Succeed in the Creative Economy - Verhaal Brand Design

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slip and slide

Something was happening at the house with the slip-and-slide.

What was happening was that there was a lot less happening.

A few blocks away from us is a house where the kids have a slip-and-slide that was an irresistible magnet to all the kids in the neighborhood when the weather got hot.

That yard was packed with neighborhood kids running around, getting wet, laughing their heads off.

But then it wasn’t, and the kids who lived there were wondering where all the other kids had gone.

What they didn’t know was that the family two doors down from us had recently purchased a palatial bouncy castle water slide complete with rotating sprinkler arms.

But the kids at the slip-and-slide house didn’t know that.

They just knew that no one was showing up to play.

Clients come to me with the same problem.

Customers aren’t showing up like they used to and they don’t really know why.

And they don’t know what to do about it.

When I am assessing a clients brand, one of the things that I am frequently amazed by are blind spots they have in really knowing who their competition is and what they are doing.

A competitive audit is one of the most illuminating phases in a brand re-design project.

How does your brand stack up to others in the competitive landscape?

How are they articulating the problem/solution/capabilities message to prospects in a compelling way?

How are they creating differentiation?

Assessing the competition invariably makes it very clear what the problem is and what needs to be addressed.

Because if you don’t know there’s a new bouncy castle water slide down the street…

You’re just going to be left standing in your yard wondering where everyone went.

Hot Then Not

Everything was going great in high school until that new guy showed up.

Let’s call him Fabio.

Fabio was tall, wore the coolest jeans, but what really did it was his hair.

Fabio had long hair and it was driving all the girls to distraction. All they could talk about was Fabio’s hair.

In the halls they were always staring at Fabio.

Fabio was hot.

It goes without saying that all the other guys in school were feeling - let’s just say: under-appreciated.

So what did they do? One by one they all started to grow their hair long.

Even that guy with curly hair. He was the only guy with curly hair. He had to grow it twice as long because it took twice as much to look long.

Now he just looked like everyone else.

Then it happened.

One day Fabio showed up to school with short hair.

Now short hair was hot.

The other guys were now thinking: ‘Damn, I just spent all this time growing my hair out. I used to have short hair! What was I thinking?’

Well, that’s what’s happening in social media right now:

Fabio is TikTok.

Long hair is short-form video.

And the curly haired guy is Instagram.

TikTok recently announced they are going to be accepting 10 minute videos soon

....and everyone else is still deeeep into growing their hair long.

In fact Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram just announced to accountholders that Reels weren’t going to replace photos. He said Instagram is ‘still’ committed to photography.

Even though it certainly doesn’t look like that to anyone paying attention.

The moral of the story is that one minute what is hot, the next minute will very likely be not.

So it’s usually best to hold on to your core competency.

I’m not saying short-form video is going away. It’s not.

But when everyone starts looking just like Fabio...something is bound to change.

All Together Now

Somewhere along the line when I was coming up in my professional career and just starting to pay attention to business and brands and marketing, I heard an interesting little factoid that stuck with me:

There has never been a major war in a country that has McDonald's.

At the time, this is how I parsed that statement:

Big companies and global capitalism is so invested in making money that they (by hook, crook, or political maneuvering) won’t allow a war to disrupt commerce in any way.

It said that big business controls us all, controls culture, that we exist to serve them.

But something happened a few weeks ago that made me question that assumption.

What happened was that McDonald's announced it was closing 850 stores in Russia in response to that nations unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

For a monolith like McD’s to close 850 stores as a show of solidarity, as a reflection of the will of the people to protest, to sanction, to fight back is pretty freakin’ cool if you ask me.

Cool, because it shows me that big business can serve us.

When we unite, we control them.

And because McDonald's listened and responded to the will of the people, they increased their brand loyalty in the hearts and minds of billions around the world.

It gives new meaning to the words on their signs:

"Billions and Billions Served".

First Off the Starting Line

When I was growing up a local newspaper sponsored an amateur bike race to engage the community.

At 13, I had just gotten a new Schwinn 10-speed bike which were the new thing. It was a serious move up from my Schwinn Stingray. Although I have to admit I missed the racing slick, banana seat and sissy bar.

My Dad encouraged me to put my new bike to the test and sign-up for the race. I thought, “Why not, I have a 10- speed now. It’s a piece of cake.”

The race was taking place in a hilly industrial park. There were no age groups. It was mostly adults, I was one of the few kids.

They blew the whistle. I sprinted off the starting line. I left the whole group in the dust.

Everything went great until I hit a hill at about mile 2. My legs were burning. I was sucking air.

And then one by one, over the next 3 miles, every other racer passed me by. Even the other kids.

I’d started first and finished dead last.

I suddenly realized all those other riders had one thing I didn’t have.

It’s something I carry with me to every client meeting and every project I work on today. Whether it’s branding, marketing, product development, competitive positioning or innovation.

To come in first you have to have a strategy.

Then winning is a piece of cake.

Good luck ignoring the alligator

In 1933 a German psychiatrist named Hedwig von Restorff did a study.

She presented human subjects with a list of categorically similar items, with one distinctive, isolated item on the list.

When their memory was tested about the list of items, the memory of the distinctive item as always better than the rest.

The phenomenon became known as the “Von Restorff effect”.

For example, if you have a list where one item stands out against the others, for example: desk, chair, lamp, table, rug, bed, alligator, couch, dresser, armchair.

“Alligator” will be remembered the most.

It also turned out that the effect happens when you alter things like size, shape, color, spacing, fonts and underlining.

In this case, let’s say you have a shopping list with 20 items on it including: eggs, milk, bread, apples, chicken, lettuce, onions and cheese, etc. Then you color the word “apples” with a yellow highlighter.

Almost everyone who reads the list will remember that the list had apples on it.

In trying to win in todays market, many brands focus their time and energy trying to create better products or deliver deeper functional benefits or more meaningful emotional experiences.

But the fact is - that in the war for consumer attention, the most powerful method of establishing brand recall is to be different.

Just somehow noticeably - different.

We are now all doing business in an “Attention Economy”.

So, if you can just stand out in a sea of sameness…

You win.

You Think it’s a Mistake but it’s Actually Perfect

At the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey perfection was my goal.

I wanted to create perfect logos and websites. Upload perfect videos. Publish perfect blog posts. Send perfect emails.

But it was paralyzing.

And because of that, nothing was getting done.

Five years ago this month, when my finger was finally hovering over the “send” button for the very first issue of this newsletter, I was sweating.

What if I made some grammatical error? What if one of the links goes to the wrong page?

What if something is inaccurate and makes someone, somewhere, somehow irritated at me?

But it turns out I had it wrong all.

Since the 16th century, the Japanese have practiced an aesthetic concept that they call “Wabi-sabi”. It celebrates the slightly flawed, the not-quite symmetrical, the unrefined.

It can be seen in pottery with rough uneven edges or intentional chips, in architecture with off-center roofs, in the patchwork robes worn by Buddhist monks.

It embraces the idea is that imperfections are where the beauty lies.

That the true value resides in the flaws.

We should all remember Wabi-sabi when we go about our marketing work, design work, project work, our conversations with clients.

Because perfection isn’t the goal, it’s the enemy.

It’s the imperfections that make us relatable, interesting and authentic.

And they also help us get things done.

Shedding Some Light

There’s a star at the very tip of the handle of The Little Dipper.

Its astronomical name is Polaris. But, we call it The North Star.

The North Star sheds a lot of light. In fact, it’s 4000 times brighter than our sun.

The really cool thing is that when you look at it, the light you are seeing was actually generated in 1587.

Its light has traveled for 434 years to reach us.

To fill us with wonder and to help travelers navigate.

When I was reading about the North Star I was reminded of a video I did 4 years ago called “9 Things Your Brand Design Must Have”.

When I shared that video on YouTube I didn’t really know what would happen.

I just posted it and hoped it would help someone.

Time passed...

Then someone watched it. Then another and another.

Now, 4 years later it has 382,000 views. And it still gets about 7,000 views a month.

That video sheds light on a topic that has helped a lot of people navigate brand design.

As marketers and creatives we do this stuff all the time.

We produce creative work, content, media, share valuable information. Then we post it out there in cyberspace.

We don’t know who it’s going to help. Or when it will reach them.

But we have to remember that providing value takes time.

And that it will continue to shed light for years to come.

The Wrong Ingredients

There is a marina in Lahaina, a small town on the western coast of Maui, Hawaii and it's home to one of the best scuba diving sites on the island, Mala Wharf.

Mala Wharf is a collapsed pier that extends hundreds of feet into the marina. The submerged slabs and pillars of concrete create an artificial reef teeming with tropical fish, eels, rays, lobster and octopus.

The wharf didn’t collapse with age. It didn’t collapse because of a hurricane or some natural disaster. The wharf’s demise was the result of a bad recipe.

You see, when you make concrete with fresh water the material essentially becomes stone and will last for decades.

But when you cut corners and use salt water instead, the concrete seems OK for a few years, but then it begins to crumble.

Unfortunately, they used the salt water recipe for Mala Wharf.

After the wharf collapsed it was going to be far too expensive to clean it up. So they just left it there - and let the marine life take over.

Building a successful brand is like building something out of concrete.

You need to use the right recipe.

You need a solid brand strategy, a stunning brand design and to create an impeccable brand experience.

If you cut corners, before you know it things will start to crumble and cleaning up the mess gets expensive fast.

But if you use the right ingredients and a proven recipe, that brand will last for decades.

Create Your Wonder Wall

A couple years ago they made an amazing discovery in the Colombian Amazon. They call it Serranía La Lindosa.

It’s an 8-mile-long rock wall. A “canvas” completely covered with ice age drawings of mastodons, giant sloths, geometric designs, human figures in hunting scenes and nurturing plants and trees.

The ochre pigment has lasted for over 12,000 years telling the story of the indigenous people who painted it.

Now let’s be clear...

These people didn’t paint an 8-mile mural in a day.

It started with a single drawing. Then the first tiny scene. Then, over hundreds of years it became a vast panorama of images crowded together, mile after mile.

But what if they’d decided after the first mile that it was enough. That it had all been said. The wall was already so crowded. Who would see their pictures? Why bother adding to it?

We’re glad now that they resisted that impulse.

The stories they used to document, to educate and even possibly to entertain, are still informing us now.

Fast forwarding to today. Many of us are creating content to communicate, to build authority, to make our presence known.

We need to take a lesson from these Amazonians.

Don’t be intimidated by the vast crowded canvas of the internet.

Don’t think that your story is just adding to the noise.

Make your mark. Build upon it. Invest time, effort and intellectual capital.

Build a body of work that speaks for you. That works to tell your story.

You Need a Megaphone

You wouldn’t think tree crickets have a lot to do with marketing, but they do.

You see, female tree crickets like two things in their mates: size and loudness. If you’re big male tree cricket with a really loud song, you’ve got it made. You get all the attention.

But the curious thing is there are a lot of smaller, quieter male tree crickets out there too. You’d think that their stature would have doomed them in the cricket gene pool long ago.

But if you thought that, you’d be wrong.

That’s because these smaller dudes figured out that if you find a cone-shaped leaf, chew a hole in it, stick your body through and sing your cricket song it’s like using a big-ass megaphone.

In fact, scientists have recorded song volume increases of up to 3x.

Which tends to get the attention of their target audience.

So if you’re a small player and you can’t compete with the marketing the big guys are doing what can you do?

You just take a lesson from the crickets. You find the right amplifier.

The good news is that there are plenty to choose from: LinkedIn, Twitter, Clubhouse, Instagram stories, YouTube.

Megaphones just waiting to make you seem bigger and sound louder than you actually are.

You just have to chew a hole and start singing your song.

We Have Lift-off

It was 1960 and we were in a race with the Russians to put a man into orbit.

Project Mercury was the name of our program that was eventually going to do it.

The operative word here is “eventually”.

The first Altas-type rocket exploded. So NASA switched to the Redstone rocket that had taken our first satellite into orbit.

The test flight of the new spacecraft and its recovery systems was scheduled. They wheeled the rocket onto the launch pad...3, 2, 1. Ignition!

There was an incredible roar, the rocket disappeared behind a huge plume of smoke. The technicians thought the rocket had accelerated so quickly they didn’t even see it go.

That’s because it didn’t go.

It lifted off a full 4 inches and then dropped back down on the platform. Thankfully, still upright.

But then the escape rocket did take off. It shot up 4000 feet then fell to earth. Then the re-entry parachutes deployed and fluttered down beside the fizzling rocket.

It was a comical failure. But it was a start.

As marketers, entrepreneurs and business partners, whenever we have out-sized dreams fueled by a desire to surpass strong competition, we have to start. We have to pick the best rocket we have and begin testing.

Things might not go as planned. We might not get into orbit on the first try.

But a four inch flight is better than standing still.

Because eventually we’ll accelerate so quickly they won’t even see us go.

5 Big Branding Mistakes And How To Fix Them

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." -Warren Buffet

If you are like most professionals, you’ve put many hours of hard work into your brand. Building a brand is important, but even more critical is focusing on the right aspects of your brand building. Focus on the areas that have a huge impact on buying decisions. Zero-in on the things that will 2X your business. Most importantly, avoid eroding your hard work by doing things that can hurt your brand. 

Let’s zero-in on five things that may hurt your brand without you even knowing. Fix these, and you’ll be ahead of the game.

Number 1: Lack of Consistency: An inconsistent brand image can do more damage than you may know. It sends the message, “We care, but not too much,” or “Some details slide by us.” This perception will force you to leave money on the table; your clients will be confused and unwilling to spend more.

Brand Fix: A consistent brand inspires confidence and trust. It will cultivate client partnerships that easily bring in cash because people will know what to expect and gladly pay for your services. 

Consistent brand presentation across all platforms increases revenue up by up to 23 percent Forbes.com

Build on these main design elements first:

• Color

• Fonts

• Logo

• Photography treatment

• Layout style

Gather all of your marketing and branding assets and check that each is consistent across all brand touchpoints: social media, website, content and media artwork, newsletters, emails, etc. Frequently it is a good idea to engage an outside partner, such as a branding firm or consultancy to provide you an unbiased opinion and fresh pair of eyes on your visual assets. 

Wherever your brand is, create a plan for how and when your branding elements will be used. Create a brand book that allows everyone in the company to know the guidelines and rules for usage. Showing up in the same way every time someone encounters your brand will build brand equity over time. 

Consistency breeds loyalty.

Number 2: Poor Website Design. Your website is usually the first place people look for your brand “heartbeat.” Unfortunately, some big mistakes can turn potential customers off. 

Studies show that people judge a brand as good or bad in as little as 0.5 seconds (Behaviour and Information Technology, 2011).

You have about half a second to look as professional as possible. 

If you’re not putting your best foot forward, you are losing money. Here’s proof:

• 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if it is unattractive

• 59% of UK consumers “would not use a company that had obvious grammatical or spelling mistakes on its website or marketing material” (cnewcomer.com)

• 75% of consumers admit that they judge a business’ credibility based on their website design (business.com)

Brand Fix: The design elements that erode credibility when executed badly are: 

• Overall visual branding and layout

• Navigation

• Content

• Customer journey/content/messaging

Some things to consider to improve your design and usability: 

• Add an easy contact form 

• Add a straightforward scheduling app like Calendly or SimplyBook.me 

• Create a visible, uniform pricing structure to avoid customer confusion

• Add social links to other channels so customers can find you where they hang out online

• Create links to quality content that is valuable or meaningful to your audience

• Fix all typos or broken links and make sure your site is free of 404 errors (One entrepreneur increased his Google ranking for one page by 486% after fixing all typos)

Number 3: Low-Quality Content. Inferior content is worse than no content at all. Customers want to see content that reflects their specific problem or circumstance. Let these statistics inform your content choices:

• 56% of marketers attribute higher brand engagement to personalized marketing content. 

• 45% of people say they would unfollow a brand on social media if it spends too much time talking about its products.

Brand Fix: If you are publishing articles and blog posts, high-quality means information that is valuable to your target audience. Be sure to represent your brand’s unique point of view so you stand out from the crowd. 

If you are posting video or audio files, consider things like sound quality, video quality, lighting quality, and editing. Get the best your money can buy, and your brand is on its way to being seen as a leader.

Make a commitment to posting and updating regularly.

There is a great quote by Chad Pollitt who said, “SEO is not something you do anymore. It’s what happens when you do everything else right.” Frequent posting of quality content will do more to boost your Google search results than  any back-end SEO metadata trickery will do these days. Keep in mind, a site that is not updated regularly looks “abandoned” to Google algorithms and is consequently downgraded in search results. 

Number 4: MeMeMe. Avoid the trap of talking all about yourself. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals do this frequently, and I understand. Talking about the product or service you built from the ground up comes naturally, but it doesn’t attract ideal customers. It turns them off.

Brand Fix: Businesses that have a line out the door have one thing in common: they are consumer-centric. They turn the spotlight on their customers and they keep it there. Here’s how you can put your customer center stage:

Get clear about your customer’s problem and how you fix it. 

Articulate it plainly, in a voice that resonates with your audience. Ask them problem-focused questions in your copy such as:

•  "Are you looking for a new logo and don't know where to start?"

• "Need a video production company but you have no contacts or resources?"

• "Are the prices you're paying for website design too high?"

•  "Is your SEO failing and you don't know exactly how to address it?" 

These all pique the interest of a potential buyer because they focus is on the problem they are trying to solve. If customers have that problem, they will quickly read more. 

If you’re having trouble writing customer-centric copy, listen to what your customers are saying. Go where they hang out, online or in person, and take note of their problems or pain points. Mold your content and story around their needs, wants and desires. This is called mirroring; because you are “reflecting” what the customers see or say to themselves in their mind. 

Mirror how customers talk about their problems.

Mirroring draws the customer in and makes them want to know more. It helps them know that you understand their problem and you are the one to fix it.

(Read more about the art and science of mirroring and this Forbes article)

Number 5: Master of None. Trying to be everything to everyone is a brand-killer. Creating too broad an offering or having too vast of a target audience diminishes your ability to market effectively. If you're trying to address too many different customers or needs, people won't know how you're going to help them. Instead, they'll buy from someone else whom they feel better understands their problem.

Brand Fix: To create irresistible copy, be as specific as possible. There's a saying, "The riches are in the niches;" you can have a successful, money-making business if you focus on one specific target. The internet has made the business community global, which means there are almost limitless places that your potential clients can get the services they need. 

Position yourself as the “exact” service provider to solve their distinct problem. The more specific you can be about who your target customer is, the problem you solve, and how you can help them, the more successful you’ll be.

Building a brand takes effort over time, but with effort in the right areas, you can make your brand shine brightly. Avoid the pitfalls and you’ll be well on your way to having a line of clients out the door.

7 Ways To Get More Brand Awareness Right Now

Building a brand has three important stages: being recognized, remembered, and revered. This article is going to cover the first of the three stages.

When your brand is recognized it means you’ve done a great job of creating a shortcut in people’s brains That shortcut is called brand awareness, and it’s what drives clients right to your door when they have a problem you can solve.

Brand awareness side-steps the need to explain your brand values or mission; your branding is so effective that people are already familiar with you and how you stand apart from your competitors. Potential clients know what you do and how you can help as soon as they see your logo, hear your company name, or see your brand colors. 

Brand awareness can always be increased with a few simple yet effective strategies. Here are my 7 trusted methods for building brand awareness:

Number 1: Partner with Other Brands. It's beneficial to establish partnerships with other brands, especially when you're starting out. It’s mutually beneficial to expose your audiences to each other’s work, and you're both growing your audience.

Mature brands partner too, and for the same reason: it adds value to customers’ lives. Some examples of this are Red Bull and GoPro, Apple and Mastercard, Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma, and Spotify and Starbucks. 

“Partnerships are definitely very important,” says Adidas Originals’ global director of digital and retail marketing, Swave Szymczyk. “As long as they are not only strategic but also reflect who we are as a brand and what we believe in, it really drives authenticity.

“You can talk about who you are as a brand all day long but having those partnerships to authenticate that message is really critical for every brand.” ‘(marketingweek.com)

You can partner with other like-minded brands to co-publish blog posts or articles, create videos or do podcast interviews. Share space in a trade show booth, or at a special event to add value to each others’ audience. Great partnerships add rocket fuel to your brand recognition and create terrific allies for your growth.

Number 2: Guest Post. While most people think big and want to pen an article for Huffington post right away, that probably won’t happen. But if you start small and build credibility over time, you will get the chance to write for larger and larger publications. Start by researching brands that have similar audiences and then create some outlines for original, juicy content you know the publication’s audience will love. 

Pitch your content via email - your pitches will go easily if you’ve done your research well. Include a sample headline of the type of content you would write or links to previous content that you've written for other brands or for your blog. Keep your pitch brief and be very clear. Because editors get dozens of pitch emails a day and make decisions in a matter of seconds, you need to put your best foot forward.

Number 3: Social Heft. Create brand recognition like a social media ninja. This is done by frequently developing  shareable content like:

• Graphics

• Infographics(see #4)

• Quotes

• Memes

• Videos

• Guides

• Lists

According to vennage.com, original graphics are far more engaging than stock photos, memes, videos, and charts, so create your own visuals as often as you can.

Focus on hot topics in the industry and always ask people to share your content -  they won't share unless you ask. There are other well-known triggers to getting people to share your content, and you should explore them all to see which works best for your brand. 

“See” your audience and engage with them. Once you’ve got the hot content, links, and shares, you have to engage by answering comments, asking questions, celebrating their good news, and giving advice if needed. 

Number 4: Infographics. They are so powerful, I had to reserve a spot only for them. Everyone loves infographics. They are easy to digest and you don’t need to be an expert in the field to get value from them. 90% of the information that's transmitted to the human brain is transmitted visually, and we process images 60,000 times faster than we process text (news.mit.edu). Visual representations of information are easier and faster to internalize. The added plus is, they’re also entertaining.

You can repurpose articles, blogs, statistics, processes, strategies, and plans into infographics. Anyone can do it. Free services that make it easy to create infographics are Visme,  Venngage, Canva, and Piktochart.

Your infographics should promote the type of work that you do, showcase your innovative ideas and display the resources and data that would be helpful to your potential customers. Push it out to the category of business that you help.

Be sure to brand all your infographics.  A common mistake is to omit your branding, which means you won’t get credit for your brilliant content. Include your logo, URL and contact information to increase brand awareness. 

Number 5: Publish or Perish. Publishing content is probably one of the best ways to increase brand awareness because it's shareable and evergreen. Be sure that you get the most out of your hard work and repurpose your content across a range of platforms. For example, by writing an article and turning it into a podcast or a video, you can leverage the different ways people prefer to consume content

Publishing also increases your credibility, establishes you as a thought leader, and promotes your industry expertise. Publishing gives you a platform to champion trends and innovations, and allows you to easily share valuable resources like apps, services, and tutorials. 

Number 6: Leverage Friend Referrals. People are much more apt to follow recommendations from a friend than they would from any kind of brand advertising. My good friend and founder of Youpreneur.com, Chris Ducker, calls this P2P, or people-to-people marketing. 

There's a geometric progression of growth in asking for friend referrals. For instance, if you have a tribe of 10 people and you ask them to share the good word about your work with four of their friends, suddenly, you've turned that into 40 brand impressions. That’s a fantastic way to land very trusting, yet inexpensive leads. 

P2P marketing needs to be done in a very open and honest way that makes it easy for people to refer you. Create valuable content like a “How-To” guide or “Top 5 Features of Top-Performing Websites,” for your friends to share with their friends and colleagues.

Dropbox used P2P when they were starting out. They offered free disk space to anybody who recommended them to a friend. They gave 500 megabytes of disk space, capping it at 16 gigabytes. While that’s a huge giveaway, their referrals grew by 60% and they doubled their users every three months for some time.

Some irresistible incentives you can try include:

• Downloadable resource lists 

• Checklist

• Guides

• Common mistake list (don’t forget the fixes!)

You can even use your lead magnet as an incentive.

When asking for referrals, be brave and go beyond close friends. Ask your audience to share your incentive with a network connection and see how much exponential growth you can create for your brand awareness. A bold move here could pay off handsomely.

Number 7: Use consistent visual and verbal branding. Consistency is probably the most important thing you can do to increase brand awareness. Logo, colors, fonts, imagery, layout, photography style, and thumbnails need to be aligned. It helps you with the 3 R’s: being recognized, remembered and revered. 

Brand equity is achieved in steps and it all begins with awareness. You must be recognized before you can be remembered. Once you're remembered, and you deliver real value with your brand over time you're on your way to being revered. And being revered is the gold standard of any brand.

5 Biggest Mistakes Startups Make and How to Fix Them

Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of guts, grit and business savvy. The “mental game” can be hard, and the odds are stacked against them. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly half of all startups fail after five years. That is a daunting statistic, and my goal is to help change these odds, one entrepreneur at a time.

I’ve worked closely with many startups and seen them make the same mistakes over and over. By preventing some critical business errors, startups have a greater chance of making the change they wish to see in the world. 

Entrepreneurs can go farther by not stepping in theses potholes:

Big Mistake # 1: All product and no brand. Tech companies especially can get blinded by what their app or product does, making them completely forget about the brand. They get stuck in the quicksand of its features.

The functionality of the product is important, but without a solid brand strategy, you can’t clearly define the problem you are solving and who will use your product. This is painfully felt when you are ready to market. 

Without a brand strategy, many companies are chasing customers rather than attracting customers. 

Without a brand design, you are not instantly recognizable (which means you are instantly forgettable), and there is no way for customers to understand who you are and how you relate to their lives.

Larry Alton, of Entrepreneur.com explains, “Without that core identity, your company is virtually indistinguishable from your competitors, and even with a solid business model, it’s unlikely that your customer acquisition and retention programs will succeed.”

Big Mistake Fix #1: Evolve your brand and product in tandem. When the brand strategy is thoughtful and clear, it naturally leads to smart brand design, which leads to memorable naming for the brand and products, leading to breakthrough marketing. 

These “seeds” of a strong brand make it successful. In my mini-ebook, 9 Design Elements Your Brand Absolutely, Positively Needs, I explain how to create these seeds. As you go through this book, don’t be afraid to be bold. 

Yes, you may create brand concepts that “suck” at first. Don’t be discouraged. 

It will get better. Express your brand authenticity. Stand out and keep iterating.

Big Mistake #2: Be the perfect brand. Building a solid brand takes time. Famous brands took years, if not decades of iteration to become the icons we know today. 

In this article, Business2Community reviews some iconic brands and how they have changed over time to adapt to the needs of their customers. 

Not one brand I know started out perfectly. 

It’s got to evolve.

Big Mistake Fix #2: Take the phrase “building a brand” literally. The keyword is “build.” Don’t waste time thinking it's going to be perfect right out of the gate. Going for the unattainable will delay your progress. 

Instead, have your partners agree on a cohesive brand idea that's good enough; a minimum viable brand. The software industry creates excellent minimally viable products (MVPs), and you can take a cue from them. They get the MVP out in the world and see how consumers respond. They observe what customers like and don't like, then alter the product as they go along. 

Startups have to do this with their brands. Develop a MVB (minimum viable brand). Iterate and evolve it over time. 

You can't hesitate, wait, or be frozen by the fact that you don't have the perfect brand right out of the gate. 

Begin building your MVB now.

Big Mistake #3: Keeping your head down. Entrepreneurs running startups are notorious for tunnel vision, which can be an asset. However, when it comes to knowing your competitors, you have to pay close attention. 

“While obsessing over the competition is not healthy, ignoring them was also a recipe for failure in 19% of the startup failures,” reports CBInsights.com. You must know your market and all the players. 

You would not believe how many brands and companies have a discovery call with me and can't name their top three competitors. If you don’t know your competitors, you can’t possibly know how to compete with them or where there is an opportunity in the market. You need to know how people will perceive your brand in relation to the others in your arena. 

Big Mistake Fix #3: Marketplace audit. You have to be aware of your competitors in order to be different and better. I recorded an information-packed video on how to differentiate your brand and created a downloadable audit worksheet to help you gather all the important information you need. 

In addition to the competitive audit, make sure your brand has a role model. 

Find three or four aspirational brands; brands that you want your company to be like when it grows up. They can be in or out of your category, it doesn’t matter. The key is that they exemplify the type of behavior, look, and success that you want to emulate. 

Aspirational brands will help you define where you are going, which will help you drive your brand to success.

Big Mistake #4: Chasing the wrong channels. One of the best and worst things about marketing is the number of channels available to market your brand. 

It can be easy to get hung up on a channel without thoughtfully assessing them all and choosing the best one for your brand. 

There will probably be more than one channel that is right for your brand. How do you pick?

Big Mistake Fix #4: Your Target Audience Has The Answer. Two simple questions will lead you to the most profitable channel for your brand:

1. Who are your customers?

2. Where is the best place to get their attention? 

This is why the brand strategy is so important. Once you define your customer avatar (Mistake Fix #1) you can determine where they “hang out” (e.g., social media, sporting events, trade shows, charity balls, etc.). This will inform you of where you need to show up - in other words, your channel. 

Here’s how to get started in marketing channels:

Spend a minimum amount of money on several different channels, and check your analytics over time. See where you're getting the most engagement and the most traffic, and grow your presence in those. Once you find one or two channels that work, leverage them. 

Showing up really well in just a couple channels is always better than showing up half-assed in a dozen of them. 

You don't want to be everywhere. It takes too much time and money. Start out small and build from there. Focus on what works for you.

Here is a short article from Hubspot that will help you start thinking about the channels that may work for your brand. You can also look at your competition. Be informed by what they are doing, but don’t copy them.

Big Mistake #5: “Et Voila” Thinking. We all love the stories of VC-funded startups with a hapless founder who sketches out some brilliantly simple app, and then months later cashes out for millions of dollars. 

The truth is that this rarely happens. 

Building a brand takes a lot of time, courage, and tenacity. There is no recipe to follow. You don’t add a little of this, a dash of that, pop it in the oven, “et voila! Success!“ 

It takes time to see the return on your investment. It doesn't happen overnight. 

Big Mistake #5 Fix: Don’t let ideas of overnight success rent space in your head. Instead, focus on evolving. Understand that it takes sweat equity. Remind yourself that success is a long game. Ultimately, there are two things a startup must do to be successful:

1) Start

2) Don’t stop

Your entrepreneurial success depends on so many factors, both internal and external. My advice and encouragement to most entrepreneurs is to be bold, start simple, iterate over time and learn from the mistakes of others. Let’s make our world just a little bit better. One startup at a time.

Your Atomic Reaction

Alfred Gilbert made some pretty cool toys. His company focused on those that nurtured children’s interest in science and engineering. Gilbert was the man responsible for one of the most popular toys of all time, the “Erector Set”.

Science experiment toys were very popular in the 1950’s. So, Alfred capitalized on societies arrival into the nuclear age with the “Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory”. A set capable of over 150 “magic show” experiments kids could do for their parents.

And it came with something special: 4 vials of actual radioactive samples.

Oh, and a Geiger counter...you know, just to be safe.

In 2002, Radar Magazine published a list of “The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time”. The U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory ranked number two. Just after Lawn Darts.

There’s a fine line between brilliant and crazy, between innovative and stupid - and between engaging and dangerous.

In marketing and design, have all have to walk that line. Trying new things. Taking chances. Experimenting to see what works. What doesn’t.

What if we try IGTV? TikTok? How about paid LinkedIn ads? A lead magnet on a pop-up? That new Photoshop filter? That kind-of-out-there font?

Because, if you don’t take the risk of making your own “U-238 Atomic Energy Lab” - then ultimately, you’ll never end up creating your “Erector Set”, either.

That's Genius Stupid

I’m trying to drink more water.

I have a tendency to sip coffee, Diet Pepsi, Red Bull, all sorts of terrible-for-you, caffeinated things all day long. Because unless you are in a sweat from exercising or something, water is...boring.

So I found a new product to help me, Mio. It’s a water “flavor enhancer” that makes your water more tasty - so you’ll want to drink more of it. I love the stuff (which means it is probably also bad for me in some way, but I digress...).

There are times in a marketers life when you come across something so incredibly stupid, it’s genius. That happened when I got an email from Petsmart the other day.

Petsmart is launching a new product, Nulo. Which is....a flavor enhancer for your dogs water. I literally laughed out loud. Stupid, no....genius!

It comes in assorted flavors: Lamb, Rotisserie Chicken, Beef Brisket. It’s got vitamins, electrolytes and amino acids. Undoubtedly more good stuff than my Mio has.

Everyone knows we pet owners anthropomorphize our companions. But Petsmart’s innovation team took it to the next level.

When I run brainstorming sessions with clients, I have one rule: “No poo-pooing”.

Meaning no editing, shooting down, or poo-pooing ideas. EVERY idea is a good idea when brainstorming. The editing and rationalization comes later.

Because you never want to throw out ideas too soon. Ideas that on the surface seem totally stupid.

But in the end, turn out to be genius.

The Sunny Side

What Do You Need?

I used to work near Union Square in San Francisco.

Within a couple blocks of the square are a half dozen large tourist hotels. The Marriott, The Westin, The Grand Hyatt. On my way into the office, I used to watch the tourists emerge from their hotels in shorts and t-shirts looking forward to the warm weather they expect in California.

The only problem is that half the year San Francisco is freezing. The fog rolls in and let’s just say it’s not shorts and t-shirt weather.

So the first thing thousands of tourists do is desperately search for where they can buy a sweatshirt.

They don’t have to look very far.

Almost every store around Union Square has warm apparel for sale. CVS has a whole hoodie section right by the front door. So does Walgreens. Even Starbucks has sweatshirts.

Why? It’s because they know it’s good business to give people what they really need - right now. You can make good money selling hoodies even if that’s not what you usually sell.

Maybe you design logos. Maybe you’re a videographer or a 3D animator. And maybe business is a little thin right now because of CoVid-19.

So, ask yourself two questions: What do people really need to help their businesses - right now? And...Can I provide it to them?

Do they need a Facebook ad campaign? Some new blog posts to boost their SEO? A fresh email template for outreach to prospects?

Because you can make good money selling this things. Even if it’s not what you usually sell.

Guess What? You’re Drafted

Did you ever wonder why in the Indianapolis 500 race cars follow each other so closely? Or why in the New York Marathon elite runners run right on the heels of their opponent?

The answer is “drafting”. Any object uses energy to move quickly through air. That object then creates a vacuum of air behind it that “pulls” along anything that’s behind it - drastically reducing the amount of energy the follower needs to keep pace.

By using these aerodynamic truths, a Brazilian bicyclist recently reached an incredible 77mph on a highway by drafting behind a semi truck. A feat that would be totally impossible otherwise.

A couple weeks ago I started a private Facebook group called Brand Design Masters.

One of the amazing things about it is the broad range of experience and skills the members have. Some are seasoned industry vets with serious credentials. Some are just starting out - or making a pivot in their careers and starting fresh in a new direction.

But the best thing about mastermind communities like this is that it is rare that you are the most accomplished person in the group. There are others more knowledgeable, better connected or more experienced that are moving at a greater speed than you.

Why is that the best thing?

Because by using the power of drafting you can make faster progress in a shorter period of time than would be ever possible on your own.

A New Playlist for You

The corona virus has everyone stressed out. Now, in week 4 of the lockdown everyone is getting a little stir crazy.

Everyone except our dogs that is.

That’s mainly because they’ve been jammin’ to a new Pandora playlist.

Let me explain.

Before the corona virus when we left the house we used to put on classical music for the dogs to keep them company.

That’s because we’d read that past studies showed dogs were more relaxed when they listened to classical music.

But the folks at the Scottish ASPCA observed by day 7 their stressed shelter dogs got habituated to classical and returned to restlessness. Just like us, they get bored.

So they did their own study. They wanted to know what genre of music dogs actually like best. So they used a playlist featuring 5 genres of music including classical, Motown, soft rock, pop and reggae.

Then they recorded the dogs heart rates, cortisol levels and behaviors that measure stress levels, like barking, panting, yawning or lying down.

It turns out dogs like...reggae. Bob Marley in particular.

When you have been operating under the same assumptions for a while. Serving up the same products, the same strategies and processes - talking about them in the same way. Your message might be falling on deaf ears.

You might want to switch things up. Try a new message, a new look.

Try jammin’ with a new marketing playlist.