Filed Under: Intrinsic Branding, Marketing
By Chris Konoski
Content. Brand. Message. Every brand wants to stand out. Go viral. Be different.
So they contort. They chase whatever feels clever this quarter. A weirder tagline. A louder hook. A voice borrowed from someone else’s brand because it worked for them. The harder they try to manufacture different, the more it reads like everyone else trying to manufacture different too.
Here’s the part that is hard to hear: you already have what “they’” are craving. You just haven’t been using it.
What makes you unique. What makes your brand special. What makes your company vital is you. It’s your humanness, your collection of expertise, experiences, and emotions. It’s your perspective. Your values. Your evolution. Your strengths and yes, your weaknesses. These things define your brand and make it different than all the other brands.
These things make your voice worth listening to. They make what you say actually m atter.
They make you interesting. And here’s the best part: as long as you keep growing, you will never stop being interesting. You won’t run out of things to say. You won’t run out of ideas. You won’t stop being relevant.
Inward: You are the Chief Spiritual Officer of your brand
Marketers are always searching for the new idea. Or the new way of saying the old thing. The angle no one has used, yet. The format that will finally break through. People spend months examining their competitors, studying trends, waiting for lightning to strike.
It rarely does. And even when it does, someone else has one just like it in their back pocket. Or they will copy yours.
So if the idea is not original. What is?
You.
Not in a precious, snowflake kind of way. But in a literal, practical way.
I love the esoteric, the aesthetic, and the emotional. I love discussing all of these, with all their facets, over a bottle of wine. But in the morning sun, I count on the nuts and bolts.
I like what is real, above all.
And what is real is your specific mix of experience, opinions, mistakes, obsessions, and taste. Nobody else has your particular blend. No one else has sat where you have sat, observed what you have observed, or gotten irritated by the exact set of circumstances that annoyed the heck out of you. This combination of things does not exist anywhere else.
This is not a small thing. This is the whole thing.
While brands are out there spending money and energy trying to sound smart, current, and impressive. Very few of them are trying to sound like an actual person made the decision. And this is where your opportunity lives. Not in a new idea. But in the old idea, told by someone who actually means it.
Outward: Put “you” to work
This is where lots of people freeze. Because most people are not asked what they actually think. And they usually don’t spend much time thinking about it.
During our Root + River Root Sessions, we go deeeeeep. We ask a lot of questions. And we uncover many assumptions. We get through the rote and the habitual. Eventually, we get to what is real, true, honest, and course-changing. And that is where your brand begins.
If you are working through these things on your own, start small. What do you find yourself explaining to clients over and over? What have you said so many times you could say it in your sleep? What is the thing you privately roll your eyes about in your industry that everyone else says with a straight face…but you no longer can? What did you believe five years ago that you have since completely changed your mind about?
These are worthwhile questions. They are also your content. These answers are your point of view, sitting in front of you, waiting to be written down instead of muttered to a coworker.
Your job as a marketer is not to invent something new. Your job is to say something true. In your own words. Out loud. Consistently.
Once you know your true thing – your message – every piece of content, every post, every email becomes a chance to say a version of it again. Not always the same sentence over and over, but the same conviction, showing up in different clothing. A client story that proves the point. A think piece that argues it differently. A quick observation that hints at it. Different formats, same thought.
That is what makes your brand recognizable and meaningful. It’s not just the logo and color palette. It’s the person, or group of people, who keep showing up with the same honest point of view, in enough places, often enough, and it starts to feel familiar.
And familiar is not boring. Familiar is relatable. And trustworthy.
If you want help figuring out what your true thing actually is, there is a lot we can do together in a Root Session. Reach out, and we can talk about it.