What If Playing Safe Is The Risk

If your brand looks “right” but something in you recoils, that reaction is data. It usually points to one thing: identity congruence, the match between what you believe on the inside and what your brand signals on the outside. In this episode, I dig into why so many founders build a brand that mirrors the industry, then wonder why it feels generic, attracts price shoppers, or creates that constant need to push and sell. When consumer behaviour is driven by emotion and attention is fragmented, safe branding becomes the most expensive choice.

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Transcript

Intro And Straight Talking Promise

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You're listening to Brandon Butler, 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 help caring association, consumer behaviour, and design thinking can impact what people say, think and feel. I'm your host, Marlene, is sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable, and often unapologetically blunt. Founder and creative director of Brandon Design Agency, your one and only. Hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Brandon

Identity Congruence Explained

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Butter. I want to talk about a subject today that I think a lot of brands are struggling with, or more specifically, founders, as I click around on my computer. But the conversation today is actually about identity congruence. Now, if you don't know what that is, it's the difference between the brand that you have and how you feel internally. So your values, your core beliefs, all of those things, versus how you are externally presenting that. So what people are actually seeing versus what you genuinely believe. And a lot of the times there is a huge disconnect there. And a lot of it comes down to our own biases and assuming that we've already told the story before or assuming that people know what we're trying to say. But a lot of that comes from the knowledge gap. And it's why most brands struggle because trying to articulate all of the things that live in your mind aren't being executed the way that you're hoping them to. So the message gets lost in translation, or it's not being spoken about at all. And I think that that's a really big conversation that we need to have. So what we're really looking at here is most people, I guess they think they need to build a brand or they need to rebrand or find a brand, essentially. They need to find this thing. And the actual problem is that they genuinely already have one. And I say this in personal brand as well. You've just been building it for an industry and the dynamics and I guess the guidelines and the stereotypes and the generalizations of what you think you need as a brand. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that that reflects you as a person and you as a business or you as a culture and the team that you've built. And instead, you want to really be focusing on the actual people that are running the business, especially in today's world when so many people are hammered with AI slop. So what I mean by that, people come to me and they say, I need to build a personal brand. And a lot of the times I will say, you already have one. So who you are as a person is a brand. How people see you, what you're like to other people, the conversations that you have, how you will dress in a wedding setting versus a backyard barbecue setting would be your visual identity and your style. You already have one. The way you speak, the type of friend that you are, and you'll be different to different people. But that's a that's essentially a brand. It's identity and it's what people remember of you. And how we're seen, a lot of the times we struggle with that. If we are in a setting where we feel like we need to be someone that we're not masking, you will find that there's a disconnect. But when you can be your true self, that's when you find real connection, real relationships, real friendships, and you can be your wholehearted self. And so what I guess it comes down to is how you then understand how to push that out through a brand. Because there are so many people out there saying, you need this and you need that, and look, I'm guilty of doing this too. But what I'm trying to do is build it from a real genuine bottom line. And but I guess not bottom line, it's a baseline. What's your starting point and how do you want to build that foundation? Because when you have that foundation set, and it's usually built from a set of beliefs that don't genuinely change, and if they do, then you need a repositioning. But this is what this is what the conversation is about. You hear a lot of people talking about this is what you need to post and this is what you need to be talking about. When a lot of the times it's not, it might it may have worked for someone else, but not have worked for you. So when someone usually tells me that they need a brand, it's they already have one. And they just haven't been shown it yet in the right way. And I've done this with the last probably the last five, five clients that have come through. I've just been able to validate them and give them permission, which is wild. But obviously, there's a bunch of things that we helped to place in order, but when it came down to it, they knew what they wanted to do, they knew why they entered the market, they knew why they existed, they just didn't know how to articulate it in a way that would, I guess, give them the package. Do you know what I mean? So that's kind of what we're looking at. Because there's a specific kind of brand that doesn't attract anyone. And it's the one that's been built to look like the industry instead of the people that exist within it. And I see this so many times. And look, it's technically fine, it just means that that's not yours. And when it's not yours, you then build this persona that when it grows and grows and grows becomes so unmanageable because you don't know the essence and the core of what the brand stands for. And when I say that, I don't say that from a whimsy way. A lot of people think brand's just this nice fluffy thing to have. It's not, it's the whole model, it's the business model around why you exist. And so you will have your, you know, the financials, the viability, why you exist, the business model or place down, but the brand wraps around that. It's it goes business, brand, marketing. So marketing is how you then tell the world and amplify your message that you exist. Brand is wrapped around that. It's you go, are you on brand? Are you staying true to what you believe in? Are you attracting the right people? All of that stuff comes down to the core identity of the brand. And this has grown astronomically over the past, especially last six years, in why people will choose you, especially with so many different, I guess, how do I explain this in a really simplistic way without overcomplicating it, is that the way that we consume media now is so diversified that we've created a whole bunch of individualism. And what I mean by that is it's you're no longer going to see a brand like Coke absolutely plaster and like take over the world like that again. It's unless it's like it's like gonna be like a 0.02 percenter, like something hugely astronomical. Do you know what I mean? For everyone else, it's about the differentiation of the core of the people that work there. It's or the product that it is and what the product has been built from. And it really does come down to that founder story because people are more emotionally invested in what they are buying and putting their money towards these days. And with that comes risk. So if they're putting their money behind something that they don't believe in, they're not gonna buy from you. Like, do you know what I mean? That they're not gonna put their money behind something that they don't believe in. And as the younger generation is more inclined to do that, the older generations need to be very cautious because it's the younger generations that are coming through that are making the choices into how our businesses will succeed. So it really does come down to knowing, and not necessarily them being your target audience. Do you know what I mean? But they're the ones moving the behavior coming through now, which is why everyone always tries to target the younger generation because they want that continuity through life cycle. So there's a longer life cycle with that client if they stay with you for years and years and years and years, loyalty, which is hard to do. But we need to look at it and the strain part, the strange part is it does not hide in some vague everywhere kind of way when you build a brand. It's not it, it's not that it's hidden, it it hides in specific places, and the same five are almost always evident. It's always the same five. And so that's what I want to talk about today. When building a brand, rebuilding a brand, restructuring a brand, or when you're trying to look for the out, it's about finding these five gaps that can help you set yourself on the right path to, you know, clarity, I guess is what we're looking for. We always want that piece of advice that goes, Oh, finally, I know what I'm doing now. Just have to kind of dig through a bit to get there. Most of the time, you've probably walked straight past it. And I said, and everyone will always say that to us, is like, I already did that. And it's like, yeah, but you didn't do it deep enough. And it's usually because they're not in the places anyone tells you to look. So you may go down the same path every damn day. But if only you took the side route and gone down this way, you may have picked it up. The problem is we become blinded by our own biases within our own businesses, especially as founders, and especially those who've been there for a while and do things a certain way. So this is what today is about, and I'm hoping that you will like it. So we look at why most brands look sideways. And well, I mean, if you're understanding, rewind, most brands should be built looking sideways. So by that I mean don't look down the straight narrow of what the obvious should be,

Category Schemas And Looking Sideways

SPEAKER_00 10:00

because it sometimes can feel really complicated. So let's talk about one of our clients. So, what does a construction company look like to you? Already by now, you've probably created a schema, which is kind of like a set of associations that create a shortcut in your mind. So you've got certain colours that you would choose, you've got certain images that you would see, a certain style of font that you may have seen, and you've already got these associations of what construction looks and feels like. We say the same thing about a skincare brand. Things coming to mind, instantly I've got water on the face, right? Those splash the water up and the beads of water are in the air as the person's hands are looking like you're in motion. Okay, and what does a studio in my category look like? If you're looking for a creative studio, what does what does that look like to you? You've already got these ideas, right? So you build from the answer. And the result is that a brand that is congruent with the category and incongruent with the people, so that means that it's in alignment with the category that they're building to, but out of alignment with the people that are building it. It looks right, but reads off. And this is the biggest thing that people need to know because people are really vibing, they can sense it. It's just a real understanding of knowing when people are communicating with they they know something's off. It's not, it's people are cluey. So the result is that you'll have a brand that doesn't feel right. And we don't want that. It's usually something where the founder can't explain why either. And it's because nothing's actually wrong. It they're building something, it's on it ticks all the criteria for what it should look like, but it's not right because it doesn't align to what they believe in. And so this is the trap, and it's put plain and simple, and it feels like it's really obvious, but a lot of the time it's not because people don't want to fail. And when they don't want to fail, they don't want to take a risk, and when they don't want to take a risk, they miss the opportunities to do the things that will create the difference. So nothing is wrong, it's just not theirs. So you then create something that has been built from, and this is when we find a lot of people generally around the five or seven year mark will completely re-haul sometimes earlier if they've cottoned on. And this is why we need to look into it a little bit more because nothing, like I said, nothing is technically wrong is probably the most expensive sentence in brandy. Because it ends the I guess it ends the search, it ends them looking for something that's wrong, and they go, well, nothing's wrong, and then they'll move to the next thing that they think that it is and completely miss the point. Let's stop looking. So why would you keep looking for something that passed? You know, why would you why would you do that? So the brand sits there, fine, good, forgettable, and nobody opens it back up. And this is what I'm finding with brand now is people go, we we've done it, it's a set and forget, we've built the brand, and that's how it is. I would say we were re any good brand is repositioning or refreshing probably every five to seven years, or that that was the study, you're looking probably even a little bit earlier than that now because everything's so fast. And by updating, refreshing, I don't mean that they're completely overhauling everything. It might mean a new style of photography. It might mean that it might mean that they updated their font ever so slightly. It might mean that they've just updated their logo. And if you look at any big brand over the series of a really long time, they make these incremental changes that you don't even see. And they do them deliberately. So it stays modern, stays fresh, but it isn't a big song and dance. And it's done deliberately so that you just it's like a it's like a minimal, viable, minimal difference or something. Can't remember what it's called. But basically it's that they change it just slightly enough so you can kind of see something's changed, but you don't know what that is. And that's when the bigger brands do it, and they're investing big money. And if you're a smaller brand, you may go and create something really great. And the next thing that you think about brand doing a rebrand on or a repositioning on is when something big has happened or you've hit this really big block, and it should kind of should have been before that. And so now we're watching everyone moving into this space. There's rebrands happening all over the shop because people are trying to change what who they are because they know that at the very core of their difference, it's the culture of the business that they're running, or it's the person themselves that is running it that is really important. Hence, founder-led brands are blowing up at the moment, and that has a high correlation as to how people will perceive your brand in general based on the people running it. CEOs, can I tell say that, you know, when people are talking about the CEO, they are now the head of the brand. That's how people assimilate the brand. So if the founder isn't at the lead, then the CEO takes us takes that spot, and you know, that's kind of where it is. So I guess what we need to look at is finding that finding that spot to be looking for when you don't know that you need to be looking. Because what the danger is is if you're looking like your industry feels safe. Say that again. You I just said that in my head and it did not come out the way I wanted it to. You looking like your industry feels safe. Does that make sense? So think about well, let me go back before I go into a tangent and give you a case study. Let me just give you a little bit more. So if the lowest risk option, it is the lowest risk option in the room. I'm trying to read my notes, but I am thinking three steps ahead to who gives a crap. So when I'm like, yes, yes, but and and I'm trying to jump

Risky Branding Done Right

SPEAKER_00 16:00

ahead. But what I'm saying is that no one gets in trouble for playing safe, right? And that's great, cool, continue, do safe. But when we look at who gives a crap, they entered the toilet paper category and they blew it up. And by that I mean they did not care. They had people that did not like the name, who gives a crap. Oh, surely you'd have crap in your brand name or the way that they did it, oh, that's a bit too, you know, out there. I don't really like it. And it was a bloody hit to everyone that they were trying to target. Because in a category where everything was boring, you know, I mean, Kleenex had that really cute Labrador. But aside from that, I could not remember a thing from anyone else. You had the same kind of colours, the same kind of fonts, and it was this how many plies of toilet paper you got. But then who gives a crap came in and they multi-stacked. So they not only had a cool brand name, they had a cool persona. So the way that they rocked up online was very conversational, very millennial, very humorous. They made jokes and memes and nothing like, nothing like anyone in the category. And the way that they did their toilet paper packaging was great. They had a social enterprise handling on top on top of that. So they were doing good in as well. So anyone that even tried to copy maybe their visual identity was so far behind because they had multi-layered these differences from anyone in the industry. And that would have been the easiest thing for them to do. I want to create toilet paper. What aren't these other people doing? And they just blew them out of the water. And now imagine if they were like, uh, let's just make us like everyone else. Like Snorfest, they would never have been as popular as they have. If they didn't take that risk, they never would have run that reward. The issue is you can take a risk and it can tank. But you know what? You've taken that, you've taken that risk. And you know what didn't work, and now you know what you can do next time, or you can try something different next time. You play it safe and you might get some customers, but then you're never going to be the thing that people want. You become the Me Too brand, right? But if you're happy being a Me Too brand, so be it. But if you're listening to this podcast, chances are you don't want to be. Because who wants to be a Me Too brand? Unless you're just building a business for the sake of building a business, then you know, make some money. Go, go have at it. If you're wanting to create something for good reason, you want to stand out, you want to be visible, you want to be the selection, then this is what you hear. So a brand that looks like the category gives their audience nothing specific to recognize. It's just like a bunch of same old, same old. And it signals as a business that does this thing, right? So instead of we are these people who do this thing in this specific way. So that's the difference, is and you can simply identify the differences between those that play it safe in the toilet paper category versus those that have, you know, made a big difference. Like who gives a crap? And now we're seeing spin-off brands like that that are doing something great, which means that it becomes more competitive for the guys that have been controlling it for all this time in itself. So now we start to see the newcomers come in and they're challenging the category, the category owners, like the main category winners, and they're making them make changes. And that's what you want. You want that competitiveness, you want that drive, you want change. You don't want complacency and borrow, you know, boring same old, same old, but you know, better the devil, you know. That's how some people will get it. But if you want change, you want new things, you've got to shake it up a little bit. It doesn't mean you have to go out there with, you know, all guns blazing, but it just means what aren't they doing differently? So let's dive into it from I guess a design point of view, is that the first one is forgettable by design. Right? So identity congruence, moving into the next phase, is self-congruity, is that people are drawn to brands that match their self-image. So they already recognize it. And when the brand reflects the actual operators and the clients who share those values and recognize themselves in it and you know, select in, they buy into that, they are the ones that will win. And I think that that's something that people need to really get is that there is so much thought in a brand, and those that are winning, it's like tiny little details. It's not something massive, it's these tiny little details that connect to the consumer in a range of different ways. And so when the brand reflects the category, there's nothing specific to recognize, so nobody does. And then there's the second part, and it's the reason those gaps stay invisible, right? So we have to look at the it's like a curse of knowledge. So, like you're too far inside your own business to read your brand from the outside. And this happens to literally everyone, especially if you're a solo operator. And if you are someone that is just doing all the business stuff and you've got people that work for you, and you're the person doing all the business stuff, it's the same thing there as well. Unless you've got a team of people that are, you know, coming back to you and countering countering your thoughts with different ideas, you're just gonna go down the same path of thinking every single time. So you're too far inside your own business to read your brand from the outside and too far away to see the problem, if that makes any sense whatsoever. So you look at it and you, I guess, quietly fill in everything it does and not actually says. So there's a big difference in doing and saying or feeling and believing. And because you already know it, like that's the biggest part. That's the biggest danger, is that you already know, so it hasn't even crossed your mind to express it. So the audience doesn't ever see it, but the audience doesn't know it, and that's the problem. So they only get the surface stuff, the stuff that they see, or the stuff that you've done. And if you're especially overwhelmed and you don't know what you're doing, like you're missing these core meaty details. And this is where the stories come through, right? If you're the one person, if you're the only person who is working on the stuff, you can't read your brand code. So what I mean by that is you can't ever see your brand from the first instance. And so you've already got these preconceived ideas of what your brand already is. So you're never starting with what that first impression looks like for someone that's never seen it. And that's why you will always walk past that gap. And asking people that already work or know you or have met with you isn't getting the answer you need either. So you think the job is to build a brand, but the actual job is to stop hiding the one that you already have. And it's usually because it's behind something. And so the goal is to try and get it out. So the part that changes and what you do next is that you do not need to reinvent anything or invent anything from scratch. And you may not need a rebrand. And this is the most important thing to do. It's the whole episode for today. These five gaps is what we're going to be walking through. So

Gap One Line Up Competitors

SPEAKER_00 23:30

let's go. We talk about gap one. Now the lineup gap. So you have never actually seen your brand next to the others. So you think you have, and you glance over competitors, but glancing and lining up aren't the same thing at all. And this is something that we do in our massive dissect stage of our brand strategy and identity realignments and branding projects. It's a stack up, it's a list of attributions, it's really going through and doing the comparative of perception and seeing how this brand does this and this brand does that and how this person's going to see this. And glancing tells you what everyone else is doing, right? It's important. But lining up tells you whether you are one of them, whether you are whether you should be the one that is selected. And almost no founder does the second one. I cannot tell you. When we give the pattern analysis, which is us going through in-depth things based on so many different variables, people love it because it's giving them the insights, the competitor analysis, it's the opportunities and threats and weaknesses it's going through and finding where their gap could be and their white space analysis, which is like a positioning space. If you don't know where you differentiate and you haven't gone through this list, then you're just thinking and assuming that you belong in a certain place and your positioning could be so out of whack. You could be sitting up there with 50,000 people competing in the same space, doing the same thing, and you have this opportunity just sitting for you just over here if you'd have done a proper analysis. And this is where the best bit comes out of our branding strategy. It's not creating the visual identity. You're about 50 steps too far ahead. You have to start so, so far back in the research, and nobody wants to do research. And when I say research, I don't mean jumping on AI and asking a bunch of questions. I mean working with people in the spaces to understand the truth of what you actually need to hear and being able to front that. That is probably a really important thing. So, how do you do it? Well, it's not a comfortable thing to do, I might say, but it does need to get done. And I guess you would say the spot check. So take your homepage or your Instagram grid or your logo and you put them in a row with, I don't know, three or four competitors. And cover every name and then hand it to someone who doesn't know your business and ask them to find yours. And if they can't find it, gap number one.

Gap Two Wrong-Fit Enquiries

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Ding ding ding. So gap number two is, and that's a visual, obviously, but gap number two is the wrong gap, the wrong fit gap. The wrong gap fit, the wrong fit gap. And so you've been calling it a sales problem, but it's a brand problem. And I cannot tell people how everyone's online going, this is how you make sales, this is how you do this. And I'm like, oh God, you are so five steps too far in front. Uh and I think everyone really needs to be revisiting their brand. If you haven't, post-COVID, especially, but even in the last 24 months, 100% you need to be doing it, especially with consumer behavior moving so quickly. So you think you've done it. Um by that I mean you think that you've nailed the problem, but you haven't. It's uh who inquires is a readout, really, of how good your marketing's going. So what's your brand signaling and is it signaling the right thing? Because the people that are inquiring about your business will be the answer to that. And if they aren't the right people, then chances are you've got a problem there. So that can also come into marketing, but brand marketing is a thing. So being able to tell people who you are and what you do and what you're about, that is called brand marketing. It's strategic marketing. You're not making a sale, you're simply educating the market of brand awareness, right? And that's the thing we need to be considering because everyone's like sale, sell, sell, sale, but you're not actually adding in the strategic pieces of who you are. This is like what they consider to be middle funnel content, which is like trust-building content. And I think it's really important because a lot of people may not get the vanity metrics from these pieces that they would normally get. And so they just don't put it out because then like it doesn't perform on Instagram, but it's actually the one that will get you through to the bottom of the funnel, which is the sales pieces. So if you haven't got that, you haven't got a multiple look, this is a whole conversation on its own, but the most important thing is is your brand signaling the right thing? That's what you want to know. And so a brand that is built to look like the category attracts people shopping in that category. Of course it does. And the people shopping a category shop on price because you haven't given them given them anything else to choose from. And so there you go. If you've got no differentiation, you look like everyone else in the field, then you will come down to price, and everyone will be like, there's nothing there that I can see that makes these people any different to the one next to them. That has no take on how many followers you have online, by the way. I know agencies that are pulling it in, winning awards, absolutely nailing it, and they've got such a low follower count on social media, and you would never know. And so if people are looking at social media followers and likes and metrics, vanity metrics as a way to it is it's how people do choose, it's which is wild. They're actually missing a whole part of the puzzle. That these other people have different ways of bringing in their audiences. But that's a hot again, another I'm going off tangent. Stay on track, stay on track. So you get the wrong fit inquiry. That's the point, right? So it's noise, like you're getting people that aren't aligned because the message isn't out. So that is the system. It's telling you exactly what your brand is saying about you, and you have not been reading it as a message. So that's what people are gonna do. They're like, oh, they've got nothing else to say about these people, so I'm just gonna ask them about price, and I'm gonna join them in the crew of five other people to give me a quote, and I'm gonna choose by that because there's nothing else that's making me emotionally connect. This is where the psychology comes in. This is what you need to look for. So when you are trying to do a spot check, I will say you look at your last 10 inquiries. Five, let's just say that, you know, not the ones who signed on, they're obviously the winners. Um, but the last few that have contacted you, how many were genuinely the right fit? Because if most of them weren't, the brand is selecting for the wrong person. And when I say selecting, it I mean your perception that you're pushing out is not targeting the right person. And it's been handed the wrong brief, essentially. So you're gonna get the wrong people in. I can hand on heart say our inquiries lowered when we did our repositioning, but our conversion rates shot through the roof because we repelled the ones we didn't want and we pulled in the ones that we did, and they have been amazing. I regret nothing. The hard part of doing our repositioning was understanding that in that bridging moment of moving away from our old messaging into our new messaging requires a re-educational kind of campaign. That this is who we are now, this is what we do now, and you need to push that out and push it out and push it out until you start to develop the new audience, re-educate the old one, find the new audience, and then let that become the continuity in the way that you, I guess, market yourself. Now, this is what we need to do in terms of selecting the wrong person is you've just been handed the wrong brief. So now what do you do about it? Go and list what you think is wrong there, or reach out to those people and ask what it was that made them not choose you or go back. Do you ever ask that? Ever ask them why they didn't choose you? I always do that, and I think it's a really great piece of information to go by.

Gap Three Name Swap Test

SPEAKER_00 31:20

So number three is the name swap gap. So your words describe the category and not the people running it. So who inquires is a readout of what your brand is signaling. And then we move into the next part, which is the name swap, and that's your words describe the category, not the people running it. And so we look at category language, it reads as professional, and we deliver quality outcomes, and we are committed to our clients, trusted, reliable, results driven. Look, nothing is wrong with any of that, but it is so snorfest. Everyone says it. Everyone says it. I remember doing an audit for one of my clients and they're an events company, and we put up a whole bunch of different different competitors. There were a bunch of uh national competitors, so you know, in the same country, and then we looked at international competitors. I kid you not, there was seven that used the same tagline. We are your trusted partners in XYZ industry. And I was like, what? Like that boring, boring. And it's so common that seven, seven used the same one. None of them are standing out to me. Not in the slightest. That was one of the things that we that we looked at. Obviously, it was a bunch of other things, but this is why audits are really important. So this is exactly the problem, and it's technically fine, but you can change it. And I would say that you should. So this is what I would say to do. Spot check, ding ding, this is what we're gonna do. Open your about page and take one sentence and swap your business name for a competitors. Does the sentence still work? If it does, it was never about you. And sounding right and sounding like you are two different tests. So you have to be running with the first one. So you have to be able to know that the way that it's said or how it's said or what's being said is distinctively you. And the issue, I guess, in most cases is that people don't know what is distinctively them. Cue the whole podcast episode.

Gap Four What You Edited Out

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Now, number four, we look at the edit gap. So moving through this, the most you part of the business got cut from being unprofessional. So somewhere in building the brand, a decision has been made, I would say, and it's you know, subliminal, maybe you just slightly did it. But that thing did not look like I guess what would fit in the industry. So you're just like, yeah, no, that's out. Too casual, too personal, too much about personal life, too odd, doesn't line. Not what a business in this category does, and nobody notices the edit, it's fine, but you only ever see what's stayed in. And so the problem is is the gap is made of absence. You don't even fit in there anymore. You're a faceless entity, and you cannot spot a thing that is not there unless you go looking for it on purpose. So the thing is, right? You need to have an element of personality within the business. Ours is riddled with it. We speak a big game about what we do, but we are very front and center about who we are as people. Because especially in our specific industry for service space, you'll be working with us as a relationship. If there is nothing about me on the site or nothing about Sam on the site, the team currently, you won't know anything about us. Your first instance or connection will be when you inquire. And if someone else has already been really, I guess, social heavy in talking about themselves and what they do and what they're about, and all of their, I guess, their humor, and or if they have any, it might not be a humorous brand, but that they're about what they do, they're going to be chosen because people feel like they've already got an established connection with them. This is the difference. And the connection has to be genuine, right? These conversations that people have about family or about hardship. And a lot of, I see a lot of people getting on going, stop talking about your drama, disagree. I think that if that drama is corresponds to what it is that you do, then I think that you should talk about it. For instance, I will speak about my experience as a neurodivergent person. I will speak about my experience as a neurodivergent mother. So I have two Audi HD boys. I will also talk about my son's liver transplant that he had at eight months from a founder's perspective. But these are really important because what we do for work with our business is about systemic change. It's about progressive change, it's about helping people that are doing good things amplify their brands. It is very much in alignment to saying we know what it's like to deal with shitty systems. Therefore, this is our example of that. To someone else that doesn't do that as a business, it won't be any that there will be no relevance for it whatsoever. But for us, it's relevant because that's the work that we want to do. And so we will talk about that. And I will talk about that from my own lived experience, which means if I'm going to be producing something or creating something for you in that space, I'm going to be understanding the pain and hardship from some people that they may be speaking to as an audience that I can then project and place into the strategy from lived experience. These are some pain points, these are some pressure points that they could be experiencing. Let's expand on that. And if someone hasn't dealt with that before, they they're coming in blind and they don't have that experience. So there is a good reason why I speak to what I do because it has enabled us to apply a whole layer of complexity that other people may not have ever dealt with. And so that's important for us to talk about that. For other people that get turned off by that, I don't care because it doesn't apply to them. So we're talking a very big game. There's a deep strategy involved in what we've done with your one and only, and it's working for us really well. And I couldn't I wouldn't have it any other way. So so long as what you're talking about is in alignment to what your brand is doing, saying, hearing, like 100% talk about it. And I think that that needs to be what you develop in the strategy. What are we here for? Who are we trying to attract? What are we doing? Who are our audience? If what I'm saying now is going to resonate with my audience, then who gives a shit what everyone else in the industry is going to do? Because if you get the sale because you connect on an emotional level, I will guarantee you will get that job. People will buy through emotion. They sell, it's like what they used to say in before Tesla became Tesla. It was um they used to market that Tesla were environmentally friendly to get them in, and then they would sell them with the ego of saying you would look better than everyone else on the road. And I find that really funny. So that's another thing to take into consideration is the you of the business is that coming through, and not just you as a founder, or if you don't have a founder, you have a CEO. It's the team in general, what it's like to work with the team, what's the culture like at that business? And that's what a lot of businesses are doing really well, especially in product. They'll go behind the scene, they'll show what it's like to build the product, manufacture it, pack it, what they put the love into like that's that real one-on-one. And um, LSKD do this really well, Monty do this really well. Uh, so that's something to take into consideration. And now we look at number five. So, actually, come back, completely forgot. Um, let's look at the thing. How do you fix that? How do you fix that as I jump to the next thing? So, the spot check is to name one thing that is true about how you actually work that is nowhere in your brand. So, somewhere a client has thanked you for something, or something that you do without thinking, or something that you decided was too small, too strange, too off category, too put forward. And the thing you just named, that right there, that little tiny thing, is usually the brand. That's the core part of it. It's that difference. Um, and you edited it out, usually. Uh, so we always get, which what we found was we always get, you guys are really funny. I love the way you write your copy, you're very straightforward. And I found that over the last couple of years, because I wasn't in the right headspace, we dropped our humor. And that was a big part of you one and only. And the minute that the humor started to come back, so did our people. And I think that even when we're having hard conversations, that was something that we needed to put in front and center. So keep that in mind, whatever those tiny little things are, and ask questions along the way. Go through testimonials to see what people really loved about you, and you will find the gems in that.

Gap Five Recognition Versus Doubt

SPEAKER_00 40:15

So, number five is the recognition gap. Now, I spoke about this last week in depth. So if you didn't hear it, go and listen to that one. But the recognition gap is that you do not recognize yourself in your own brand. And you have filed that under imposter syndrome. This is a big one. And so when I talk about last week, I'm talking about recognition being memorable. This is the memorable part. So you look at your brand and it might feel off. I think that that's how most people say it doesn't, it's not working, there's something that's not right. And it doesn't feel like you at all, or it doesn't feel like the team is being projected the way that you want them to, you know, they're not being perceived the way you want them to. And so you've decided that feeling that feeling is self-doubt or it's imposter syndrome. This is what we went through, just so you know, because it was a big identity shifting. And it's sometimes that you are too close to it, and you do get that feeling like no founder likes their own brand much. Just that's a lie. Maybe, maybe, maybe it's that. Or the feeling is right and it's accurate, and you've been talking yourself out of it. And I know why you probably would do that. I say that with a pause because I think it's important to tread carefully in this space, is because this part is deeply aligned to who we are as people. And some of the things when you do a I guess it's like a diagnostic of your own self, you find weaknesses that you don't want to find. And with that is a bunch of issues that you feel like you kind of go to, um, you know, you go to one stage and you fix a problem, and then that opens up five other problems, and you know that that's probably going to happen, and therefore you don't go, you don't do the work because it it feels hard. But when you do the hard work, I guarantee I trust trust me here when I say this, you will know when you've hit it. So you're the one person who knows what that congruency feels like, that that connection to that's it. And it's because you know exactly what you will like. So when you look at your brand and you flinch or you recoil a little bit, that reaction is the data. So, how do you do it? Well, you look at your brand and you catch the first reaction. So the one before you start reasoning with it and before you start ripping it apart is it could be like a a quiet mm-hmm, it's not where I want it to be. Trust me, this is how I felt. I was like, it's just not, it's not, it's not. And so I would fix the visual identity or I'd slightly change it and it wouldn't work. And then I realized that it was actually not in the visual identity, obviously. And to clarify that, you know how you have plumbers that don't fix their sink because they're plumbers? Like, that's kind of like what we were. So there were elements of the visual identity that did get an overhaul, which completely changed the game. But in order for me to do the visual identity that we created, we had to kind of go back and understand what we were doing. So I did a whole bunch of conversations with a content strategist, and we just weaved out a whole bunch of me that was able to separate what should go into your one and only as a business and what should go into Tara Light as a brand. And the two things differentiated. A fair bit, and it helped really clear things up because I'm like, should this be on here? Should this be on there? And it like kind of got into my mind a little bit. And what that did was help me to create a plan. So look at your brand and catch that first reaction. Because that's the part that's hard. And then ask the harder part is this self-doubt or is this brand not me? And both of those things can coincide. And you'll know the you'll know the answer. You've just been trained not to trust it or answer it. And a lot of that has to do with ego and fear. And you have to be really vulnerable when you are creating things like this. Amazing.

Construction Brand Case Study

SPEAKER_00 44:50

They're one of our retainer clients now, but amazing client is regional and quality constructions. Now, amazing people, we clicked like instantaneously. So they are a neurodivergent family building real genuine human spaces. And things like when we were on the phone, they were discussing creating dog washes for people that don't have children because they love their animals, or quiet rooms for neurodivergent kids in their house, or veggie gardens out the back because that's like what they want that some people like to do that these days in inner city to have that, you know, outdoor vibe. And so every design decision is a direct mirror of how they think about people. And I think that this was such a huge thing. We were just riffing. I was like, oh, this, you could do this and you could do that. And so they came to us wanting to look more like a construction company, or not necessarily more like a construction company. They wanted to look more professional. And generally, that means to most people is that. But thankfully, they are big thinkers and trusted the process. And we realized that every one of the five gaps was right there in front of us. So, you know, the lineup was there. So the brand sat in a row. You know, you could do a bunch of high-vis standard kind of construction places and it would not stand out. It looked the same, right? So you couldn't pick them out. And when they're a family that are building with such, like, I guess, inclusive creative design thinking, that that needed so much more. It was like invisible when you put them into the category. So that was one, right? So then number two is the wrong fit. So the inquiries, they were come, there were some coming, but there were still price shoppers. And we started to cater down on who were the ones that were coming through that they wanted, and we expanded more on that cat on that audience, not category, that audience itself and what they brought to the table. That was where the gold lay, and that's where we kind of tapped into. And obviously we created off the back of that, but this is something that we need to look at because the brand said generic builder, and they were so much more than that. They knew that. That's why they came to me. So we wanted to turn them into something pretty amazing. And so gap three was the name swap. Um, we kept the name there, it was important. Uh, but there was another a whole bunch of other ridgelines that were popping up. So we needed to make it look different. So what we did was built in a really cool creative element that could visualize them on first glance. With that creative element, we have now replicated that as a graphical piece, like a brand mark that could be it's like continued through all of their collateral, so continuity piece, so it connects all the pieces together. So when you see that symbol, you instantaneously remember the name once you've seen it a few times. That's the goal. And that's what we did there. And then we had gap four, which was the edit. So things like the dog wash station, the quiet rooms, and the veggie garden, the most them things, they were what we discussed just on nonchalant on the side. And this is why we have our one-on-one conversations. And people say, You didn't send any brand questionnaire through. Absolutely not. No way. Because if I send you a brand questionnaire through, you're going to think about that answer you put down and put it down on a piece of paper. When I'm having conversations with you in person, we go on sidebars. And it's always the sidebars that find the gold. So I will never send a questionnaire out because I don't want that to happen. I want to find the sidebars. I want the natural conversation to flow. I want to go into stories and uh things that just come off cuff that you would remember when you're prompted by questions. And that's why I never have a really big set. I'll I have a bunch of different questions I ask, but I skip through and ask the right ones that I think are catered to that client and without fail every time we find the absolute gems through these just initial first conversations. So the most of them things, as I said, weren't in the brand, but we wanted that to really come out because I guess for some people, they would think that that's not the right terminology to use for construction because it felt a bit soft, but it's not. When you're talking to people that are buying a house and they want their whole selves built into that house, you've got to think about emotion. They're thinking about memories, they're thinking about their families, and they're thinking about the legacy that they're leaving, and they're thinking about the spaces that they have. And when you go into a project home, for instance, uh, if you've ever been in one, most of the time you're visualizing what that would look like. If I had to get up in the morning and walk out to the kitchen, how can I see myself in this spot? You need to be able to make the client or the customer that is reading your brand visualize what it would be like to either A, use your product or your service. And that's a really important thing. If they can't do that, there's a missed opportunity there. So the real brief was the exact opposite of potentially of what they walked in with. I think they knew they wanted something different, but not like what they did. And I think what's really cool about Robin Sky is they're very open-minded and they're very out there in their thinking. And I love that. And being open-minded and open open, like open in your thinking allows you to push boundaries. The brand looks freaking awesome, by the way. We're going to share it later this week. So stay tuned for that. But when the brand, I'll leave this, when the brand reflects the actual humans, it will attract the clients who share those values. And there's no convincing required. You don't have to try and sell it as hard. So if you're out there trying to constantly sell, it's because something's missing. There's a connection piece missing. It's the congruence. It does the selling, the connection piece. And a lot of the time I share my thoughts on my Instagram stories on my personal page about how I see the system, about where I stand in terms of what I think is right. And all of these things about, you know, I'll go on a big, long, 10 series breakdown, and people stay right to the end. It's crazy. Can't do that in a real. So the people that are there are there for the long haul. They get these like mini podcast episodes in my stories about the way I think and the way I do things. And it's those that have sold my clients. Almost all of my clients are watching me over there and they go, yep. And it gets to a point where they're like, I need to work with her. She is the one that gets my thinking. Or the convers the thing that I get all the time is I love the way that you think, or I love the way your your brain works. And that's what actually gets a lot of our people through the door. That's not on the website. That just kind of comes through conversation, through our content, through everywhere, but it is through our content. And I guess the thinking, sorry, that's a lie, it does come through our website because of the way that we're approaching our positioning. And that's the big difference there. So how are you doing that? And do you think it is right? Because when Sky and Rob came, they were I guess they were not looking to build a new brand, but they stopped hiding the one that they had because it was perfect in all of the places. So if your brand looks like your industry, which is common, I say this a lot with design, is that they show their best design. It looks like a beautiful portfolio when you go to their page, but it show tells me nothing about the the studio or the people that work there. So everyone tries to copy what everyone else is doing and creating these beautiful aesthetic pages and these beautiful artworks, but it tells you nothing about their thinking. Um and yeah, I think that that's that's just our category. I I would love to go through with a fine-tooth comb and go, this is what you need to be doing. Uh, and that's the important thing, is it's creating that point of difference because being safe is neutral. It's a default, and that's a cost. It actually costs you time and money, and it's being charged every single day. So every day the brand looks like the category instead of like you, and it's asking your right fit client to do the work of recognizing you. So, how do you differentiate? They've got to try and figure that out, you know, and that then builds mental load. I've got to find out more about these people. So they're gonna go to the quickest and easiest decision. Someone that's already told them about them, and if they fit in that space, then they're gonna get picked over you. And not because they're better, but because they've given them the most information. And that's the hard part. So if you're not showing that front and center, most of them will not do the work. They, why would they? Why should they have to? They'll just keep scrolling or they won't look anymore. And the most uncomfortable part, I think, is that, and I say this with complete love and care, is, and not as an accusation, you've probably felt at least one of those five gaps. Easily. And probably for a while now, if we're being honest, and you did not have it as a gap yet. So you let it sit. You didn't know it was a problem, you just let it slide. This is everyone does this. I didn't know I need this. Hmm. I've been anyway, it's it's not my job. Uh, a lot of people using AI these days will go and say, I've got this and I've got that, and they'll write this really generic version of what they think they are, and they've missed so much of the cool creative process that will dive in and pull out the really great insights. And that comes from experience and time and genuine connection. So I guess what I would say is what can you do now? You do not need to go and reinvent the brand this week. Don't do that. You need to go and look in the five places. That's the whole job. That's what you need to do. Because if you try and upheave everything at the same time, which I don't recommend ever, you're going to change a whole bunch of stuff that may not be broken. And yeah, then you've got problem number two. So I like to do what I call a progressional change. If you've got an existing brand, if you're doing a rebrand, it's different because you're kind of doing that from the start. You're doing all of these stuff, all of the stuff with us, um, or all of the stuff with the person that you're doing the brand with, hopefully, if they're doing it correctly. I know a lot of people just do visual identity and they do the whole beginning phase. Anyway, choosing the right person is really important. Um, we may not be your fit, someone may be better fit. Uh, so it is about finding the right person as well. But the thing is going through that process. And I went through that process with someone that really spent time. Like we had two two-hour sessions where it pulled out data about me, about the business. And this is what we do with our clients. We pull the data out. That data then becomes insight. We go through and we over-analyse everything that we go through based on the conversations that we've had. And these conversations are triggered by the way that you ask questions. And so, anyone that's in the game for a really long time knows the right questions to ask. If you don't know the right questions to ask, you can't prompt AI. So there's that. But yes, I just want to keep you settled that you don't have to go and completely change everything. But it is important that you keep your brand updated, you keep the things that you're doing updated, especially when everything's moving. So keeping it simple is a brand that looks like everyone else isn't safe. It's actually quite dangerous. And it's invisible to everyone, and you don't want that either. Okay, in a game of visibility, you don't want to be invisible. And you do not need to go and redo everything this week, as I just said. You need to go and look in those core five

Free Audit Workshop And Closing

SPEAKER_00 56:10

places. Got the brand gap finder on our website, I think. I don't even know how bad is that. I'll drop it in the show notes. But that's there. That's a really cool analysis, score scorecard analysis you can do. It's an audit, it's free that you can download. But one last thing, which is important, is we have a in-person workshop, an in-person workshop happening Tuesday, June 9 in Oran Park in Sydney, so southwestern Sydney. It's called the Underground. And what we're going to be doing is a full-day workshop where we're breaking open this. Where there is a whole three parts to this I've worked really hard on that goes from the whole system that we work by at your one and only, which is what I've been built, building, built, building for the past, you know, really cementing this for the past few years. And our D3 framework is built from that. It is our workshop has been built from that, but it really does reflect the ident identity aspect, the consumer aspect, so how you talk to the consumer, and then merging those two together to create something that really helps you understand you, helps you understand your people, then creating something that you can work with together in the third part. So it's trying to get you to map down the gaps so that you leave going, oh my god, this is why I haven't been doing what I need to do. And it will give you such a good thinking process on what you should be focusing on next. So, as usual, if you're keen, you can jump on and have a look at that. I'll put that in the show notes as well. Otherwise, you can jump over to Instagram. I've been talking about that over there. Aside from that, I will. I'm going, have I read everything? Is there anything I needed to tell you guys? No, that's it. Okay, I will talk to you 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 want and only underscore AU on Instagram or head to www.ywan and only.com.au