Why:

Everyone has a kick-ass story. Helping people communicate their stories (maybe their personal or business story) would be the focus. Quantifying ‘what is our purpose’ and ‘what is our differentiator’?

Our personal adventures and journey are what separate us from other people/services/brands out there. By sharing this, we can connect more meaningfully with our audience.

What is this?

At the end of the day, I would love to create a ‘Story Building for Business’ workshop that people can use to build their own personal story/brand. Similar to Seth Godin’s Just Ship It - this would have very specific outcomes: a brand you can build with credibility and relevancy in market.

The feeling this would give my community: confidence. This information would be free and shared widely.

But then this could generate income like a Bain or McKinsey consulting group: helping companies build long-term brand strategies - strategies that we can help implement for Top Tier clients. This would involve digging deeper, personal consultation, and one on one development.

A potential book (starting as a downloadable PDF) that would communicate exactly how to do this as well. Though this wouldn’t give immediate ROI (and would lack accountability for customers) it would be a good calling-card and potential lead-gen tool.

Who is this for?

I might build this for two audiences, maybe in this order?

• Small companies, people that are starting out. This audience could help me iterate on this product/service until it is truly of value to people. Then perhaps -

• VC backed companies that have just closed either Seed Money or Series A rounds. These companies are usually tasked with ‘getting to market’ and ‘scaling’ quickly, so identifying and building brand is business critical. This would be a premium offering over the course of 1-3 months? Not sure. Think CMO in a Box, with the focus on building a brand that in turns build ROI.

  • Engineers come up with great ideas but many don’t know how to build brands.

What’s Inside?

Outline:

• What is a brand anyway?

• Is the logo the brand?

• Building your story.

• Relational versus transactional - how to build fanatics.

Perhaps we explore things like:

• Mission - what is the mission of our respective brands. Or more importantly: what do WE want to do/create/be.

• What is the name of the company and the URL?

• Do you have a logo or line look? (This is less important than we all think). What is our distinct voice and integrity around that voice?

• What is the plan for communicating our meaning to market? What are we making and doing to reach people?