyway, what I want to talk about is identity and not just identity, brand identity. Identity is in people identity and how that correlates to how people buy and how people choose and how people connect with you and where we really are right now. It's something that I'm going to do. So keep your eyes out. In May, I want to launch an identity workshop in Sydney. I'm going to be doing it with a small group of, say, 20 people, where we're all going to get together in person and we're going to really nut out a direction. So you're going to get access to me for a solid half a day, probably more, where I want to help someone establish their positioning. So it's really hard to be able to talk about what you're doing if you don't actually know how you're positioned in the market. And weirdly enough, most people need to be repositioning because the consumers moved. And yeah, it's just it's beh behavior change 101. So I guess when we're coming back to it, I I want to touch on, you know, I guess the brand that you think you've been building isn't actually the brand that you have. And what if there's a better version of it? Which is something that I want to cover in the workshop. It's really just those, oh my gosh, that was the thing I was missing. So underneath all of that obviously is positioning. So as I just said. And you've just probably never been honest about it. That or you've fed yourself some kind of narrative, or someone else has fed you a narrative, or the world has changed like it was, and you did what you needed to do during the last couple of years, and you now need to realign to what it is that you stand for, versus just I guess survival mode. What I will say is over the next couple of years, if whatever's happening in the world continues, you will see people start to hold pull back on their money. We're probably going to go into another recession. I am no economist, but I mean, look, inflation's throwing through the roof, you know, whatever, all of those things are going on. So what happens and why you should worry about that is because how you market should be about safety instead of about building richness, and this is what your life could be like. You know, people do not give a shit about that right now. You've got people that are really struggling to, you know, make rent or pay their mortgages. And on the other side, you've got people talking about live a life on a on a yacht. It's so tone-deaf. And yeah, I think that there's a real divide in the conversations that are happening at the moment. And even if you can party on a on a yacht, you know, like and you're not financially strained, there are a lot of people that are. And it, yeah, I don't know. I think to me, when the first round of I guess hardship hit during hardship hit, hope I didn't say that wrong, over COVID, we really saw this, it was like a superiority kind of complex that came out from a lot of people. And I was like, this is really off-putting. And what it did for me, I don't know about you, but what it did for me was I was remembering what people were saying. This is why when the pandemic hit, everyone kept using or the bigger brands kept using the tagline, we're all in it together. Such and such unprecedented times. Because anything outside of that, imagine if like you would have been coming along on a Jet 2 holiday. Lol. Um, imagine if that was coming, you know, during that time. It just would have been tone-deaf. So you have to be wary of the language that you're using, what you're saying at the times and where people are sitting, because if you say the wrong thing to the wrong audience at the wrong time, you will be remembered for that wrong thing that you did. Now, that's not saying that you can't always be saying things that are out of line. Um, and by that I mean saying things that can offend people, because I mean people get offended, it depends on where they are in their life. But if you're going on about, I don't know, I can't even think of you know when you try and think of an example in the top of your mind, but if you're talking about, you know, making money when someone's like like a million dollars and someone's really just wanting to make enough to to pay their rent, like the language shifts. Now, I also am fully aware that the target market changes. I'm just giving you an example. But however, even I'm doing well financially at the moment, safety-wise, not rolling in dough. But like for me, I just want people to understand that you can still be an empathetic human being and be very concerned about the world, even if you are financially sound. And I think that that's another thing people need to be wary of. There's a lot going on, and if you care deeply about the world, you will feel that. Like that, that you feel that. And yeah, and to me, from my perspective, this isn't me giving anyone else advice, but from my perspective, just watching people ignore that conversation is really off-putting. I'm like, you have no substance or backbone. And yeah, this is why I'm just ready. I think two people are fearful of what other people will say. I to be I'm gonna drop a swear bomb here, but I don't give a fuck. You know, this is where we are in the world right now. I will talk about it. And I will give you full transparency. This is just who I am. So when I talk about who I am, what I do, what I like, what I believe in, that gives me my full whole self into the brand that I have. In very specifically for my personal brand. I'm very honest there. I tone it back slightly for your one and only because obviously there's people that work with me. So I have to consider the umbrella halo effect there. However, I'm not doing anything that's going to um, you know, get anyone killed. But I do very much talk about things with my values on my sleeve, on my shirt, on my rings, on my earrings, on my necklaces. My values are literally everywhere. That's a whole real content idea. But I guess most founders know that their brand isn't quite landing the way that it was before. Most people know this, even marketing teams know this, but they just don't know why. And so they rewrite the messaging again, right? Or they fix the visual identity. And again, it still falls flat. The issue is that the flatness is usually a sign that there's something missing, right? And I always say if you're going through some kind of hardship or things aren't working, stick with that for just slightly a little bit longer. Now, I'm not saying to stay with it until it's absolutely run its legs, but I will say that if you're if you're moving into a new category, so if you have made the change, stick with it long enough. And I say long enough, I mean three months, so it can build some traction. Or what can happen is that you change something, think it's not going to work, and then you revert back to what did work because it's a safety mechanism. Our brains do this, by the way. Change requires a big identity shift, and people just aren't ready to have that identity shift. Because with an identity shift comes a shedding of a safety, essentially, because you're stepping into the new era of risk, and that is scary as hell. I did this for two years. I talk about this often. You can go back to listen to the last two years and you can hear it. I'm like freaking out, but it's been the best damn thing to happen to me because I am rocking up and I'm talking my truth, and I am really confident with what I'm talking about. I am not holding back. I was holding back, and I didn't even think I was holding back. And when I say holding back, I feel like I was holding back my intellect slightly. I didn't want to come across as a know-it-all, and this also channels down into childhood trauma. Where as an ADHD child, I was uh quite smart in uh reading, writing, comprehension. Like anyway, I guess you could call it gifted, but certainly not in maths, but definitely in that space. And so I feel like my whole life I've toned down that area of me in order to fit in. I remember when I was in the highest geography class and none of my friends were in there, so I played dumb so I could drop classes. This has just been a thing that I've done my whole life. I also felt that in even during marketing, like I've always been the make the complex simple, but sometimes I feel like maybe I've made it too simple in the fact that I come across as anyway, that's just my own, here's my own insecurities playing out live on the podcast. I yeah, would have sometimes pulled myself back. Whereas now I'm just like, you know what? I'm going to use a hard word. And if you don't understand that hard word, that is on you, not me. And it seems to be resonating a lot. I've actually started to attract a much higher level of client, a much higher caliber audience, especially over on LinkedIn. We're getting really high-end people looking at my page, and I'm feeling really bloody good about it. And that's because I've shifted the conversation to be from, I guess, you know, here's a brand identity system to here's a system change and how we are as people and identity, you know, very much around behavior and something that I'm really passionate about. Anyway, so I guess for you, what I want to talk about is how do you find that gritty part that makes you want to change something? Or I guess to know that there's something there that you need to really dive into. So here's, I guess, what nobody will tell you about brand strategy. Well, some might, but most don't. Is that finding out what your brand actually is can be really uncomfortable. Sit with that for a sec, because it's true. Because it's usually smaller, stranger, and more specific than the version that you've probably been presenting, but it's also the only version that actually works. And so this is exactly what I was just saying. I had to really look at the things that I was doing, and I had outside I had outside help from one of my mates. His name's Kent King. He is also on the podcast a couple, a couple of episodes, probably a year ago now. We riff, we like when we get on a call, we just are like so aligned in our brain that we just like blah blah blah. And he said to me, you know, just go down, throw down. What is it that you that you want to do? And to be completely fair, my personal brand, I was saying everything I wanted to do. And my business brand was falling short. And my business brand was where the people came from. So I started to test everything on LinkedIn. And when I started to have the conversations that I wanted to have, that's when I knew that that was the right thing to do. So I always share stories on Instagram on my personal and add my context. I'm much of a reactive person, and I think that that's the content that I need to be putting out. So again, it's all of this has been testing. But he said to me after I was talking about all the things that I believe in, all the things that I want to do, and he said, So you're a trailblazer. And I said, Sorry, what? And it wasn't until someone else said those words to me that I was able to give myself permission to be the trailblazer. Wild, right? So I've just been showing up and saying the things that I've been holding back and I've built and I'm building and I'm building it. That makes sense, you get it. So I guess everyone's building from the brand that they want to be, and not for the one that they actually are. And this is the biggest thing that people need to know is that know your why is advice that everyone gets, right? And I've even used this so many, I use it all the time. But what nobody tells you is that what you think your why is and what it actually is are usually hugely different things. And I say that because what you think your why is is your perception of what you want it to be. What it actually is is the reason why you have customers in the first place. And the gap between them is where most of the brand strategies will die in the ass. So founders will keep rewriting the messaging or changing their tactics and doing new different types of content or changing their website and their visual identity, but nothing is actually changing because they haven't fixed the foundational problem. And it aligns with if you're founder-led, it will align with the founder. And I said it, I said it last week. The business will only go as far as the founder will grow. And if the founder refuses to look inside and grow, you will not move forward. Mindset, yada yada yada. It very much is very much mindset. So whether you will, what is it? Whether you can or you can't, you're right. Like whether you think you can or you, you know that one, that's true. But it's also, we've also got to take into consideration it's not all about manifestation. Like, I'm gonna be there, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna channel it, I'm gonna get there. Because alongside all of that, while I agree with that thinking, is a whole bunch of privilege and a whole bunch of barriers and a whole bunch of things. Everyone goes, you know, it's not just about timing and it's not just about luck. Well, it kind of is. This is even written in a behavior book. Like Daniel Carneman's thinking fast or slow, he even talks about the the whole luck theory about the stock market. You might have someone that has had a really successful five years, but they've just had a really successful five years because the market's done something in that way, and then they may have a really horrific next five years, but no one will write about that. And so I think that that's what we need to take into consideration. Yes, timing is hugely important. So you've put yourself in that place, don't get me wrong, but timing is important. You would hear people, and I think it's also a projection of their own biases. You know, you can't doubt that where I am isn't because of hard work. No, it's not. But also, you have to take into consideration that there's sometimes time is also on your hand a little bit there, right? And I am also a firm believer in things happen for a reason. You just have to find the silver lining. For me, when my son Ari had his liver transplant peak COVID, and then I have my second baby and I went through postpartum depression. What that did was put me through such hardship. I said that really quickly, didn't I? That I had no choice but to survive. And in that survival state, I really got to experience things that I haven't felt for a really long time. So my whole adult life, I've been quite successful, and I was put in a place that made me really challenge that. And with that came a whole new perspective of the world and a way that I wanted to look into it. That then completely shifted the way that I wanted to run my business. Now, my business has always been built from a really like, I guess, equity point of view, but it really moved from being, hey, we were inclusive to being, how can we, how can we change the system here? And then it was how can we find the people that are changing the system and how can we help them change the system? How can we create this community that can rip have a ripple effect of change? And that's when I got really motivated that just me on my own could create a huge impact if I wanted to. And that's when my mindset shifted. And that's when I rebuilt everything and it all is starting to work. And so I guess the identifying what's broken can sometimes happen by accident. But it actually comes from sitting in those places of being deeply uncomfortable. And as people, what we do is we consume things when we feel uncomfortable. So, what's the first thing that we do when we sit in a doctor's surgery when everyone's sitting there awkwardly? We take our phones out. It's wild how much we we fill our spaces, those awkward moments that would sometimes make us observe things or maybe have an awkward chat with someone next to us or whatever that may be. We've we're now filling that with our phones. And I'm no, I am not like innocent here. I do this myself. But what I have made a conscious effort on is like if I'm taking my kids to swimming or doing anything for my children, is that I put my phone away. And I went to I every week I go to swimming lessons and I just watch every parent around the pool on their phone. And look, I get that too. If that's your only time where you can do something, I get it. But also half an hour. So I feel like we're filling this time. And then we do the same thing to our kids. We're bored here. Here's the problem to fix it. Please don't bother me for five seconds. I need some space. Go and do what you need to do. Fill their time. They can't be bored, they can't be creative, they can't innovate. Again, no judgment. We get it, right? But this is a systemic failure because people are so freaking burnt out that they need those five minutes. And in order to do so, they're doing whatever they need to to get that done. Not having that pressure is a privilege. I need people to understand that. And that then carries through everything that we have in life. But coming back to identity, coming back to where we sit, coming back to what we want our businesses to do, it's really hard to forecast now because we don't know where the world is going. We don't know what the labor market is going to look like, we don't know what technology is doing. We're watching industries collapse. And so it's really hard to foresee that. And so I can understand that. But this is where we always get down to going to the basics. So if you see that your brand has drifted, the positioning that sounds like everyone else's and the content that feels off even when it looks right, the almost always, or there's almost always a signal that you've been building from an intended version of yourself rather than the than the real one. And so after all my waffle on today, the the point of this is to get to at least the core of what you think that might be. So because we're generally bad at seeing ourselves accurately, we are. We think with rose coloured glasses, we we see ourselves. Oh, sometimes it's the opposite, depending on what your mindset is, you know? Uh, it's not a I guess it's not a you being a failure as a person, but it is how our brain works. It's it's an it's a behavioral thing, right? I will always take everything back to behavior because it is where it stems from. Who we are is a product of our environment from multiple things. Also, our biology. There's a whole conversation I'll have for another day. Um, I will talk about the three-point um theory that I learned this week. I think it's really important. But psych science is very clear on this, right? So people are unreliable narrators of themselves. And we see the version that we want to be, and we present the version that we think we should be, and we completely miss the version that's actually showing up, like by a long shot. So we know who we are, and this is where the gap comes in, the knowledge gap comes in, because we know exactly who we are. People have our friends around us know who we are, brands that have been with us for like clients and customers that have been with us for a long time usually know who we are, unless that starts to erode. And so the point is that you know, you need to now communicate that you are what you say, and if you're not talking about it, people don't know. So for founders, this is obviously amplified. It's it's massive. So if you've wrapped up your own identity into your brand, which most have, your emotions, your hopes for it, like all of the things, your fears of being misunderstood, all of that is baked into the way that you see it. Biases all everywhere. And it makes clear vision almost impossible to see, which is why I had someone else come in. Because I am only going to see and walk the same path that I have millions of times over, which is why AI won't help you to get out of this in terms of a strategy. Because it will only keep cycling through your same thought process. And you actually need someone to come in and shove a screwdriver in that thought process and shift you down a whole new direction. And this is what I want to do in the workshop is go, right, but what about this? But what about this? And have a riff-off where they can really start to identify things. When I say to you, the aha moment in everyone, and a lot of the times they've already got it, they just need to say it out loud. And they go, Oh, I've always said this. That's really where it comes from. And so this is why the work requires someone outside to come in because they go, I see this, and you're like, Oh my gosh, of course it's that. And it's not because you're wrong, it's because the I guess you being so close to it kills kills the um the accuracy of it, and you need someone who can read it out to you. And so I thought I built a brand studio, but it turns out I bet I built almost like a a pattern recognition studio, or it's uh with a brand studio attached to it. So I'm able to really identify. Sorry, I keep flicking with my necklace, which is not great. Um I've built like this as an ADHD, uh, you know, something I've always done in my I'm able to just see things. It's I'm a people watch always have been. And so when I look at people and I observe people and I have conversations with people, I'm like, why don't you do this? And they're like, how do you think of that? And I'm like, I don't know. And so it's just the way that I think. And I come up with these really out-of-the-box conceptual ideas, and then that's when we build them into the strategy. And then it's usually something that makes them go boom. So that small shift made such a big difference, especially after Kent was like, You're a, you're a, yeah, you're a trailblazer. And I was like, Well, obviously, because I noticed the patterns and then I want to help course correct for people, and it's something that like I would do this for free. I love, I like I love my job. Like, I just said to someone the other day, uh, if you can pay me to to learn, I would totally do that. They're like, you can be a researcher, like I can, which is a thought process I have at the moment. Anyway, so what people think versus what is actually true, which is in other words, it's a reframe. You have to rethink, which requires work. So you think that the truth will be big and expensive, but it's not, it's usually small and specific and weird. And that's the good part. Because founders expect to, I guess they expect to find things that um is really broad, or uh you know, when they find that truth, they think it's going to be something that's like really out there. But what it what they really find most of the time is something that's really specific and really niche to them. And a lot of the times it's like a lived experience. And that is the specific I kind of never say the word properly, specificity. It's specific, right? It's specific to you. And it's that's what makes it work. And so specific, if we're talking about that, doesn't make it limiting, by the way. I think that people think niching down restricts, but it doesn't. Because when you actually say, if I said to you, here's 20 paint swatches, you need to find me three colors, you'll be there for ages. But if I gave you six colors and I said choose three, boom. It's like cognitive overwhelm, right? When you have one smaller subject to speak to, you're not getting decision paralysis. You're able to really focus in on the topic and you just get really in depth about that one thing. And I think that's what we've done really well is to narrow down onto brand systems, understanding how that works, the thinking, the negotiation behind it. And we work with other people that specify in different areas. So we're known as that, that agency now, which is fan freaking tastic. And it took us a while to get there, but we got there. So there's three signs that you haven't found your, I guess, your why, if we put in averted commas. And it's that your positioning sounds like everyone else in your category. This is literally everyone that I know right now. There's no one that I could say is a real standout, I guess from the general in scrolling Instagram. And if they did, it's been caught up. You've got to be constantly adapting and moving. And you need a list to explain what you do. That's another one. So if you don't know what you do and you don't know how to explain it in a really simple, simple terms, like if I said to you, hey, pitch me and your elevator pitch, and you can't tell me how you're different, where you're positioned in the market, who you're targeting, um that's that's an error. That's flag holding up a red flag. But another thing is that your brand feels different depending on the room that you're in. So if that means something to you or sounds like you, then there's there's an issue there. I can rock up in any room and I will be the exact same character. Some like it, some don't. Don't care. But people are able to know what it is that we do. I mean, this doesn't mean that you don't change, right? So if I'm gonna get on stage and talk to a corporate event, obviously I'm gonna look at the corporate part, but I would still be me. Probably won't drop a few swear bombs. Oh, maybe. I did when I was on a on the women's agenda panel and everyone laughed. So it depends. You know, you read the room. You can read the room. But clarity isn't narrowing, right? When you understand what good clarity is, a good direction is, it's a it's like finding it and it opens up the opportunity. So you go, oh my god, this is what I've been missing. And what you find is almost always the most interesting than I guess what you were trying to perform. So it's much easier just to get up and talk about the thing that you wanted to talk about. For me, I found the through line really hard. So how do I talk about all of this change in terms of systems changes and behavior changes and ideologies and beliefs? And how do I link that to your one and only? Because at the time people did not care. They just were, and it was because of the that we were going through a shift. And I think people are ready to hear that conversation now. People were like, I just want to make money in my business. Please tell me how I can be at$10,000 richer in 30 days. And I was like, it's a system change, and everyone was like, Shh. Whereas now they're like, ah, and I'm like, I've been, but and people just need to be ready. I think that's that's the thing, right? So I think when we're looking at so one of our clients, Moon School, um, Anna, she's amazing. She sold candles. And when I was talking with her, I was asking her a bunch of questions, and she's like, Oh, we actually have a big male market. Like a lot of guys come to us sometimes and get them because they really like our candles. And I said, Are you for real right now? And she was like, Yes. And I said, Your candles are very feminine. And she's like, Yeah. And I'm like, Okay, so I completely stripped this back. We made like black and olive and sunburnt orange, like the the brand completely shifted visually. But not only not only that, we were looking at she's right into like um, you know, the crystals and the moon. And so we looked at moon phases and I brought that into her whole strategy. And it was about self-care and well-being and taking a moment to reflect. And it's about finding yourself and the moment of calm in a world that's really fast, and that's the strategy that it became completely different from what it was, but very much in line with who she was. And she was like, Oh my god. I was like, This is what you've always done. It's just that you've done it differently. And once we did that, like obviously the whole thing just all aligned, clicked together. Then you got guys that feel comfortable hot putting her candle on the shelf in their, you know, corporate office instead of a hot pink candle or whatever was there before. And, you know, unfortunately, stereotypes still do exist. You can try and change that, but that's not going to change instantane instantaneously. So you do need to reconsider the way that people see colour, the way that they make stereotypes and generalizations. And unfortunately, this was one of those things. But the most uncomfortable bit, right, is that when you find the truth, which will happen in a it's what's the best part about sitting with it, is um the easy paths close, right? So if you know that there's something that you don't want, it it's easy to shut off. And that's the whole point. Because once you see it, you can't unsee it. And that's I guess that's where we help everyone with everything, because it's we help you to kind of we ask the right questions in order to help you rethink. And the positioning then stops being an option, it becomes your whole being of being in business. You know exactly who you are, what it is that you do, what you stand for, who you're trying to attract, and you just own it. Content's so easy for me now. I was going through such a hard time. Whereas now I'm just like, oh, I can talk about this today, and I can just get on, have a riff about it, and then jump off and it's fine because I feel really confident in what I'm where I'm going now. And before I found it such a struggle. So if things are a struggle to do, then that's a clear sign. But also we need to take into consideration that um it's not always about um what's the right like sometimes the content that you could be putting out might be fun, but it might be attracting the wrong people. And so that's another thing with positioning. If the people that are coming into you or inquiring to work with you aren't it, chances are there's a marketing or a messaging mismatch. As much as you may hate to admit that. That's usually what it comes down to. Um, sometimes it is a visual identity alignment, like it was with Anna. So obviously we judge on first impressions, and if the first impression isn't what you want it to be, then you will judge that brand. Unfortunately, we do that in like 0.07 seconds. Wild. So yeah, I guess the vague hedge everything language stops feeling really safe. Um, and you know what you're working with, and you have to decide what it is that you want to build from. The part that I can't stress enough is that most founders will rush past this. Like, no, no, no, I just want to, I just want to get this done. I have a deadline. And I'm like, you need to sit with the process. And they're like, no, no, no, but we need to change everything right now. Okay. But, but you're going to miss, and this is where everyone's jumping on AI, and I'm like, stop. AI's great. I use AI. Please don't think I don't think AI is great. I do not use AI just to quickly get through everything all the time. If you're using AI to completely write your whole content for the month, um, I would say you're missing a crucial element. I have deliberately gone back to writing. So I jump in and write a substack every week, and I do that because it's like a journal. It's like you're getting all your big picture ideas out. I think it's really important that that you go through that process. Um, whether that be writing, whether that be talking, I love my podcast for this exact reason. It's getting all of my big ideas out. People can hear how I sound, people know what it is that I talk about. Um, I have an outline, which I've barely stuck to today, might I add. I've read maybe one line off that, but it just is a it's more of a guide because I go ADHD full around the world and back again. And then I mean, I'm so sorry if you've lost track of what I'm talking about. But we're we're at the part where the uncomfortable bit, but what you can do right now, right? So I guess like I say, it's it's I'm not trying to I guess tell you that you're doing things wrong, but it's an observation from what I've seen, and usually I'm pretty right. I I joke with my friends that I should get a shirt that says I'm always right. Um, and it's usually just because you know you understand the market. It's because I've been around for 20 almost 20 years now. So I started my career when I was 20 years old. Um turned 21 three months after my starting my full-time job, and I'm 40 in July. So yep. It's um, oh I already started 26th of March. I started my career in 2007. So yeah, it is it is really um yeah, it's that when you can observe the things that have happened, which is why I keep saying to everyone, we're really in a time where we're looking at a wild parallel between the GFC and what's going on right now, between COVID um and all of that like innovation in terms of um Web 2.0, um not COVID, but like Web 2.0 into Web 3.0, which is AI from social media to AI. But we saw the same thing with print and digital. Print died off. Everyone thought the world was frigging ending, Y2K, blah. You know, and we saw this big evolution. Obviously, Web 2.0 came after Y2K, obviously. But it was that, yeah, fear, doom, and gloom. Oh no, social media is gonna take over the world, blah, it's just a fad. And then it embedded in our culture, and the same thing's happening now, except it's just that everyone's getting over digital because digital is now life. It digital isn't the new kid on the block anymore, digital is how we live our life, so it doesn't feel new. People are getting over it. In fact, Jen Alpha are moving more in person, and so now secret squirrel, I'm starting something here, is we're looking into third spaces, and so this is something that I'm planning. Keep an eye on it. It's called Table Stage Left, and I'm creating something, I'm creating a space, and it's going to be really cool. But this is something I've been thinking about, mind you, for the past year, and I've been collaborating with the right people to make sure that it's going to work the way that I want it to work. But for me, it's all about getting people. I don't want big, huge hundreds and thousands of followers. I want small, in invested, you know, intimate, really deep thinking groups of people. Um, and I want to find that community. I don't want to, I don't want the big, shallow crowd. I want the deep, small, you know, keep your circle close vibes. And that's what I'm building out right now. So keep an eye on what I put out. So I guess let's finish it off with what you can do right now. So I want you to ask yourself, what is my brand actually about? And not the elevator pitch, I'm not talking about that, and not the positioning statement, and not the version that you give a networking event and you get up and you hold your stupid little business card. Anyone still have those? Anyway, it's not stupid. It's not stupid little, I shouldn't say that. But what is the real slightly uncomfortable, more specific thing? Because if the honest answer is different from the public one, there's your gap. And so this is what I consider a brand system is that making sure that all of your things are working together. You know, your your wording is aligned to your messaging, is aligned to your internal culture, is aligned to your external culture. Uh, your hiring process is um in alignment to your brand values and how you show up in your community is the exact same way that you would show up in action for your, I guess, you know, for your clients and customers. And, you know, the things that you say on your values are genuinely the things that you believe in, you know. If you're talking about growth and evolution, which is, I think, is one of ours, I can't remember. We've got nice little, you know, um, ours is is more about um, you know, uh open the dialogue is one of them. It's let's have hard conversations because hard conversations create change. So that's one of ours that is really important and one that I will stand on with authenticity. I actually might just share my values out today on just talk about them. And I think that that's a really important thing. Um, because a lot of people have their values, but they definitely don't align to them. And it's either A, you need to change the values, or B, you need to align more to them. And that's the system working in proof. If there is a break in the system, the system doesn't work. So if you want to figure that out again, I will drop a link. We have our brand gap finder, which helps you to answer a bunch of questions where you might find where that gap is. Otherwise, if you're in Sydney in May, I will be running a masterclass, or it's like a workshop or some masterclass towards the end of May, because I'm going to Fiji. Beginning of May. And yes, we're just confirming those dates now and getting everything organized, and then we'll open the doors for 20 people and no more because I want it to be small, I want it to be intimate, I want it, I want people to get good value from it. And yeah, we will dive into an identity alignment. Anyway, so I guess if you have any questions or you would like to reach out, please jump into my DMs or slip me an email. Otherwise, I want you to sit with that for a second because I genuinely believe that a lot of people are in this real iffy stage. And that's because people around us have also changed with the time. So we're watching lots of things happen, lots of things that are questioning our judgments, lots of things that are questioning our belief systems. And yeah, so if you are not in alignment to that, um chances are that's where the gap is. Anyway, I will chat to you all next week. Did you like that episode? Hope so. Because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and rate and review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at you wanna knowau on Instagram or head to www.ywananonly.com.au