How to Conquer Your Rebrand
This week on the podcast, Ben is joined by Focus Lab CEO, Bill Kenney to talk all things branding and about his Amazon bestseller: Conquer Your Rebrand: Build a B2B Brand That Customers Love and Competitors Envy.
Focus Lab is a B2B branding agency that specializes in helping businesses create compelling and competitive brands.
In the episode, Kenney discusses the branding process, how to choose the right branding agency and the signs it’s time for a rebrand.
Conquer Your Rebrand highlights the value of a rebrand; from aligning mission with values to rethinking processes and products. In the episode, Kenney digs into the significance of rebranding as an important strategy for business growth as well as how a rebrand can help an organization redefine company culture.
Check out the episode on YouTube where you catch other great podcasts.
Ep. 51:
How to Conquer Your Rebrand
Automated Transcript
Ben Lueders (00:01):
Could a rebrand be the key to your organization's future success? Welcome to Growing a Fruitful Brand where we discuss how to create and grow a brand that makes the world a better place for you, your customers, and your employees. I'm Ben Lutter, founder and art director of Fruitful Design and Strategy, and today my guest is Bill Kenny, the CEO of Focus Lab, AB two B branding agency, and the author of the All New Conquer your rebrand. Bill, welcome to the show.
Bill Kenney (00:34):
Hey, happy to be here. Well done. Very good on the intro.
Ben Lueders (00:38):
Thank you. Thank you. We were just chatting that usually I like to record my intro separately, but we're trying this new thing and thank you for your
Bill Kenney (00:47):
Support. You nailed it. Dude, that's tough. For the people that don't know that, don't try to do this. Nailing an intro like that without having to record it like seven times.
Ben Lueders (00:56):
Well done. Only twice. Only twice. Bill does this all the time. So he's an old pro. We're going to have a fun time on the show today, but we're talking about rebranding because that's what Bill's been talking about. Focus Lab. They are AB two B branding agency that it inspires a lot of agency owners. Like me, I've been following Bill's work, focus Lab's, work on Dribble, which is kind of like the, I don't know, the Instagram for designers, non-designers. Dunno what that is or Care. But you do amazing work and I love that you came out with a book all about the power of rebranding and it's a book. That's all. It's beneficial for guys like me who rebrand other people all the time, but it's also geared to people who aren't agency owners who maybe are business organizational leaders that are feeling like, man, what direction is this company going in? And so Bill, let's just dive right into defining our terms here.
Bill Kenney (02:00):
Course.
Ben Lueders (02:00):
What is a rebrand is a, what does that mean?
Bill Kenney (02:03):
A big question first? Yeah, okay, well thankfully you didn't say what is branding? I
Ben Lueders (02:09):
At
Bill Kenney (02:09):
At least go one step forward from that. Alright, so what's a rebrand? So you're within your organization and you realize something's not working here and there's a variety of reasons why that could be, and I'm sure we'll talk about that in a little bit. But ultimately the rebrand is to help take you from where you are currently and what is not working within the brand, which is a variety of touchpoints to that version of you that you want to become for your customer. So that's rebranding yourself to be that other version. So ultimately that's what people like you and I do.
Ben Lueders (02:44):
Is that just a new logo though? I mean, you just need to get a new logo. Go on Fiverr, get yourself a $5 logo or whatever, and now you've got a rebrand done mission of Complex.
Bill Kenney (02:57):
That is obviously not it. So imagine it this way. Let me just think off the top of my head. So there's a restaurant down the street that you go to that is subpar. If they come out with a new logo that doesn't now mean that the staff and the experience when you go through the door is better, that the seats are now not ripped up when you sit in them that the food is going to come out actually better quality, not frozen, et cetera. Like a new sign on the front of the building of the restaurant is not going to do those things. Same as a new logo on the front of your website, if you will for AB two B. A big B two B Tech company is certainly not going to reshape their organization in the eyes of their customer and their team because a brand is going to do both of those things.
(03:44)
So no, it is never a logo. There's almost a whole chapter devoted to that in the book, and I don't want to make too light of that. I think it is the right question, and I think people like you and I and many designers, writers and strategists that have been in this world for so long, it's easy for us to be like, why don't people understand it's not that? But we have to remember that they don't even understand what brand is in the first place. So here we are telling them, reminding them, no, it's not a logo. This thing right here, which is my company logo, means nothing to anybody watching this that has never met me and has no idea what our company does. So it can never be the logo. The logo serves other purposes and we'll get to that I suppose later too.
Ben Lueders (04:31):
Yeah, yeah. Well, so we've started talking about this. It's more than just a logo, obviously it touches on experience and so many different things. When is it time for a rebrand, right? Because obviously there's a time to just stay the course and there's a time to not rebrand. So there's got to be some crucial key indicators for when it would be a good time to talk to an agency like Fruitful or Focus Lab.
Bill Kenney (05:05):
The unfortunate part is there's no magic silver bullet time because even within the points that I expressed in the book, which are five clear points, which we can kind of break down here. Yeah,
Ben Lueders (05:16):
Yeah,
Bill Kenney (05:17):
That'd be good. They are still nuanced by nature to the company and where they are, what type of money do they have? Maybe they know all these things are true, but they can't afford it right now. So there are all these tricky nuanced elements to it. But in general, you're going to have situations, and I don't know which point exactly this is, maybe you can correct me on my own book content. You're going to run into circumstances as a business owner of the, okay, we're pivoting, we're actually changing our entire market that we're serving. We used to serve this person. We're no longer going to do that. That part of the market is dry. We don't even want to play in that space anymore. We're going to go over here. Well, you would have to consider what implications that means to the brand. And again, because brand is not a logo, it's going to be about how do you talk about yourself, why do you matter in that new space?
(06:15)
How does that affect your team and why should they care? All those things are the brand bubble. So pivoting to a new space would be a key indicator of having to rebrand. We work with many organizations that grow from, let's call it a seed stage, generally more like a series A into this series C series D version of themself. And even though they might not have pivoted to a new space, the company is completely fragmented, right? There's probably been a couple m and As during that time period. So now they're trying to match different cultures through these acquisitions that they've had. They have added new services, although they're still in the same vertical, they're getting wider. All these things become really confusing and complicated from a brand messaging perspective very specifically. So that is another very key indicator. Another example off the top of the head would be trademark issues.
(07:17)
We've worked with companies even at a series B, series C level where they realize they're getting letters saying, Hey, and this is a logo example. You actually can't use that logo now that you're big enough to be on our radar that actually is infringing on a trademark. You need to change. So in that effort, it again is not a logo exercise, but it is an opportunity to trigger a bigger thinking of where are we and where are we going? And for that company to be towards an IPO. And I just want to be clear, a rebrand doesn't mean throwing everything out. I think there's a little bit of a misconception there of the, oh, I don't want a rebrand. That means I'm going to have to throw out everything good and bad and rethink everything. It's like, no, no, no, it doesn't have to be that way.
(08:04)
There can certainly be legacy assets, values, all these things that are actually really valuable even in where the new brand wants to go and we will build better on top of those things. So that's just a couple examples of why would a company have to rebrand. Maybe one more, and maybe this is obvious, but it's worth saying. It's not necessarily that the brand at its foundation is broken, but it is not broadcasting itself in the way that the internal team sees and feels. And what I mean by that is if I can think about my own company, imagine a world where focus lab, my agency has the culture and the brand that we all know to be true internalized, but we've done a really poor job for whatever reason, externalizing that when we take it to our website or to marketing, we just do a half-ass job at it.
(09:01)
But internally it is all still true. So rebranding to us might just mean turning the switch on externally. We're doing a great job internally, but we're doing a really poor job externally, and there's a variety of reasons why that might be happening. So then we'll have companies come to us and say, we're having trouble recruiting and our culture is kick ass and everything here is great, but man, people just don't get it on the outside. Well then we need to work on brand. So that is clear and that is more than just flash up your career page on your website a little bit, right? It has to be bigger and broader than that.
Ben Lueders (09:38):
Oh yeah. I'm so glad you said that, bill, because I mean, I feel like you just described the ideal client. For us, it's the organization that is amazing on the inside, great integrity, great product passion, everything's great, but on the outside they don't look like what they really are. It's not matching. And so rebranding is a great opportunity just to get those things to match, to get the good that's there. And I think too, on a previous note that you just mentioned, one of the special things about rebranding is that you do have this history. You do have a legacy to deal with good and bad, but there's always some good, there's always some. And I think that's really the fun challenge for designers and agency guys like us is what can we build off of, not just what can we burn to the ground?
(10:33)
And there are times where you do need to maybe burn something to the ground and start from scratch, but almost always you're going to find really cool things from the history that you can bring into the design and into the feel and into the experience. How can we amplify the best parts? And that's why it's so fun. I think it is just like I've often said, and I'd be curious if you agree with this, but the difference between a graphic designer or commercial artist and a fine artist is we like to have commercial artists. We like to have rules and we like to have things to start with. We like to have guidelines and principles and materials to work with, whereas oftentimes fine artists are, they are just pulling stuff right out of abstractly, out of their imaginations, and I think that's what it's always so fun when coming into an existing brand is you get to understand they've been, and then how do we turn that into a strategy to take them 'em where they want to go in the future?
Bill Kenney (11:46):
Yeah, you're correct. You never have to burn it all the way to the ground. You generally only have to do that, and we never really have these types of clients. If there's a big moral issue within the company that is now an external viral event that you're like, we can't even be associated with anything around this type of company. We need to change our name exactly what we stand for. We need to now stand further ahead on certain items and really almost like overreach on certain values to course correct for whatever public issues are happening. We generally don't have those issues with our clients. For us, you can always pin back to the founder's story and where the company began and why that mattered and what they were out to achieve and their early vision has just maybe been lost somewhere in their, again, generally speaking, the values are still the same, but they start to get muddy.
(12:39)
Everything starts to get gray. Once it becomes real businessy, just add more features. Just add another service over here. Oh shit, we're overlooking this thing. We're overlooking that thing, the brand and the brand process for better or worse, and I say for worse because it is time intensive and sometimes people don't want to slow down to do it, even though they've signed up for the project to come back to center and to sit down and talk about all of those things. Why did we start this company? What are we trying to be? What have we lost sight of? What are our values again? Are they correct? Are they accurate? What is our mission? Now we're going to sit down and we're going to tool sentences about what is our mission and we're going to stress over certain words within a sentence. It's like many times for a founder that it's like, can we just get back to work building the feature that the customers want? The thing I actually get a dollar back on. Yeah, I understand that. As a founder, I totally understand that, but you got to get the house right too because when both of those things are right together, now you have a compounding effect when one is wrong brand specifically, and the tool is right, you're just getting paid whatever the ceiling is on that tool, everybody else can build the same damn tool, right? Let's all be honest. Yeah,
Ben Lueders (13:58):
Well speak to that a little bit. I mean, I feel like I've heard that before and I felt it too. As a business owner of this feels like we got to slow down, this feels like it's going to slow down the system to have to stop and reassess, and it might even seem naval gazing or selfish. Yeah, I care about the customer. Why would I do this kind of self-centered exercise of rebranding? How does that really help our customer? How does that really move the company forward? How would you respond to someone who's thinking that way?
Bill Kenney (14:41):
The problem is, so I can completely empathize with that thinking, and I think you have to be able to, especially in people like you and I in our position, we have to be able to understand, yes, that is how they're going to think. We have to help them think past that. One of the ways is to remind them that this is not simply about the customer. You've got a team of people. Some of these people we work with have thousands of employees. What would it mean in terms of dollars and efficiency and morale and all these other things that are really worthwhile and valuable? If everybody knew why they were doing what they're doing and they cared about it and they could speak about it in the same way and all showed up to work with the same type of energy, et cetera. These are not just kumbaya campfire feelings like, oh, that's idealistic. That doesn't happen. Oh, right, I'm going to get 2000 people really excited because we went through a rebrand. It's like, yeah, you can actually do that. I'm telling you, you can do that.
(15:41)
You can make the business more about a product. And people especially nowadays, don't wake up to work on a fucking product. It's not why they wake up. They wake up to be a part of something that has some type of purpose. It doesn't need to be the thing that they're most happy about in their entire life, but some level of alignment in even strong alignment, dare I say, through a rebrand, makes everything else easier, happier, more fruitful for everybody. So then that will project itself outward. And now I haven't even gotten to the customer side. I've only just spoken to internal. There's plenty of clients that come to us now that realize that the biggest bang for the book that they're looking for is actually internal. That was not true in the early days. In the early days, everybody was saying, I need to get more customers.
(16:33)
I'm changing verticals. I need to be over there, blah, blah, blah. Now it's like internally, we need to be aligned. The product is great internally, we're all over the damn place. And again, I'll use the mergers and acquisitions example that happens at the client size we're at now. So yeah, don't just think about why do I have to sit down and talk about this? And for what it's worth, as a founder, if you don't want to do it, I would push back strongly and say, then don't go through the rebrand or really empower somebody else in a high seat to do that. Then for you, they're not going to be able to preach the early vision and talk about all these, well, I worked in my basement and I had to bootstrap. They won't have that type of stuff, but they will know ACMO for example, where the company's trying to go and what it needs. Then empower them and get out of the way so that they can sit down in those working sessions and talk about the mission and the vision and the values and yeah, I'll just leave it at that. I
Ben Lueders (17:41):
Love that Bill. I mean, I love that the way that you have framed up this external part of your brand and this part of your brand, and it does seem that depending on who you are as a business leader, you tend to focus on one over the other. That's right. And they're both crucial. They're super crucial. I mean, you can have the best looking thing on the outside and all your clients love you, and the team has no idea what they're doing or why they're there and they're not motivated, not aligned, they don't know they couldn't do sales for you because they don't even really know what you offer. There's so many. We could go on giving examples of this, but I just love that you've made that really clear that it's not just, and so then for someone saying, Hey, we should be focused on the customer, focus on the product, it's like, Hey, I mean, someone's got to make these products. Someone's got to do this thing and this team fight for your team. And you're right. I know you guys work with some big, big companies and we do too. And it's like it really matters. It really matters,
Bill Kenney (18:52):
Really matters.
Ben Lueders (18:53):
And it's not just a logo. I mean, I don't want to rag on logos. I love logos, and I think logos are an important part of a visual brand, but yeah, yeah, exactly. So I don't want to downplay it. And I even think what you were saying a minute ago, if you are, and this happens all the time, as our world changes, people pivot completely what they do, their target audience now is suddenly different. It just happened overnight because of something that happened in the economy, something that happened with technology. We were this thing, now we're kind of this thing that could have implications on your logo. Maybe your logo communicates a certain thing to this new audience, and every aspect of your company may have to pivot because of that. And so I think that's a really cool thing to keep in mind. So I know as branding agency owner guys, we could talk about some of these aspects all day. For those listening who aren't designers, who aren't branding agency folks, what kind of things should they be looking for in evaluating potential branding partners like an agency to rebrand other than just go to Fruitful or Focus Lab and just hire us, one of us?
(20:22)
What kind of things should they be looking for?
Bill Kenney (20:28):
I also sympathize with a client that says, okay, I know I need to rebrand, but who do I work with? Where do I find them and what should I be looking for? That is the next monumental task. The first Headspace is, is this worth it? Should I do it? Some people are already there, then it is, okay, I'm ready to act. Oh God, for two reasons. There are so many options. Agencies, freelancers, giant agencies, boutique agencies like Solopreneur people where it is a company, but it's one person. They've been doing it 20 years or some companies have 10 people, they've been doing it two years. The prices are all over the damn place as well.
(21:13)
So that's quite the struggle, which is why in the book, which I won't try to plug this whole time, there's a whole chapter devoted to this. So we talk about the three PSS in the book. The first I get out of the way essentially, and I talk about portfolio. I think it's the obvious one, but I try to do it justice by saying it's not the most important one. So yes, portfolio, you should look for an agency that is at least familiar in the space that you're in. I don't think they need to be the best in the space. And I even say that as a founder of AB two B position company, the portfolio should resonate but not personally resonate, meaning it should feel of high quality. It should feel like they can produce work of a certain quality that would match what you need to push out to your customer, which would probably now remove like, okay, I'm not going to get my nephew to do the work for two grand.
(22:16)
Even though that feels attractive from a price perspective, the quality would be low. So really the portfolio P is a high quality bar, find high quality work, and there are still plenty of those. So then you say, well, shit, what else? Okay, I need something else to measure. The next that we propose in the book and that we really stand on strongly at Focus Lab is process. Once you get the quality right, you're really going to want to find a company that delivers a process that you can understand and that will work for you. Yes, our process is easy to understand, but maybe the flow of the work which we outlined very clearly to all of our incoming customers, maybe it's just not going to work for them. For whatever reason, they're going to say, we can't match that. We actually want a very different process, then we're not going to be the right fit.
(23:06)
They should know that and we should know that. So it's really trying to dig into the agency to say, what is your exact process and how do I as a company fit into that? Will it work for both of us? And then finally, maybe most important, it is very close with process is the people factor. Rebrands are challenging almost at every turn for different people. Different turns are harder. Picking a logo seems to be the very common impossible turn for everybody, even though logos aren't a brand, messaging can be really hard for certain founders and clients. So there are different steps that are really hard. And what I'm saying is to get through that crap, which is going to happen in every project, you want to be working with people that you both enjoy working with, that you trust, that believe have your back, even if they're pushing back on you, and that you can be authentic and open and genuine with Sure, there's probably clients or there's probably agencies that deliver much higher quality.
(24:15)
I wouldn't say higher quality, maybe more creative, more out of the box thinking than our company, but for many of our clients, that's not what they're looking for. They don't need as out of the box creative. They still need somebody that's going to help them through the process. It's going to shepherd them. And all those things come from the people factor of the agency, not just a pure creative standpoint. So that's a long answer to your what should they look for, but it's a clear answer. Those three things, if you can get those three things, is their portfolio high quality? Do they have a process you can understand and see yourself in? And do you actually align with the people? Did you enjoy the sales call? Did you find yourself laughing maybe at the end and talking more personal life stuff? That's the kind of shit that's going to get you through a long, hard challenging project,
Ben Lueders (25:01):
Right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I love it. That part really stood out to me. One of the things that stood out to me in that, and I think Focus Lab has done a great job. I think you guys are leaders in this is process and communicating your processes on your website. You and I had a call in a book. In a book. Yeah, I know you literally wrote a book on it. And he gives, I'm going to tell a little plug for the book here. I mean, bill gives away so much of the secret sauce, all of it. Yeah. I literally was introduced to Bill by a mutual friend a few weeks back and we had a call and you were plugging the book because you're giving me all these process things that you guys do, and it's like, dude, I just wrote a book about it.
(25:47)
You should get it. And that's what started this conversation. But on your website, I think what's so cool is we get a lot of people, a lot of our clients come because they get to know Raj or I or some other member of the team, the people like us. We get along, we have our clients are our friends, we have a good time. But I think the place where we might be weaker is in communicating the process that they should expect. And I love that you guys are so upfront about that because not only are people going to be able to identify, oh, these people seem nice, they're smiling, they've done great work, all this stuff aligns, but whoa, that process seems a little much for me. I don't think I could hang with that level of that just seems like a bit much or, oh, that doesn't seem like much of a process at all.
(26:47)
I'm going to want way more touch. It can go both ways depending on what you share. And what I love is it is going to help those people know if you're the right fit, but then also if they actually do engage with you, you're going to have expectations a little bit better set because you and I both know basically working with someone on something as important as a rebrand, it's just level setting expectations constantly and trying to stick to your dang processes as much as you can because clients will always try to bring in their processes or their ideas and try to get, and it's the hardest thing when we're trying to do this lift, especially if there's a deadline or something like that. I mean, I've really become a believer in process. I think when I started out, it was a lot more and it was just me kind of loose goosey kind of the artist, and we're having conversations and it's all, we could just run a whole company on friendliness. And then you start getting into some of these big projects, you get more team members, higher dollar amounts and stuff like that, and it's like, oh man, the process is the thing. It's the thing that's going to,
Bill Kenney (27:58):
Yes, that's what holds it all together basically. So that there are rails and roads to travel instead of, oh, this was enjoyable, but we found ourselves way over here. How did that happen? Oh shit, let's pull us way back over here. There's structure to follow. It has to be flexible by nature simply because of the complexities of rebrand. And each company, again, is different in its approval process and all these things, but you need some rails. There's got to be guardrails.
Ben Lueders (28:29):
Oh, yeah. Well, and I think the other cool thing too, I hate that I'm plugging focus labs so much. Guys really don't go with them. Go with fruitful. It's the better choice. But I will say one of the things that happens as I was looking at your processes in the book and on your website is just like immediately you immediately, I'm getting a sense of, oh wow, these guys know what they're doing, whether this is the process For me, it's like you're getting this authority piece of they have thought this through. I'm going to be so that when they see the price tag, I don't know what you guys charge, but I imagine you're charging more than $50 for a logo at this point, and if not, you really should consider charging more. But maybe that's
Bill Kenney (29:14):
Part of our strategy that I didn't put in the book. $50, everything,
Ben Lueders (29:20):
Everything, everything. That's the big one. No, but I mean, I think when people understand better the level of expertise and of nuance and strategy behind your process, suddenly the number makes sense. If they're going in thinking, I'm getting a logo for how much, because we get that all the time. It's like, I could get a, but my nephew does logos. And it's like, whoa, whoa. Look at our process.
Bill Kenney (29:51):
We're not talking logos. We're literally not talking logos.
Ben Lueders (29:54):
Exactly. So I love that about it. I think that really helps. And so what I would say is for us, I'm in a little bit of introspection here, but we're in the process of redoing our own portfolio, updating it, making it more helpful to people, easier for us to share. I think the people side we're doing pretty good on. Maybe I need to trim up, I don't know what else I could do there, but I think really in communicating our processes more clearly in words that our clients understand, I think that's one that I'd love to, I think we need to work on. And I'm really inspired by how you, you're not afraid to show the secret sauce a little bit. This is a differentiating factor, and this could help you make the decision on whether to work with us or not. I love it.
Bill Kenney (30:47):
Yeah, a big part of the book was making sure that it was completely open in every way, good or bad, meaning that other agencies could read it, adopt it, whatever. Those are all wins for us. The dedication in the front of the book is basically the rising tide lifts all ships. If the branding industry is better, even by 0.0, 0, 0, 0 2% because I wrote a book. Great. And also this humble, yet convicted idea of you could do this same thing, anybody could do the same thing, but it will still be different. So we feel like our version of this process outlined in the book is our version. Even if other people take the same steps, which gave me a lot of free headspace to say, yes, that is true. Let me just write about everything that we do free of any concern. And that made the process more enjoyable
Ben Lueders (31:51):
And probably more honest too. I mean, you didn't have to be guarded, and obviously I'm benefiting from it, hope that other agency owners are inspired by it as well. But yeah, I really think that that's a great mindset to have when you're creating anything. It's going to help you be just more honest, more vulnerable, and it's going to make your work so much better. Let's talk about brand writing a little bit
(32:25)
Here. So we've already said a million times over. It's not just a logo when you're getting a rebrand. Huge part of branding that I think can often be overlooked is messaging is the words that we use internally. Externally. It's a big thing here at Fruitful, I started as a graphic designer, primarily focusing on things like logos and the visual aspects of a website. I partnered up with a guy who is a writer and has really led things from a copywriting writing wording kind of perspective. And so let's talk about this a little bit. What's the difference between messaging and messages?
Bill Kenney (33:09):
Oh, that is such a fine line and such a really complicated point. So I'll do my best here. Let me start though with you are right. Words really matter. And that's basically quoted from an interview that I did with a past client, ACEO of a company called Luminate. And at the end I always ask all of these partners of ours, what's the most important thing you would want any other person going into a rebrand to know? And he literally said, yes, the visual identity is great, but words really matter. And for him, what he went on to say is that was really enlightening for him. He didn't expect that. Most people, they come in and it's very much a visual exercise, even if it's beyond logo, it's still a visual exercise. They're just trying to get to the website. What they quickly realized is, well, what are we going to say and how are we going to say it in a way that actually lead makes people slow down and maybe feel something, right?
(34:17)
So it was a long time actually before we even knew as an agency that words truly mattered that much. For the first couple of years, we were still very much a visual identity type of company. We will make things that look good. It was all designers until we realized, oh, okay, we need strategy. We can't just be making things to make things. So now that's the introduction of strategy into the camp, and then it's what we also need written word to. There's something to say. It's not just something to look at. Thankfully, most of our clients at this point do understand, and some now even come in with words as their highest priority. And I love seeing that. I'm like, yes, that shows a lot of things. It shows that we are where our clients are now, where we should be, and that they actually understand the power of words.
(35:11)
So back to your question, what's the difference between messages and messaging? So this is something we work hard in that chapter specifically of the book to break down. And why we do that is we often find ourselves in this conundrum to be very transparent. We go through the verbal identity exercise and we say, this is how you should write on behalf of the brand. This is the voice and tone and how you should come across. And as it relates to the brand attributes, which is a whole nother exercise we do with these three words that characterize, it might be like bold, God, I'm going to come up with really bad attributes on the spot, so I'll just leave it. I love this.
(35:58)
But then there's this line in the sand of like, we've told you how to write on behalf of the brand, but we can't go write all the things. So there's this idea of we're going to craft the messaging, which is internal, why we did a rebrand, what our vision is, what our core values are. Now we have the style guide, if you will, the verbal style guide of how we should write on behalf of the brand, but now we need all the things to say on our website. It's like, okay, that's a whole nother exercise that's then executing on behalf of that. So honestly, it can become really confusing for a lot of clients. It's something we're still working through because it is so confusing that line in the sand, and we're going to have to solve that because it is seemingly much easier to talk about why brand is not a logo or other things within the brand exercise.
(36:53)
It is very different to say, well, is my mission statement internal or external? Should I care about every word in it or is it just trying to rally the troops not secure a customer? That's problematic because it changes for different companies, it can be different. Sometimes the mission is external. Patagonia, their mission for sustainability, very external B2B tech company, their mission to fill in the blank, maybe not important to the customer, they are actually caring about the feature. The writing can be really hard. I would add on top of that, most of our clients at this point do not have dedicated writing on staff either, where most of 'em have dedicated design on staff, so then they're left with the like, oh, how are we going to write all this stuff? So I don't think I answered that question well, but I proposed the dilemma that it is.
Ben Lueders (37:54):
We have to tackle the very same thing all the time. And for us anyways, what really helped us was, I don't even know if we've talked about this bill, but we're a StoryBrand certified agency, and so we kind of buy into the StoryBrand messaging framework, which has really helped us. It is not everything, but it gives you kind of a framework, a helpful framework that you can build off of. And so we'll have a similar, what you were just saying and sharing a second ago reminded me of how when Raj or Darcy, one of our team members is taking someone through the StoryBrand brand script exercise and you're pulling out these kind of internal words and they're like, I don't know if we should say that on the website though. It was like, this is, that's another thing. And it is a whole other thing.
(38:52)
And Raj in particular is really good at taking that internal story language and turning it into something that is the right voice for the client. But it's a little bit of magic, I think that happens there, to be honest with you. And it's not as easy as you hand that brand script to the CEO of the company and they're just now going to be able to write correct on brand content. And so it is a thing. In fact, Raj and I were talking about today, we want to do a whole episode about how can you basically create messaging off of a blueprint like that that is on brand. It's a thing. It's a whole thing. It
Bill Kenney (39:37):
Is a thing. I would serve this up. I would love for you to speak with one of the writers on our staff maybe in that series, and you could get an even clearer perspective. I'm an old school designer at this point. Yeah, yeah, me too. So even in that question, there's big gaps that I'm not able to answer and fill as an old designer. But yeah, I'd love for some of the writing team to come on and talk about that very specifically.
Ben Lueders (40:06):
Yeah, that'd be really cool. Yeah, thanks for the idea. We may have to do that. Yeah, I think to round up this section, I just think it's so important to just put a flag in the ground and say a rebrand is so much more than the logo, but also so much more than just the visual aspects of your brand. We've already talked about external versus internal aspects of your brand. That can be visual, but it can also be the words that we say. And I know that a lot of people will kind of roll their eyes at things like vision, mission statement, values, these things. I mean, oftentimes, I mean they're just bad. Oftentimes these are the things that the bad part of things have just been passed down and no one even knows why. And if the values are just responsibility or
Bill Kenney (41:05):
Don't do
Ben Lueders (41:05):
The right thing, do the right thing. Yeah, exactly. It's like, wow, that's like pay to play kind of stuff. I hope integrity is something everyone takes seriously around here, but I think that, well, let just put it this way, just focus lab, help carve those things out for people. You help people establish vision, mission, values and stuff that is actually good and actually aligns with who they are.
Bill Kenney (41:37):
And I think the final note you made is the right note, which is it aligns with who they are because it could be right, even we had focus, I have values of strive for excellence that should be pay to play well, yeah, you're right, it should be, but let's put it out there and really live by it. And for us, excellence would be more than pixel perfect. It would be the people factor, it would be all these things stepping up to the plate, lead with courage. When times are hard, we lean in and help our client through that challenging part of their project so they don't have to be these novel ideas at this point. There's too many companies to have a novel set of values, but writing them in a way that is authentic to the organization that people can really embrace and adopt, that's where it becomes important.
(42:23)
And yes, to answer your question, we will help them with that. Not every company needs that. That is at the front end of the project where you find people trying to race to design. But again, as our clients get larger and more mature in brand, they realize that they need to slow down and actually at least check those boxes. Let's talk about them. Okay, yeah, they actually are pretty good. We'll finesse it to match the new vision language that's been created. Okay, alright, now we're moving down the line. Or Wow, the company is morally broken. Again, we don't really have a lot of those. We need to throw all this out, come up with new stuff, and for a very specific reason. The point being really, you just need to think about those things. It has to be part of the equation as you're undergoing something like this, it would be foolish, quite honestly to not, the time that it would take to sit down and think about those other steps is not going to massively reduce the amount of time that you're able to spend on the logo. It's a fraction, right? All those fractions add up, but do it step by step or you don't want to come back around and do it later, do it the first time.
Ben Lueders (43:37):
That's right. That's right. No, I think that that's a really good word. Bill, thanks so much for being on the podcast today. So Bill wrote this book, I've already plugged it a couple times, but Conquer Your Rebrand. And this is not just, oh, you've got one too. Oh, nice. He could
Bill Kenney (43:55):
Not have it on my
Ben Lueders (43:56):
Desk, right? That's right. He probably has a whole stack. They're all signed by himself and he looks at his signature every day.
Bill Kenney (44:03):
Yes.
Ben Lueders (44:03):
But we will have the link to this in the show notes, in our YouTube description. Anywhere you're watching or listening to this book is not just for guys like Bill and I. Okay, I know I've already said that, but this is for anybody who is a business owner, business leader, even I would say CMOs, stuff like that, who think like, Hey, we need to pivot. We might need to change something around here. And it might be a logo, a terrible logo that inspires that terrible color scheme. But it could also be values, it could be the wording on your homepage. It could be so many different things. It could be some of the internal problems we've talked about. This book is for you too, so please take a minute, buy this thing, write a nice review for Bill. Anything else that our listeners should do.
Bill Kenney (45:05):
That's it really. I'm in the mode of Jess. People need to understand brand better and for the people that do, they then now need to understand what process might be best for them. Just wrote the book for that reason solely. So yeah, you're right. It's going to touch many people. And for that, I'm happy.
Ben Lueders (45:22):
And where can people follow you? Where are you posting most these days?
Bill Kenney (45:28):
Alright, so follow me, bill S, middle initial, S Kenny, K-E-N-N-E-Y. On any social, that's the same handle. I snuck my middle initial in there and I got every handle. I post mostly on LinkedIn. I post an average amount on Instagram and that's about it. These days. We won't get into the dribble factor in this podcast. And for the book, if you are interested in learning more, you could go to conquer your rebrand.com. That would outline what is in the book and per section, or again, just go to Amazon. You can read other people's reviews and see if it's good or if it sucks. I'll leave that up to you. We'll
Ben Lueders (46:11):
Have both of those links in the show notes. Yeah, it's a good little mini page there that you made as well. Bill, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Bill Kenney (46:24):
Thank you for having me.
Raj Lulla (46:25):
Thanks for joining us today on Growing Your Fruitful Brand. If you found today's show helpful, don't forget to subscribe and consider sharing it with someone who might also enjoy it.
Ben Lueders (46:33):
And if you'd like to work with Fruitful on a branding website or messaging project of your own, you can always reach out on our website Fruitful Design.
Raj Lulla (46:42):
Until next time, don't forget to
Ben Lueders (46:44):
Grow something. Grow something good.
Raj Lulla (46:47):
You jerk.
