Brand Therapy
“That was the first time in my life I felt heard and understood.”
One of my brand strategy bootcampers shared this in a group discussion. He was talking about his experience of having brand strategy done on his own business by a fellow bootcamper.
This process of brand strategy isn’t surface level stuff here. You have to be ok with digging deep.
His comment confirmed something I had thought since I started doing brand strategy… that this is more like brand therapy than anything else. I’ve learned that at the root, my clients are looking to feel a certain emotion about themselves and their businesses. Yes, the roadmap that they get at the end is valuable, but it’s only as valuable as they feel it is.
So how do we increase the odds that our clients will feel connected to the strategy and roadmap, and as a result implement the plan?
Here are some suggestions you can do in your brand strategy workshop:
Simply listen and mirror back what you hear them say,
Make observations and connections they didn’t see themselves,
And most importantly, understand them.
If we do our job right, they will feel connected to the insights we uncover during the workshop and they’ll do whatever they can to implement the brand roadmap.
Have you ever felt heard and understood? Especially when it comes to your own business, purpose, and goals? Can you imagine someone asking you what your vision is, what you value, who you want to serve, all while listening intently? What if that person also helped you focus on what you needed to in order to reach your goals, helped you gain clarity, made connections that you couldn’t see yourself, and then mapped out a roadmap of priorities you needed to focus on to get you to your vision?
How would you feel? Motivated? Happy? A little more peace of mind that you’ll reach your goals?
I hope you’ve experienced that. If not, go snag a friend who is also learning brand strategy and practice doing strategy on each other’s businesses. Getting strategy done on your own business will help you feel what the client feels, and it will help you be a better strategist (not to mention, you’ll have a roadmap for your own business!).
On a related note, do you listen to the Honest Designers Show? I was on it recently and Dustin Lee came in strong (at around minute 18) saying “prove it to me” that strategy is worth it. Yikes! He really put me on the spot. He couldn’t accept that brand strategy was worth $10k cause you can’t easily measure the ROI like you can with things like FB ads and click through rates. We ended up talking about the emotional connection of the founder to the business and just how much that is worth. Was Dustin won over? Listen and find out!
Cheers!
Melinda
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