What Is a Brand, Really? (Hint: It’s Not Your Logo)

Brand can help nudge behavior in a positive way. So that's why I think it's so, like, powerful with brands. Like, we can do, we can make things happen. We can, we can change behavior. We can, we can take responsibility. And make an impact on the globe and- Yeah ... and people all around the globe, and I love that.

I, yeah, mic drop right there. We're done. Don't need to talk anymore.

Welcome to the Marketing Team of One podcast, where we have conversations about the issues one-person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now here's your hosts, Eric and Mike. Welcome back to the Marketing Team of One podcast. My guest today is Ms. Annelie Hanson, a brand strategist based in Sweden, who's spent close to 30 years building brands.

She ran corporate brand and marketing at Lantmanen, the Swedish farmer-owned food cooperative, where the brand was twice named Sweden's most sustainable and won a national prize for long-term brand-building. She's worked with brands like Levi's, Coca-Cola, and Volvo, taught thousands of creatives through her brand strategy fundamentals course with The Future, and now leads Brand Rebels for Good, a community that helps creatives and marketers lead with strategy.

Her motto is, "Driven by purpose, fueled by profit." Today, we tackle the question every marketing team of one hears from their CEO: what's the ROI on brand? We get into long term versus short term, why you can't control your brand the way you used to, and where AI fits in. Welcome to the show, Ms. Annelie Hanson.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure, and we are truly honored to have somebody of your expertise, of your level here on the show. So thank you so much. Thank you. I'm really, uh, w- I'm curious. I have so many questions. But first of all, how did you get started in this, and where, where... Give us your origin story.

Yeah. I actually had no desire or no dreams to work with brands whatsoever. I didn't even know what a brand was growing up. I grew up on this island in the archipelago of Stockholm. Nice. And it was 400 people living on this island, uh, 30 people, 30 students in my entire school. Wow. So we were a class of four, five people.

And so we basically were, like, we didn't know so much about brands. But it wasn't until I started a bigger school when I was 13, and you go to this school, and all of a sudden it's not just 30 students in the entire school, it's 30 in your class. And now you start to realize, like, okay, there are groups of people here.

We didn't have that in my school. Mm. There are the cool kids. You know, there are the athletes, the nerds- Yeah ... different kind of people. And for the first time, I realized what a brand is, and I realized what the entry point was to actually get into to even have friends. Wow. And that was to own a pair of Levi's.

So for the first time, I was like, "Okay, I might not care so much about the Levi's, but I do care about status, and I care about belonging. So please, Mom and Dad, buy me a pair of Levi's." They did, luckily, like, one pair, because we didn't have so much money. Yeah. So I basically wore them for years, you know?

That was the entry point on belonging. Interesting. So then that's how I kind of, my entry point to brands and what it meant. And long story short, when I was about 23, 24 and had my first, uh, job as an agency, a PR agency in Sweden, one of the most, like, leading ones, then I got my first client, and the client was Levi's.

Oh, my gosh. And they had their headquarter for Scandinavia in Copenhagen, and so that was my, like, first account. Geez. And I thought that was pretty cool because it's like, wow, full circle. That's, that's amazing. A California company, by the way. I just need to shout out to- Yeah ... Levi's. Yes. Thank you. Um, that's really, really cool.

Amazing that you had that opportunity, and it is kind of funny the way the universe works sometimes, isn't it? The way you can kind of manifest- Yeah ... your future a little bit. Yeah. Now, did you study design? Were you more a writing, PR, positioning person when you came out of school? No, the funny thing is that I didn't, neither of those things.

I- I ended school, like, when I was about 17, turned 18. I moved to Chicago for six month. I was a nanny. I was supposed to be there for a year, but my then boyfriend, now husband, missed me so much he wanted me to get back home. So I did, but I didn't have any, like, education. So the only thing that I was really good at was meeting with people and talking to strangers, basically.

So I'm like, "The only thing I think I can do is to have a job in sales." Interesting. So that's how I started, in sales. Oh. But after working with that for, like, three, four, five years, and I was starting up, like, a magazine that I was responsible for all these, like, ads and revenue, and I worked with all these, like, lifestyle...

That's actually how I got Levi's later, because I worked with all these lifestyle companies, uh, that were advertising, like, you know, um, music labels and, uh, fashion and, you know, all these, like, kind of, Levi's, um, uh, yeah, I don't remember all of them. Fun, fun brands. But it was, like, really cool, like- Yeah

lifestyle brands. Sure. And I was like, "I don't wanna sell ads to them. I wanna work with them." Mm-hmm. So then I called. And, like, it was a phone book back then, you know? Ah, yeah. So I was like, "Hmm- Memories ... I wonder what they called." And, like, if I wanna work with them, and then I realized there's advertising agencies, and there are PR agencies and others.

So I'm like, "PR sounds kind of fun." Mm-hmm. So I called them and I'm like, "Hey, I would like to work with you." They're like, "So what's your education?" I'm like, "Hmm, high school." I didn't have so much. And then they're like, "Okay, but we have hundreds of people, and all, we have a requirement that you need to have university degree."

And I'm like, "Okay, great, but I have something that they don't have. I have years of experience of working with lifestyle brands, and I'm really good around people. I can do whatever it takes. You know, make coffee, ri- I do whatever it takes. I just wanna work with you." Nice. And they're like, "Okay, come by for a coffee."

So they said, "Okay, this sounds really good." And I'm like, "There's just one thing. I need you to pay for my education, 'cause I can't pay for it myself." I wanted to go to one of the best leading creative schools in Stockholm called Berghs School of Communication, and it's, like, basically, like, art center or something like that, and it was really expensive.

Yeah. So we decided that I would work, they would pay for that two-year education for me, and I would work for them for less salary. I worked my ass off, sorry, my language- It's okay ... for two years because I could not afford to do it any other way. So I don't have that background. So I studied marketing strategy, and that's how I got into, like, understanding how we actually grow brands.

Nice. So that's my background. It's very not fancy at all. That's why I call myself a street strategist, because- ... I think a lot of what I learned actually come from just working with clients, you know, coming from sales- Yeah ... understanding the importance of actually connecting with people. I think what's important, too, is the perspective that you brought was, like you said, you...

I think there's, there, there's a value to coming in from that sales side- Mm-hmm ... not even the marketing side of it, because you're right there with the customers. You understand the dynamics of the brand itself. You're working with it all the time and helping to kind of build out that or speak to it, breathe life to it right there in front of a customer, which is- Yeah

so important when you're working with a brand, that a brand designer sits back in their laboratory and- Yes ... you know- Yeah ... tweaks all the things, and then sends it out into the world, and doesn't know sometimes the reality of how it affects the real people in the sales field. And I think one thing that I also learned, that I have a lot of respect for now, that's also why I love bringing in marketing people, sales people, and people in customer service, is because I realized when I was selling, to have a strong brand who had awareness- Mm

and recognition was actually making my work so much easier. So I- Interesting ... realized if they have a brand, it's easy to sell. Yeah. If they don't have a brand- I, I have to compete with price. So I learned that so early on, and that's like- Yeah ... the foundation of why we even build a brand. And it, in a sense, on the sales side of things, a great brand sells itself.

Not that you weren't good at what you were doing, but it made it so- Yeah ... much easier, right, to walk into those conversations. Yeah. I love the hustle. Very inspiring. You just grind it out. You know, go in there, put your foot down. I did. "I need a job here, and you're gonna pay for my school." I love that.

Mm-hmm. Very inspiring. I think that people can still pull that off today. I, I really do. I, I think that- Yeah ... if you show that kind of initiative and u- and spunk, brand, you know, companies wanna work with people like, like you, in a sense, just thinking back- Yes ... to your beginning, right? I can see that. I mean, m- I can see that in my niece now.

She's 19, and she has three jobs. Wow. She, she's like, "I don't understand why people don't get any work. Like, I have three." And I'm like, "Yeah." "It's because you're not waiting for them to call you. You're actually calling them." Yeah, yeah. You're, you're d- you're breathing life into it. You're, you're m- manifesting it into the real world- Yeah

too, a little bit, right? I'm, I'm a little proud when I can see, when I see her do that because I'm like- Well, yeah ... "You got it." Yeah. That's really awesome. That, good for her. Good for her, good for you. Mm-hmm. Um, let's talk a little bit about, let's go back then. We're not gonna touch on the ROI of brand yet. I think you've already touched on one of the main things that is so powerful about having a great brand.

But you work a lot with brand strategy. Mm-hmm. A lot of people think it's a workshop before you do a logo, but really, what, what do you bring out in that process when you're working with or- companies and organizations? 'Cause right now, what you, com- big companies come to you, they call you- Yeah ... for brand strategy.

They don't call you for a logo, right? I mean, how does that initia- initiation, how does that initiation start with that company? First of all, because I'm not a designer, so I don't do the logo. I work with designers. That probably help. Yeah. My reputation is more that I'm actually the one who know how to grow a brand and, um, work with marketing strategy.

So I think that helps me. Mm-hmm. I often tell people brand strategy is like the face of the business strategy. Right. Business strategy's a lot of, like, how do we grow the organization, the financial part. You know, all the- Yeah ... operational things. Yeah. But brand strategy's like the face of that because we don't have a business unless we have customers.

So we need to understand who they are, what kind of problems they have, how we can actually solve these problems, and the brand goals need to be aligned with the business goals. Like, where do we even wanna go? Hmm. Because if we don't know where we're heading, like, if we don't know the goals, how do we even know what to do to reach the goals?

Hmm. So it starts- Yeah ... with the business goals, setting the brand goals connected to that, the vision, the mission. If we have a purpose, you know, values, and not least, when it comes to that whole identity, who we are and why we exist, and a personality. Especially in this day of AI, you know, we need to have a personality to actually stand out and have a voice, a tone of voice.

So that's what we do. We actually know, like, w- who we are, what we stand for, what we stand up against. Mm-hmm. And then how we want to be perceived by people, what we want them to associate us with, how we're different from our competitors. So when we know who we are, we know who we talk to, then we need to know how to position ourselves in the market.

That's the only way of not having to compete with price So that's what I do. That is brand strategy, and I don't understand how you can do any marketing or any design without doing that work first. That would just be totally guesswork, and that's a waste of money. You're building the soul. You're building almost...

And I heard this mentioned yesterday when I was, somebody was talking about Elon Musk and Tesla, and we, you know- Mm-hmm ... say what you will about him, but he builds a religion into his brands. And it's almost like the same type of a thing, where people just, you build this kind of set of rules, set of understandings, that there is the business- Mm-hmm

there's the branding, and all the art and design pieces that are with that. But the brand strategy, I think w- you've illustrated this before, is kind of that center circle that- Yeah ... combines both of those things, correct? Yeah, and it comes after the business strategy. Okay. It comes before the marketing strategy, and this is really important, because a lot of people think, they talk about it as branding, and that branding is a part of marketing.

But this brand strategy comes first. Yeah. And then after that comes marketing strategy with the four P we all know if we study marketing, and Kotler back in the days, like, you know, the product, and the price, and, and the place, which is like the distribution, where do we sell it? Mm-hmm. And the promotion.

That comes after. So first of all, we need to kind of set that, build that world. It's basically a world of- Yeah ... the brand. Interesting. Now, you had, you had mentioned there's the four Ps, but you have five P- Yeah ... you have five other Ps that you add onto this for Ms. Annelie's nine P system? Yeah. I know you were talking about this.

Do you wanna know w- what they are? I, well, that's, well, I would love to know. Our audience was dying to know. I just thought it would be e- I mean, I know P- Kotler, he think probably has nine Ps or something like that instead of four right now. But I just thought it's easier to have everything start with the same letter, you know?

So the first part is purpose. Mm. And purpose could be purpose or mission. It doesn't really matter what, but it's all about, like, why do we exist, and why should people care? You know the Simon Sinek thing, what he talks about- Yeah ... with the why. Five whys, yeah. I think there must be a, a deeper thing to the meaning behind the brand.

Mm. That's the purpose. So when we have that, we go into personality. And that, again, is kind of a way of humanizing a company or a product, so at least it has a voice. It l- Yeah ... you know, we, we, we want to have that, like, how do we talk? How do we show up? How do we look? If we don't set that foundation, it's really difficult to start doing any design or any messaging or any marketing at all.

So that's like, we need to figure out who this brand is. Sometimes it's a personal brand, but when it's a company, it's kind of a made-up brand, you know? Yeah. So we need to create that. And then after personality, uh, we have people. And people, it's basically what it sound like. Who do we actually talk to? We need to prioritize, and this is a lot of challenging for people that I work with, and myself included sometimes, that we wanna talk to everyone, because it's really difficult to make a decision to focus on one group of people.

But if we have endless of resources, budget, and a really big team, we can talk to a really big group of people, like Coca-Cola and Levi's. Mm. But most all my clients don't have that, so then we have to prioritize, like, what is my piece of the pie? You know, the pie is the market, and what- Yeah ... is my piece?

And then so we talk about segmentation in marketing language, and then targeting. So who do we really talk to? And from knowing that, we go into positioning. So when we know that, we do some research. Who do we compete against? Because this is a competition. Yeah. So who are we up against? Uh, and then how do we want people to perceive us?

So what do we wanna be associated with? How are we different from others? How do we stand out? Why would people pay more for us than for someone else? Mm. If that is how we want to position ourselves. A lot of people don't like to compete with price because it's kind of a race to the bottom. Yeah. So that's also the reason why we wanna build a brand.

So when we have that, this last, uh, of the five P is planning. Mm. Because no strategy without a long-term plan. I mean, otherwise it could end up in, like, a really nice document that you don't know what to do with. So we need to see, like, where are you today, current state, where's the desired future state, and how do we actually get there?

It doesn't sound so complicated, but it's more of actually facilitating these conversations and making decisions about things. That's the process that I help people do. Yeah, and I think what's interesting is you, it's a very holistic approach to it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I think a lot of marketers get so g- focused in on campaign or messaging around this offer, or...

But what you really do start with is this y- you really build it out from kind of the central soul or heart of the company itself, make very strategic decisions based- Mm-hmm ... on, I think, the budget's always the limit, right? Yeah. Especially with marketing teams of one when we've got small organizations, small budgets.

Mm-hmm, yeah. But just driving down, niching down is w- another phrase that I hear, you know, really driving into those people in that market and being very- Yeah ... uh, very, very tiny. They're always working on the promotion part of it. They don't work, they don't, they don't even know about the product sometimes.

They're just like, "All right, just give me the product and I'll sell it- Yeah ... or whatever it is," you know? As opposed to the really they need to look at from a brand strategist standpoint, it's all that stuff together, in a way. I think I heard Mark Ritson or someone else say that, that most marketing directors nowadays are just focusing on promotion, like you said.

Mm. They don't really, they're not even invited in product development, and in pricing, and in distribution, which is, like, the core in marketing. So I find that, that marketing have become more and more tactic. People are obsessed with return on investment. Yeah. I'm obsessed with doing the right thing for the right group of people.

Because if you do the wrong thing, you can talk about ROI all day long, but you're just wasting your money because you don't even know what to prioritize. That's smart. That's very smart. And I think the smaller the organization, the more important that is, right? Yeah. You can't- 'Cause dollars are so scarce

you can't, like, you can't afford to do the wrong things. Yeah. Talk a little bit about, there was a farmer cooperative that you had worked with, and there was a story that you had, we had talked about that was promising this field-to-fork. It was a local, a, a brand that you were working on. You were brought in.

Um, tell, tell us that story. Okay. So Lantmännen is actually, it's not a local, it's northern Europe's- Oh ... biggest cooperative when it comes to- Tiny little company. Tiny little... Sorry. Tiny company. Yeah. 15,000 employees back then, and a- ... multi-billion dollar company. Okay. Uh, yeah. So my yearly budget for marketing in that b- uh, brand marketing every year, and branding, was around 7 million US dollars.

Hello. Yeah. So it wasn't- Nice ... that small. Yeah. And, uh, what I loved with that is that it's owned by Swedish farmers. Hmm. Nice. So the whole... You know, often when we talk about brand strategy, sounds like we're going to come up with something that we invent, but it's not about that at all. It's already, with all companies out there, there's always a story to be told.

Hmm. Like, there's a founder's story. There's a reason why this company exists and started from first place, and this cooperative is over 100 years. Wow. So the story was already there. So I just had to help find that story and give people the confidence in consistently telling that story instead of doing a lot of other cool, creative things that gave them awards for things.

But I'm like- Hmm ... "We have a real story to tell here." We, we don't need to, we don't compete with anyone if we tell our real story. But if you wanna do what everyone else is doing- And this is also why a lot of people get kind of lost because they want... Agencies wanna do cool stuff to win- ... cool awards. Right.

But I'm like, "I'm working for my client to actually, you know, help them to grow their business. That's my goal." I- That's m- much more important than any awards, you know? Yeah. So for me, it was really like, of helping them to find that. I was supposed to be there for six month. I, I ended up being, or working with them almost five years- Nice

full-time, and it was amazing. So what, what happened then, the story you referred to is- When you have things you wanna be associated with as a brand, for us that was Swedish farmers, Swedish food, sustainability, and we had responsibility in all parts of from agriculture to actually putting the food on the table.

Yeah. So we had the products in a whole chain, and we could take responsibilities in all steps. So when you wanna do that, and when you, uh, wanna associate with the right things, the brand needs to have these principles so everyone knows what it stand for and can make the right decisions. So we had this scenario which was like all...

could have been ca- catastrophe, but it wasn't because we could stop it in time, and they were about to buy apples from China for our cereals. What? And we're like, "Hey, guys. This is connected to Swedish farmers, Swedish food." But because we didn't have enough policies and, you know, directions how to think, they thought they were going to buy something that just met the standard for sustainability but was as low price as possible.

Yeah. So these are the things that we need to check all the small details because a brand or, like, brand strategy, branding is not just these big campaigns and doing things. It's, like, the actions we take in everyday decisions. Yeah. The return on that investment and saving money on apples is just gonna get burned in the marketplace when people hear that because- Yes

they're gonna be like, "Wait a minute. This brand doesn't stand up for what we want." And I would assume that being in Sweden, a little bit more of a progressive country, that this was a, this was an advantage that Lantmännen had, was we're promoting this because people in this country are passionate about supporting their local farms or- Yeah

supporting their local agriculture, and it did- Mm-hmm ... separate you, and you own that story over maybe a lot of other brands. Did that give you a competitive advantage to stick with that story? 'Cause I think that's- Yeah ... where people fly off the rails a little bit is- Mm-hmm ... "Oh, yeah, we have a story, and it was Bill and this truck, and it was 14 years ago."

Yeah. And, like, th- that's not a competitive advantage story. I think what you're talking about is leaning into the things that separate, differentiate, and build some passion around. Mm-hmm. And, and build that kind of religion around the brand a little bit. Yeah. How do people do that when it's just Bill and his truck, and he likes plumbing and...

You know, like, take a little bit more of a maybe more pedestrian- Mm-hmm ... example. Is that a harder story to tell, or is it something... How, how would you face that challenge, let's say? I mean, I think if you think about an analogy, like a similar thing but something different, like, there's so many things going on in the world, like, right, war, crisis, things.

What actually affects you the most are- Mm ... things that happened close to you, like close to home. Yeah. Local things affect us much more. True. If there are... If there's a war, if there are kids dying, it... Horrible, horrible things. But it- as far- you know, if it's i- in some other part of the world and you can't even relate to it- Yeah

you feel awful. Like, you feel really sad when you read about it, but it's not the same thing as if you read about something happening really close to where you live. Oh, true. Right. It's the same thing with brands. That the brands that I talked about for Lantmännen is actually commodities, all of them, because it's like- Mm

cereal, it's pasta, these kind of, you know, products. Yeah, yeah. Basic food products. It's, it's really a commodity. They're everywhere, and it's not that big difference from it. The interesting thing is the same product in Sweden and Norway and Denmark had three different brands. Hm. The reason w- exactly the same product.

The reason is because Norwegian farmers don't wanna buy Swedish farmers' food. Interesting. Huh. So in Denmark, they wanna buy the Danish, you know, food. Right. In Norway, the Norwegian, in Sweden, the Swedish. So it's the same product, but it's- Yeah ... just three different brands. True. And this is because we have a different relationship with what's local.

So all brands or companies can think about this, that if you're on a local market, people do actually care a little bit extra about this story, where you're from, why you do what you do. Like, this whole, like, narrative Around, and they're willing to pay extra for that. So the storytelling is what people remember.

And even with a commoditized product, that's a really great example because pasta- Yeah ... you know, I mean, and cereal and grains and commoditized things like that, you... It's not like I'm s- Google, searching the globe for the best, you know, rice cereal or whatever cereal. Yeah. You know, wheat, you know, Cheerios or something like that.

Um- But if you feel like the s- the, the farmers are, like, the heroes, and they- Yeah ... are giving, we're really grateful that they give us food every day on the table, I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of quality because maybe I know the pasta from Italy is a little bit better. Yeah. We're willing to sacrifice a little bit, even though the same price, because I wanna support the Swedish farmers, and I also wanna know that what I'm buying, that they could take responsibility from the farming to the table, and I know that they're doing this, and I trust that.

That's what I'm buying, my support for them. So, and I think this could apply to any business, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Well- And I mean, just look at commodities like, I've been selling, like, I've been working with Red Bull a little bit too, for events. Hm. Fun. It's just, like, sugar- I mean, it's like water and sugar, right?

Uh, Coca-Cola, water and sugar. Yeah. Horrible, horrible fla- products. And, uh, and I just feel like if... And Liquid Death is water. So if we can sell, like, commodities like water, water and sugar, pasta, if that could actually be brands worth a million billions of dollars, then anyone could build a brand. That's a very good point.

Okay. Well, let's, let's talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room, which is my initial question, one of the, one of the big reasons that I wanted... I'm on this adventure here to talk to as many people as I possibly- Mm-hmm ... can about the idea behind ROI and rebrand. Because it's a hard thing for people to understand because not only is the time length much longer than, "Hey, I can do digital marketing, and I'm gonna try this, and I'm gonna try that, and I'm gonna try this- Yeah

and I'm gonna try that, and, oh, that worked, that didn't." It's a lot more of an immediate return than what we see on branding and rebranding and things like that, so. Mm-hmm. I hear this challenge occasionally from clients, and sometimes it's around marketing, but, uh, oftentimes it's around brand. If I give you $80,000 to rebrand my company, organization, whatever it is, and I'm just making up a number- Mm-hmm

I need to make that back in nine months to pay for it. Do you ever get that challenge? Do you ever have to deal with that kind of questioning around something as critical as a rebrand process? Very rarely do people say things to me like that. I don't know why. Maybe they- I guess you're at a much higher level than I'm doing with it

ma- no, maybe they're scared. I mean, most people, if they actually want help to develop their brands or doing a rebrand, they know they have a problem, and they actually want to work with someone who can guide them, so they already bought into it. Okay. But if I'm thinking about small companies and- How we can help the best is to actually have a conversations first around what is the real problem here.

Mm. Because I think sometimes people jump into conclusions way too fast. Like, "We need a rebrand. We need to do this and that." It's like how do you know that is the ri- the right thing to do? Mm. So first of all, we need to have a conversation around that. Like, okay, so where are you today? Where do you see yourself in a year from now or three years, five years from now if everything worked out perfectly?

Yeah. And what stands in your way for actually getting there? Mm. And this is, like, basic what we do in coaching, but it's the same thing with strategy. It's like we need to know where the real problem is. So is the problem that people are not willing to pay any extra for your brand so you have to compete with price?

Mm. That's one problem that could be, you know. Could be that not enough people know about that you exist. It could be that you perceived in a way or you think, and it felt like you're stuck in the '80s or '90s, and you actually didn't, you know, update anything. Mm-hmm. So there could be a lot of different reason.

It could be that your sales is not enough, that you need to drive more sales. So first of all, we need to have a conversation about what is the real problem here. I think what we need to look, what I don't like when people do is that when they jump into something and feel like, "Okay, we just, we need to change your logo and how you look like, and now this is going to help your business."

Hmm. Sometimes, sometimes it actually hurt your business. So I'm going to work with a school, like that has a really established brand. Hmm. We need to do a little b- bit of a reposition and a refresh, but I'm really careful because I know that their brand awareness is really high. Yeah. The recognition of their logo is extremely high.

Hmm. Like, it, that would be like if you're IKEA, if you're Apple, if you're, you know, a big company, you're not just changing your logo. You're making, like those tiny adjustments. Maybe they've done that 20 times over years and people don't even notice, really. Interesting. Yeah, Google. You know? Yeah. You need to s- you need to, with respect, look into what recognizable assets do they have connected to the brand today, and then make a choice what do we need to change or not.

So I don't know what we will do exactly in this case for them, but it's more about how they position themselves in the market, who they actually talk to, how they want to be perceived by the market. Yeah. The position they want. That's where we start that work, and I have no idea yet what kind of changes and updates we will do with the visual identity, because that comes later.

So when we have these conversations, I, is it, y- is it just the CEO and leadership team, executive team? Uh, do we bring marketing in? Is marketing just static? Is the sales team? Is it everybody? I mean, what are the- Yeah ... dynamics around some of these conversations, and how you craft them to get the right...

'Cause I know there are times when we've tried to get in touch with leadership when we have to maybe work on a big website- Mm-hmm ... redesign or something like that, and we really need somebody, an adult in the room on their team- Mm-hmm ... that needs to come in and be the decider and be like, "These are our priorities.

This is the hierarchy of importance around things." And oftentimes they're disinterested. They don't even care, or they don't think it's important for them to be in the room. Yeah. So, how do you struggle? How do you navigate some of those maybe political concerns? How do you bring a room together? I'm assuming that you're doing a lot of workshopping, talking to different groups at different- Mm-hmm

times or all together at once. I mean, it depends on how big company it is. Because, you know, where I used to work, um, I was the person who was responsible for that, you know, brand. Hmm. But the CEO, he didn't wor- he, first of all, he didn't know anything about brand and marketing- Mm ... and it was not on his table.

Yeah. So he made, of course he was involved in, like, knowing the strategy, knowing what everything meant, but it wasn't his specialty. So if you work for a really big company, of course there's, like, someone, a marketing director or a CMO, whatever titles they have- Mm-hmm ... that probably is going to be your client.

If you work with smaller companies, I would not even do work unless I have the CEO as my client. Okay. Because if we think about what I started to say, like, brand strategy is the face of the business strategy. Yeah. So people believe that, that you don't have a business unless you have customers If you believe that, then you better care about what the customer actually think of your- Yeah

company and your products. Because if you don't understand that, you will have a bigger problem than just a brand strategy. Like, it's the whole engine, it's what drives the company forward. Right. So I have to work with the CEO, and then of course we bring in a team of people. So if there's a marketing department, they need to be part of this too, because they're going to take care of all the implementation and the brand management after we're done, and the marketing management.

So w- they are responsible for actually implementing and manage the brand. So often I have a little team of people that I work with, and then when we do workshops, depending on how big the company is, but for this school that I'm going to work with, she wanted, CEO, wanted us to also include the teachers, and we're also going to include employees.

Wow. And, and the board. So everyone's going to be include, a lot of stakeholders. Yeah. So I'm going to run the workshops with a lot of people. And I actually like that, but that comes with a little experience. Um, because what happens often is that you do work, and you're really proud of that, and they like, "Okay, here's a really nice strategy document."

And then it's like, "What now? What are we doing with this?" Yeah. And then people start like, "Oh, I don't know if that was a gr- great idea. I don't know how to implement that." And then they forget about it. But if you have people with you from the first day, and they're part of this workshop and creating this together, sure, you will have a lot of tension.

People will fight a little bit. The, some people will cry. I love tension- ... when it's brand strategy because it's like- Crying, yeah ... people are supposed to have feelings around this. Otherwise- That's good ... they don't really care. So let's fight a little bit. Let's argue a little bit, but then we align around something.

And when we align, then the magic happens because we already kind of implement it because everyone is on board. Everyone wants this to happen. And like 80% of the work is already there And they've gotten everything off their chest. Yeah. They've said what they've said. Yeah. They've maybe had a conversation that maybe changed their mind a little bit, or maybe they changed somebody else's mind.

Yes. So, yeah. And also, it's not just about them. I always do research with their customers. So I can say- Mm ... we can, we can think whatever we think, but I just did research with your customer- Yeah ... or with your ideal client personas that you want to work with, and this what's important for them. Mm. So then you also get the perspective of what the market actually want.

I think that's- And then it's difficult to argue with that. Yeah. I was gonna say, that's valuable feedback or info for people to like, "Oh, well, the customer said this. I- we can't ignore that." You gotta listen to that. Yes. Uh- Do you ever incorporate the customers or have that as part of the dynamic in any of these at all, like a representative of the customers, maybe five or six or something?

No, but I always do eight to 10 deep interviews- Mm ... with And that is because I want all these, like, surveys that you can do, or focus groups, and today people think they can replace it with AI. It's just ridiculous. Yeah. It's so generic. Like, what you don't get, what I get when I talk to people one-on-one is not- Yeah

like a survey. It's deep interviews about their behavior. Like, what is behind what they're first saying? Like, why do they take action the way they do? Oh. How does their buyer behavior look like? Like, why do they choose that brand instead of that? Like, what are their deeper problems? And even things that they think it's difficult to talk about, like status and belonging and identity.

Why do you buy one thing instead of something else? I figure all this out, and I do that with having conversations with them, and then I take notes about all these things. You know, they can say things like, I'm like, "Oh my God, that's a tag line." Like- ... because it's so... things that you can't come up with. Yeah.

It just comes from them, and that's the beauty of doing this, because AI cannot replace that. I think it's interesting. How do you... Do you get a lot of pushback sometimes when you say, "We're only gonna talk to eight or 10 people"? 'Cause I know when you go higher up the dollar bill ladder- Mm-hmm ... as far as clients and size and all that stuff, I mean, I was just, uh, reading, uh, The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier's book, about he was involved with Apple- Mm-hmm

and one of their, you know, they did some local, just talked to five or 10 people- Yeah ... got some ideas about a brand change or a, a refinement of a product name or something like that. Mm-hmm. And then they're like, "Okay, let's open this up," and they went all over the country, all over the globe, spent a quarter of a b- million dollars figuring everything out, and then came back to everything and said, "Yeah, pretty much what those five people said-

was pretty much accurate." How do you... Uh, do you have similar experiences? I mean, have you had to fight back with people who say, "Okay- Yeah ... let's go down this research road that's gonna take us 300 grand into the, into the hole here." How do you talk about that? Yeah, because when people have budget, I always suggest that we would do sev- a different kind of research, which is like- Yeah

for the company where I used to work again, the cooperative, we did monthly tracking of the brand. Oh. It costs a lot of money. Uh, you can't do that as a small company. It's impossible. Yeah. Every time we did a launch, every time we did something, we did qualitative, like, deep, you know, surveys. We did quantitative, thousands of people, like, you know- Mm

surveys. We did focus groups. I never liked them at all because people say one thing and they do something else. Yeah. They just really wanna show off in front of other people. Everyone- Right ... is like a vegetarian, vegan, buy ecological, and then when you- ... actually compare those focus groups, what do people buy, because we had that, that data.

Yeah. They didn't even buy those things. They just wanna look good in front of other people. So it's, I would not waste money on that. So instead, I'm so happy that I have a little bit of a mixed background because in marketing, study marketing, marketing strategy, I learned how to do qualitative and quantitative.

Oh. I know how to hire people who can do these surveys. It starts a product with 20, 30K. So if people don't have that budget, don't even do it because it- Yeah ... will not give you anything. I can also do it myself. That doesn't cost as much. I know how to do it. You can use, like, SurveyMonkey, you can use, like, Google things, you can use a lot of even free tools- Yeah

to do your own survey. But then I studied design thinking with IDEO. Mm. And that is more about how do people's brain and behavior work, like, going deeper. Yeah. And they taught me that you just have to talk to eight, 10, 12 people, and that's enough. Yeah, I think that that's really valuable. And, and oftentimes, I guess, bigger companies feel like they're removing the risk by, you know, spending a quarter of a million dollars on research, and they can talk to their board and show them why they made this decision and according to all this data- Yeah.

You know who to fire when it doesn't work. Yeah, and yeah, exactly. Heads will roll kind of a thing. Yeah. You know, getting back to marketing specifically, short-term activity doesn't really move the needle and r- and drive huge brand growth, right? It's more focused on campaigns, maybe a specific product launch or things like that.

And then skipping the long-term investment lowers short-term returns, so it's hard for people to get behind a long-term thing because it's like, "When am I ma- when am I gonna see this money back in my wallet?" Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. "Is it gonna take two years?" You know, kind of a thing. So there's different things that you measure.

H- how, what things do you measure, and how do you communicate that back in reporting around marketing and campaigns ver- long term versus short term? Yeah. Okay. So I think this is where a lot of people get confused, that short-term- Mm ... is what a lot of people call performance marketing. Okay. Long term is brand marketing.

Okay. So long term actually both build brand growth, brand equity, but also- Yeah ... could actually drive sales. Yeah. While, like you said, the short term often drives sales really well, but it doesn't grow the brand. Hmm. So what we need is to kind of find this balance between doing long term and short term. We need both.

Yeah. So it's not like a fight between, like, the branding people, the marketing people. Like, no, we need to do both of it, because what shows is that people who put in a lot of money... Like, I used-- I worked for a company that put in almost all their budget in short term, driving sales to their membership. Hmm.

And it worked really well for a number of years until they got hit a plateau. And it's like, okay. And then I worked with him, and we found this kind of good balance between they need to create awareness and reach more people with their brand first, and then they also need to have that driving sales. So often kind of a 60/40 rule, like, 60 long term, 40 short term, and it could look a little bit different depending on- Okay

what industries there are. Right. So I think that people make it really complicated, because I think there's only one thing to measure, and that is- The growth of the company. Like, how much money do we make? Right. Everything we're doing is basically actually around having a business that makes money. Some things are just a little bit longer before we see the result, and other things we can see the result really short.

But I get worried when people need to see those measurements, like, all the time. We just need to understand, if we put in money in building longterm, then people understand that we pay for more than just the product. Right. We're not a commodity. We don't have to compete with price. This, this really important.

And like you said, it's a, it's, it's a sliding scale depending on what you're selling- Mm-hmm ... and what's, if it's a service that's maybe a high touch, that maybe is high dollar. Let's say it's luxury or something like that. I- Mm-hmm ... it's probably even more skewed towards brand than- Im- ... specific marketing campaigns, right?

I mean, how many ads have you seen where Gucci or Louis Vuitton or- Yeah ... you know, Nike is just selling, like, a product and a price? Yeah. Yeah. They're not doing that. Yeah. There's definitely, they're spending way more on their brand. So, uh, that's an interesting thing for people to consider. When you're looking at your brand and your customers and why they buy your brand and make that decision- Mm-hmm

if it's a high touch, if it's a luxury, if it's something that's exclusive, you don't wanna cheapen the brand by, "Hey, buy now. Deal, you know, Friday- Yeah ... h- you know, Black Friday sales." You know? You don't really see that with Gucci or Prada or any of those big fashion brands. It's interesting. You should always ask yourself, what is the effect of this?

Not just money back, because- Black Friday sales, for example. Yeah. Sure, we might sell a lot short term, but how do people really feel about the brand? How do people feel like- Mm ... who bought this thing two weeks before the Black Friday sale? Mm. To a different price point. Like how- Yeah ... does it actually affect our business long term to do this?

Is it still positive? Okay, continue to do it. But I always think that we have to ask ourself that question. Well, and the demand marketing stuff is like a, a freight train. You gotta keep shoveling coal into the... You gotta just keep going and spending and spending, and there's a lot of churn and- Mm-hmm ... and, and it's a lot of mechanics, and it's expensive to keep it going.

And it does pay for itself, yes, but it's also expensive, and it's something that requires constant care and feeding. As where brand is a little bit slower paced, would you agree with that? Or is it kind of the same at those high levels? Is it just as a high-performing- I mean, I think what's different now from years back is that What we used to do when we did more commercial, uh, at least if we look at big brands- Yeah

they could control the brand by actually, like, manage it from the top down. So they could be like- Hmm ... "Okay, so let's do some TV commercial, let's do retail campaigns, let's do outdoor, digital," like, all of this. It's like put in millions, manage it, top management, you know? Yeah, yeah. And you could kind of control the outcome.

Uh, today, that doesn't really work anymore. People don't really like ads that way. We- everything is digital. We don't have control of anything, basically. Yeah. You know, so I think it just looks very different today than it used to do, and we need to build brands in a different way. Everything you do in all touch points affects how people will perceive the company and the products.

So a comp- a brand could be a product brand, it could be a company brand, it could be personal brand, but all you do sends out some, you know, associations that people have about it. Hmm. So it's from everything from your products to how, if, you know, are, are, are your cars clean when you're driving around?

Like, you know- Mm-hmm ... do- are your cars looking good and professional? Are they clean? Are people behaving that drive the car? How are people, you know, uh, in your customer service? How do you show up with your sales calls? Like, everything you do in all touch points is building this brand, not just advertising.

Well, and I think you bring up a really good point about, you know, social media- Mm-hmm ... puts the power of the brand back to the customers, and they're actually probably more in control of certain parts of your brand because you can get on TikTok, you can get on Instagram, and you can talk about your favorite brand or get on there and roast the brand- Yes

that you don't want in your life anymore or to exist anymore. So how, you know, how do brands control that now? I mean, uh, the- there's not, like you said, it's a top, it used to be a top-down thing. Now it's more of- Mm-hmm ... a bottom up. When you say bottom up, do you mean customer level on up, or is it a different way of per- a, a different perspective, like empowering your customers in a way that allows them to support the brand for you and kind of build that foundation along with you?

Is that kind of what you're talking about? That is one part, but also inside of the company, that is, like, everyone in the company are part of actually building the brand. Hmm. It's not just the manager. You know, just, like, 5, 10 years ago, we did, like, this- Brand books with, like, a, a manual of, "Here- Mm ... you're allowed to put the logo here.

Here's exactly the co-," like, you have to follow that. And then you became almost like a brand police, like, telling people what to do or not. Yes. Yeah. Which- Self-prescribed brand- Yeah ... cop right here. Yeah. We tried to get away a little bit from that and make it a little bit more like that if people can actually live and breathe the brand in everything they do, like, they walk the talk, they know what the brand stands for- Yeah

that's when it start to get really powerful. And that's why we just need to have one clear idea around what the brand is so everyone understand it, everyone can connects to it. When we were talking before, you had said that you spend about 30 to 40% of your time educating the sales team- Yeah ... and the customer service side of things.

Mm-hmm. And that this is kind of what you're talking about, right? Yeah. Is that that's the front line of where that customer interfaces with the brand. Mm-hmm. And what kind of tools do you use for that? Are you training them? Are you just giving them kind of mantras to keep rolling around in their head, or what- Yeah, when- How do you do that?

give them stories. Like, I can give you an example. I worked with a school, another school, actually a school that I went to myself, um- Mm ... uh, before the summer. And this m- it's more of a, I think it's high school, if I translate it. We have a little bit different school system, but it's, like, where people are between, uh, like, uh, 6, 15 to 18, something like that.

I don't know if that's- Okay. Yeah ... yeah ... that'd be high school. Yeah. So I worked with them, and they had a challenge that they actually wanted everyone, all teachers and all people working in the school, to actually, like, how do we get them to live the brand? Mm. I was like, "First of all, we need to realize they're not talking about brands.

They work at a school, and they're teachers or something else." Yeah. "They don't see themselves as brand ambassadors, you know?" Good point. So we ta- I did a workshop with them an entire day, and we were talking about two things. And first they were a little bit like, "Why do we talk about a brand?" I'm like, "You can think about it as culture."

Mm. "We are going to talk about how we show up here, how we are the adults in the room- Mm ... how we want it to feel like to be in this school, to be the students, and to be the parents to them. How do we want people to feel and think about this school?" So we did two exercises. One was about the vision. So they already had a vision, so I'm like, "Okay, so let's break the vision down and to see what can we do in everyday behavior- That will take us closer to that vision.

Mm. How do we show up? What could be examples of that? So they came up with a lot of different ideas, and then we voted for the best ideas and prioritized and just, you know, came up with who are responsible for doing what. So they're super, like, engaged now in- Yeah ... making all these things happen that will lead them towards the goals and the vision they have.

And then we talked about values, and then I had them to do improv theater and actually coming up with scenarios where students can be in different difficult situations. Mm. And I wanted them to show, like do group, for groups, to do like a scenario where, what could the situation be and how do we behave aligned with our values?

I want everyone to really feel that they're part of it. That is a- Yeah ... yeah, that's a great, uh, experience. And you've talked, this is now about the third or fourth story where, you know, we talk a lot about branding and messaging and words and things like that, but you've come back to this behavior idea- Mm-hmm

consistently- Yeah ... across a lot of these. How do people actually behave? When you talk to customers or when you interview people about- Mm-hmm ... getting some feedback, you're asking them to walk you through, how do you go about this behavior, buying something or making this choice? Yeah. And this speaks to that same thing.

You're role-playing. You're encouraging a role play, which I love role-playing- Yeah ... with, in business all the time- Mm ... because it, it really, it's one thing to have all these words in your head and, and a mantra- Mm ... or whatever, all these things that are prescribed, uh, for this. But when you stand up in front of, even if it's just speaking alone into a mirror-

when you put words to things- Yeah ... and you start behaving like this, whatever that is, it really either drives it home very much more deeper level, but it also locks it in, and it makes you really live the brand. That's a, I love that, that you- I c- I can give you, like, a short, another example just to- Yeah

for small companies because I've worked with this, uh, company of engineers, and they're just 15 people. Hm. So it could be very easy to relate to. Yeah. It's business to business. So I thought, like, okay, so we, we did a redesign, but that was like, i- this is kind of a small thing in, in the bigger picture of, sure, you know, we did a redesign of the logo and some colors and stuff.

It looked great. It's messaging. But the big thing is, how did their clients actually perceive them? It's so much more than just the logo and what they look like. So I did a survey, a small survey, SurveyMonkey for free, on their employees, and then the same questions to their clients. Ah. Because I just had this idea that what if they actually don't know how the client perceive them and also what's important for the client?

Interesting. So I asked them about, "How do you think the clients perceive you? And from all these things that you offer the client today, how do you think their perceptions are around these things? And what is most important for you, and where do you think you need to make the biggest adjustment to be more valuable as a brand?"

Hm. The interesting thing is that they answered totally different. Totally different. And I knew this, but I couldn't say it because that would be going in with assumption and bias. Right. But we have 15 m- uh, engineers. Yeah. Okay. And the client were not engineers. So I already knew. Right. The engineers, the en- employees, they cared about quality control, process, everything that was, like, hard fact, like that you could do a good job, you know?

Yeah. "We need a little bit more quality control in our systems." And I'm like, "Okay, let's ask them." And the clients were like, "We love everything about how you deliver your services. Like, you have such a high quality control. Everything is great. But what we really don't like, and where we think that you sh- really need to, like, step up, is you don't answer the phone.

Mm. When you're answering the phone, you're not always nice. You don't get back in time." You don't send, you know, meeting summaries after. Like, all these more softer skills- Yeah ... that these engineers was like, "It's not important. It's all about our quality and our work." For the client, it was actually really important to feel seen and heard.

Oh, wow. So you see the gap there. So when I presented this to them, they were, like, shocked. I'm like, "This is where you need to do something, growing your brand." We've done similar activities, and it's been interesting to see. We've done it with doctors- Mm-hmm ... in the medical profession and d- and medical educa- you know, doctors who are- Yeah

teachers and things like that, and it's the same almost results as what you're talking about, is they're, we have to refine our, we have to be smarter, we have to be- Mm ... cutting edge, we have to be... And most of the people that they, uh, you know, worked with were like, "You need to be just a little bit more human."

Yeah. I mean, it is really- Well, it's just a very different- It's the same thing in my community with coaching. Like- Yeah ... sometimes I just feel like I need to add more and more stuff, more and more value. Do you know the most valuable thing? Is when I check in with a person one on one. Oh, wow. I do that all the time.

Yeah. I send a DM like, "Hi, how are you? How's your business?" You know? They're like, "Oh, my God. Thank you for seeing me." Well, it's interesting, too, when you talk to people, and you talk about what they love about their job, just in general. Mm-hmm. Just general conversation with people, what's the first thing most people say they like about their job, if they like their job?

It's always the people that they work with- Yeah ... and the fun that they have just wandering around an office or having that chat or having somebody- Mm ... check in with them, you know? Mm-hmm. Those things are g- We're human beings, you know? We're social creatures, so there, there's a lot of that that- Yeah ... uh, you need to navigate- Es-

and understand when you're building a brand ... especially with B2B. Um- Yeah ... we think that B2B is not the same thing as B2C. Mm. So it could be super boring and generic. Mm. And we think that's okay, but they're still humans who make decisions. Yeah. So I, I just find it so interesting, you know? And it's also, remember that a brand is a lot how it makes people feel.

Mm. Some people wanna feel like, "I'm a responsible person who makes really good decisions for the environment." Other people wanna feel like, "I support, you know, the local community when I make this decision." Mm. Other people wanna buy a Tesla, although they don't like Elon Musk, but they feel like, you know, that they're doing a good thing for the environment.

Other people buy a Rolex because it makes them feel a little bit more successful than they might be, you know? Mm. It's like all these things are identity, status, belonging. Mm. That is what it's all about. And I don't think- Yeah ... that necessarily is a wrong thing because I had my times where I'm like, "Mm, what am I working with?

You know, maybe I should do some real change in the world instead." But the thing is, when we build brands, we also make an opportunity for us to charge a little bit more extra. Mm. And by doing that, it opens up opportunities for actually being a little bit more responsible. You know, not just always buying the cheapest things.

Like, we can make choices that are better for the environment, that are better for people. So brands could actually drive change in a positive way, and we know that from different surveys, that people really trust brands that they like. They trust them to make the right decisions. So brand can help nudge behavior in a positive way.

So that's why I think it's so, like, powerful with brands. Like, we can do... We can make things happen. We can, we can change behavior. You know, we can, we can take responsibility. And make an impact on the globe and- Yeah ... and people all around the globe, and I love that. I, yeah. Mic drop right there. We're done.

Don't need to talk anymore. I love that. I wanna use that as the intro. That's really I do love the, the big picture vision of what that, what, what, what you've just illustrated. That's beautiful. So you have a lot of experience talking to this, the larger companies, bigger groups, um, but you're brought in as an outsider.

A lot of what you bring in, and, and sometimes this is what I, I, I cr- I, I, I say in a very crass way, my superpower is my ignorance, 'cause I can walk into a room as a, as a, uh, consultant and say, "I don't know anything about your business." Mm-hmm. "Why, why, what, tell me everything," you know- Mm-hmm ... and kinda act like that a little bit.

Obviously, I do a lot of research on that. But how do you walk into a room with- probably some pretty powerful people, I would imagine. And w- strike that balance of I don't wanna know everything about your business, I know all the critical points of it, but I'm here to represent more of, like, what your customer- Yeah

w- how they would react to your brand. Um, you kinda call yourself a little bit more of a conductor or a facilitator. Yeah. Um, w- talk me through some of that process. I think that has come a lot with experience and with- Mm ... working with a lot of people and realizing the power of facilitation. Mm. I don't like being told what to do, and most of my clients are like me.

They don't like being told what to do. They want to be part. It's a collaboration. It's like a dance. I ask them questions. We explore together. They have all the answers. Yeah. What I can bring is a little bit more objective perspective because I'm a l- not inside this, like, bubble. I can see it from an outside perspective.

Right. I also might have done this so many more times than they have, so I have the confidence in the process of leading them. Mm-hmm. You know? So I think that because I don't need to prove myself to them, I don't have the need to do that, so I'm just asking them really good questions, describing how we will do this work together by me asking questions, challenging them.

You know, h- create this tension to then- Yeah ... kind of create alignment and how that works, and then I help them to understand their customers, and then we decide about this positioning together. But they need to make the decisions. Right. I'm just there as their guide. And I have never met any clients who don't love working like that.

Because they're so tired of people coming in and just telling them what to do without even having real insights about their business. How would you approach this? Let's say I'm, uh, the marketing team of one in an organization of 12, and, and I need to, in a sense, manage up. Is it harder for me to go in and be like, "I know I'm in marketing, but I need to talk to the CEO about this vision, brand," whatever we're doing, project, campaign.

How do... What... How do you talk about, uh, uh, how would you navigate that kind of dynamic? I think that I would find someone who's good at, you know, facilitating those conversations, like you and me. Mm. Mm-hmm. And then I will team up with that person, and then I was like, "Okay, how will we approach the CEO together?"

Mm. Because sometimes if you just get a meeting, you can actually be the one getting in, and instead of that person feel like they have to defend themselves or you're going to pitch them something. Yeah. You're just, like, asking them those important question and say, for all companies that I've been working with, the really successful companies is when the CEO is owning the brand.

Like, you have to be the one who owns the brand, 'cause the brand is the face of the business strategy. Mm. And then the marketing department can be, can be the one who make this happen, who implement all these things, but it needs to come from the CEO. There's no, nothing in the company that is worth more And the brand Thank you.

This is my soapbox. This is what I constantly harp on with companies that we talk to all the time, is that... And I like to lead with that. You know? Yeah. They oftentimes don't understand the most important asset they have. And it's funny when you talk to business owners. They're like, "Oh, yeah, it's the... Maybe it's relationships.

Maybe it's this sales guy, or maybe it's this gal who did this thing for us- Mm-hmm ... that is, or this, built this process that's we, we, we-" Mm-hmm. But the, honestly, the most valuable thing that people don't understand they have is their brand. I mean- Yeah ... that's what speaks for their company, sells their company when nobody else is around, is the power of that brand.

And, and the brand is not the logo. The brand is not how you look like. The brand is relationship you have with your customers and the market. If they know about you, what they think about you, what they associate with you, what they're willing to pay for, that's what a brand is. The logo and the visual identity's part of it, but it's definitely not everything.

So people just, right there, make the mistake when they point at the logo and say, "We need a new brand." No, you're pointing at the logo, not the brand. Yeah. That's the difference. And I mean- Yeah ... I know, 'cause I've been doing sales calls, I had a call one time with a person who wanted to work with me So we were going to jump on a call, and then he said, "I'm also going to talk to three other people like you."

And I was like, "Okay." I didn't ask for him to call me. It's like, it was recommended, right? So we had a conversation. I didn't feel I had to prove myself at all. I'm just like, I'm also vetting if I want to work with him. So I'm just asking him questions around, "Okay, so tell me a little bit more. Where are you, where are your company right now?

Like, where do you want to see yourself in a year from now? What stands in your way of getting there? Like, what do you think is your biggest challenge right now? Like, do you know what your customers and your potential customers think about you?" Mm. "And how do they make the decision what to buy? What's different from, you know, between what you do from your competitors?"

So I just asked him those questions, and then after 20 minutes, and this is over the phone, he's like getting quiet, and then he said, "Okay. Uh, I already decided. I want to work with you." Nice. I'm like, "Okay, that's interesting. Like, do you want me to present something about how to work or, you know, about myself?"

And he's like, "No, no, you already came recommended. I know I want to work with you, and do you know why?" Like, "No." He says, "Because the other people, they were just pitching themselves and trying to convince me why they would be great choice to work with, and you came in and you asked me questions that I haven't thought about all these questions, and now I know you know your stuff.

And that's why I want to work with you." Yeah, you came with the heat. You had some real bangers in there. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, the- So I think- Yeah ... for people who work in the marketing department Instead of trying to convince people, ask questions. Mm. Because if they, if you get these small agreements that you agree about something.

First of all, we need to agree about what a brand is. A- are we agreed that it's not the logo, it's actually what customers think about us? Okay, can we agree about it's important to have customers in our business? So y- small steps towards that. Is it important to know how we can better serve our customers and how they actually make decisions?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for every yes they will say, it's just closer to they're like, "Of course, this is something that we need to prioritize." How can we otherwise do any marketing tactics, any social media, any design, any messaging, unless we actually know these things first? It's always interesting because, and God help any CEO or any decision-maker out there who has to field or talk to three different marketing firms and ask them, 'cause marketing firms, that's their job, they're marketing.

So they're marketing themselves, and it becomes really- You can probably sniff it out pretty quickly, but yeah, any marketing firm that just talks about themselves, just talks about all of the things that they do or all of the performance that they've done without asking any questions about what the client or what you are interested in pursuing is, that should be a tell right off the bat.

'Cause yeah, marketing and salespeople, that's their job, and if you're trying to hire that, it gets a little dicey- Yeah ... in there for sure, you know? I think there's, like, this... I think I learned this from Christel, that people with confidence, they walk into a room, and they don't need to take up all the space.

Mm. They know how to ask questions, they give space to other people, and they just, like, have this calm energy, confident energy. Mm-hmm. And we're not that different from animals. We're actually picking up on that energy. Someone who feel insecure, desperate, they will start marketing themselves, telling about how great they are.

It's almost like they wanna convince themself. Mm. Mm. And I think people feel it much more. So, so if I would be on the marketing side in a company and I want to work with people, try to work with people who have, who are confident enough so they can actually educate you while working with you and making- Mm

you the hero. Like, like you and I, Eric. Like, I'm 52. I don't want to be the CMO. I don't want their job. Like, I don't want- Mm ... any job in marketing. I don't, I don't wanna be an employee. A lot of the brands I work with, and especially business to business, their biggest challenge is not actually getting more customers.

It's actually recruiting the right people who work for them. Mm. So the brand, a really important thing with the brand is also to be an attractive place to work at. Interesting. So employee branding is really important for them. They want to be that first choice where people, you know, it could be really difficult to find really great engineers or other people.

So that's also something that we forget about sometimes, that we need to know, like, what is the real, what is the real business problem here that we, that we're solving? I love that. Yeah, 'cause that's another new dimension that there's so much opportunity cost lost in recruitment- Yeah ... especially with small companies.

Like, if you don't have a solid brand or a solid reputation- Mm-hmm ... to stand on, you're doing a lot of work to try to get the right people and the smartest people to choose- Yeah ... to work for you. Yeah. And, and let me just, because I just ca- remembered one thing that I talk to people about all the time that is good to know if people don't know about it.

It's the 95.5 rule. Have we talked about that? Mm-mm. Okay. Do tell. I don't even know who came up with this, so maybe I should have my resources a little bit more. This is the street strategies talking. I'm just, I don't remember all that. But anyway, 95.5 rule means that if we have a market, so our, we have this pie, and we choose our segment in the market.

So for those people, around 95% of them- Are not even thinking about your company and your offer right now because- Mm ... they're not in the place where they're going to buy something. So it's only 5% that are actually right now ready to buy. Mm. So what we need to think about, that we need to reach all these people, all 100%, because if we're just reaching them when it's time to buy, then they don't know anything about us, and they- Mm

will probably make a choice just maybe on price. So our job is also to really make sure that we're reaching people so they know that we exist, we can build trust with them, they know that we are a choice by others, they probably have us top of mind. Mm. And when it's time to actually buy something, then they will probably reach out to us.

Yeah. And I think to add onto that, you know, the, the assault of brand and marketing on human beings just increases every year to a level now- Mm-hmm ... to where we're exposed to so many branding and marketing messages. Yeah. Thousands and thousands every day, and there was a study done that said that over time, human beings can still only really remember or process about 100 of those every day.

Yeah. So you can add to the fire, keep fueling and throwing marketing- Mm-hmm ... dollars towards things to try to build awareness, but human beings still can only process about- Yeah ... 100 of those a day. Yeah. So being there consistently and maybe showing up on their radar every once in a while and, um, entering their awareness over time, it's a long game, but you- Yeah

you definitely have to play that. And also think about, like, I think about all these smaller companies that when we don't have so much resources, we need to be a little bit more creative. Mm-hmm. And creative doesn't mean, like, do creative campaigns. It means more like, how do people actually meet us? Where do people see us?

Yeah. What are the most important touch points where people can actually see us so we consistently can remind people that we exist? Mm-hmm. So if you're a small company, for example, you might have, like- Company cars. People see them everywhere. Like, you know- Mm ... striped cars is a really good way of reminding people that you exist.

Mm-hmm. Maybe you have your logo on different clothes, you know? Wherever you show up, where you meet your target audience, try to really expose them so they can see your logo and your message as many times as possible. Yeah. 'Cause that is so they recognize it, and they remember it. So it needs to be consistent over time.

It's not just ads. It's just like, how can we show up in different touchpoints and constantly remind them that we exist, and give value? And, uh, having that brand system, back to design- Yeah ... um, having that brand system that's flexible enough to fit and go anywhere and be a texture and be a color and be a symbol- Mm-hmm

or an avatar or whatever it is. It's not just this one lockup or whatever, but just to give, you know, having that out there, and w- I love that idea of, you know, cars or shirts- Yeah ... or whatever it is, you know? It's like make something that's memorable and recognizable. This has been- ... an amazing interview so far.

I appreciate all of your insights. I'm gonna ask you one last question here. What's the one thing a marketing team of one should do this week? I think one thing that you can do on your own, you don't need an agency, no consultants for this, is that create something that I call moment of truth. Mm. Collect all the things that you have that clients or customers will actually see, like, uh, print yours, landing page, uh, your social media posts, like everything people see.

Put it on a table, and just look at it. Try to be as objective as possible and see, like, "Is this how we wanna show up in the world?" Hmm. "Are we building our brand world the way we want to be perceived? Are we consistent in what we're doing? Is there anything we can improve?" Just to get that kind of- You know, snapshot of actually seeing what we're doing right now.

Yeah. Especially, and I know this is, um, maybe, like, people don't like hearing this, but in this world of AI and a lot of AI-generated stuff out there, have to look at all these things that you're actually producing, inclusive your things you do with AI now because it's so cost-effective, and look at it and it's like, "Does this look like it comes from our brand, or could it be from someone else?"

Hmm. Because I think right before we started recording, I told you about, like, I saw, like, three ads today. They were, like, from one kindergarten, one, uh... it was, like, a flea market for where I live locally, and it was, like, one restaurant. And all of them look exactly the same, and I know they're AI produced.

And it's just, like, ridiculous. Yeah. You know? Is that how we want people, your customers, to perceive your brand? It might save you a little money, but what is the really the cost of doing this long term? So I think that's something that we can really consider. Like, what are we doing right now? Do we show up in the world the way we want to be perceived by our customers?

I love it. That's really great advice. Thank you so much. Well, Ms. Annelie Hansen, thank you so much for being on the show. W- Give me some promotion. Show, the, where can we reach you? Where, where, where can we... I know that you do some classes. Yeah. Give us, give us some, uh, ways we can, uh, get in touch with you and, and, and learn more.

Yeah. I mean, mostly I don't need an- I don't do any self-promotion, but I love for people to follow me on social media just because I try to give as much value as possible. Yeah. So you can find me on LinkedIn. Maybe you can share, you know, a link on, on LinkedIn and Instagram. I will, yep. That's where I'm doing most of my content, and I'm just writing about how to grow brands.

Um, yeah, so I would happily, if you follow me there, and just send me a DM if you want. I answer all my DMs. If you just refer to this podcast, then I will see that. I will prioritize to, to answer if you have any questions or anything. So otherwise, I'm not doing, I'm doing very rarely doing client work anymore.

I'm doing like one- Hmm ... I have one or two clients at a time, and the rest of my time is coaching- Coaching ... and teaching. So guys, if you want to hire someone who knows what they're doing, call Eric, not me. I love it. Wow. Okay. Well, I'm, uh, sitting up a little bit straighter in my chair now. Thank you so much.

I appreciate that. Annelie, we've been friends for a while, and this has been an honor to have you on the show, and I appreciate all the insights that you've, uh, shared with us today and with me over dinner, uh- Mm-hmm ... down in Santa Barbara. I will remember those- Oh, that was awesome. Yes ... uh, events for the rest of my life.

It's been really special to- Mm ... uh, get to know you and keep chatting with you. So thank you so much. Yeah, we can do this again. This was really fun. Thank you for, for having me.

Thanks for tuning in. For more information and other episodes, subscribe to the Marketing Team of One podcast on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify podcast networks. You can also chat with us on the r/marketingteamofone subreddit or visit marketingteamofone.com to learn more.