I don’t want to win awards

“I don’t want my branding work to win awards. I want my clients to win awards.” -Me

This is something that came out during a conversation with a business pal recently who told me that this was messaging “gold” because it’s so different than how most agencies attract clients.

Doesn’t every branding consultant/agency think this way, I thought?

But, they don’t, and I know this.

They refer to their award winning marketing and ad campaigns, copy, and photography in order to attract clients.

Success for me is seeing my clients be successful and watching them build their legacy. My role sometimes feels like part teacher, part mirror, part BFF, part coach and part stage mom.

“You’re doing great, Sweetie!”

We co-create strategies and brands based on who they are at their core and their uniqueness – as individuals or organizations – and with my framework, experience and outside perspective.

When we’re done working together, they have knowledge, confidence and me pushing them to “get out there” doing the work they’re meant to do and showing up fully as themselves – not a copy of someone or something else.

I want them to be “Badass,” their best and most genuine selves, to borrow a term from Kathy Sierra’s book, Badass: Making Users Awesome. If you haven’t read her book, grab it now.

Due to the collaborative and intense nature of brand work, my clients and I spend many hours getting to know one another and a bond is forged.

At the end of a project, it’s not “goodbye,” but rather, “bye for now.” My relationships are incredibly important to me and one way I tend to them is by checking in with past clients to see how they’re doing.

I’m always blown away by how they grow their businesses and evolve their brands while building off the foundation we co-created.

It’s an honor for me to work with my clients as a trusted advisor and I often hear afterwards that the brand work was “emotional and almost transcendental.”

We go deep!

I’m beyond THRILLED for their success.

Here are some more insights clients glean from our time together:

• They discover that people they admire for their clear and consistent brands don’t have some magical power, they understand brand strategy
• There are always unexpected massive payoffs from our branding work together
• Why having different interests and offerings makes sense when you realize how they’re related and you can convey that clearly
• How every decision they makes now is intentional and comes from a deep place of understanding within them (not by searching externally for answers)
• Why finding your own story and essence (with an outside perspective) is the key to branding
• How living the truth of your brand (not a contrived brand) pays off, but copying and playing it safe never does
• What happens when YOU get to be who you are in this world
• How they learn that branding comes from a much deeper place and is much more than logos, taglines and fonts

If you’d like to learn more about my personal branding work, send me a note. Or, if you’re interested in in-person branding + equine (yes, horses) facilitated workshops, we can chat about that, too.