What's your brand story?
by Fred Wellman
I used to start a lot of conversations by declaring loud and clear I'm not a ‘branding guy' but a ‘story guy' back in the early days of my business. Anything about branding would make my head hurt from color palettes to art the whole thing confused me. I would argue over and over…I'm not an artsy guy…I'm a guy who tells stories!
Then I woke up and realized that a good brand is a good story and matching your brand with your story was the real foundation of success.
Your brand for your company starts with your story and grows from there. What exactly is your story? How did you start this business? What's your passion? Who is it you are trying to sell your products or services too? What is that makes your company so special?
At Ladyburg Bath and Body Apothecary, my wife Crystal's incredible manufacturing and retail company, we started off with a fun kind of funky ladybug approach playing off the name, with lots of elements that were red with black polka dots, ladybug icons, and decorations around the store on that theme. It confused a lot of customers. What was the place? Was it a cute little gift shop? Gardening? What?
Over time we realized that more and more of the products we sold, we were making right in our home and eventually in a kitchen at the shop. The handcrafted movement became bigger and people wanted to know the folks making their products and have faith that quality ingredients were going onto their skin. The “apothecary” portion of the name just started jumping out at us as the real story of the company.
Simply, the story wasn't the funky polka dots but the family members who were personally making every product we sold like an old fashioned apothecary used to mix medicines and cure-alls in our historic town.
Our brand didn't match our story.
So, we went back to the drawing board and started emphasizing the handcrafted elements of the brand. We got rid of the ladybugs and got a new logo that was more like an old time wax seal of just the initials ‘LB' much like how an apothecary would seal the herbs and bottles of medicine with a wax seal. Finally, our story matches our brand and sales have increased and brand understanding has gone up.
Ask yourself, what is your brand story? Is it your personal approach to customer service? Is it how you make your products? Is it the level of technical knowledge you hold? Does your brand story match your business story and does it make sense to a new observer?
One mistake we often see in the veteran owned business world is that the brand is your set-aside program. How many times have you gone to a government contractors website and the biggest logo is the Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business Certification stamp? Your brand shouldn't be your contract vehicle. It should be what you do and how it's different, that set aside is simply an access point and not who you are.
The best first step is having a neutral observer look at your brand elements, website, social media sites, and/or shop for the first time and tell you their impressions. If their impressions don't match up with what you do then you've got a disconnect that you need to address.
In the mean time…I know a great place to get soap and bath products made carefully by hand by some really nice folks with a guy who just loves telling stories all the time working on the weekends.
Fred Wellman is a retired Army officer turned serial and social entrepreneur. He is a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School serving 22 years in the Army as an aviator and public affairs officer and four combat tours. He is the Founder and CEO of ScoutComms, a B Corp communications and advocacy firm focused on veterans and military families.
In addition to serving as the Entrepreneur in Residence for NMSN, he also serves on: the Board of Directors for the Fredericksburg VA Main Street, the Board of Advisors for the Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation, Veterans in Global Leadership, and No One Left Behind.
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