Going Beyond the Image Series Premiere

Welcome to the first episode of Going Beyond the Image.

The inaugural episode of Going Beyong the Image introduces the podcast's purpose and the importance of leadership in embodying a brand. It emphasizes the distinction between a brand and its visual elements, focusing on the experience and perception of the brand. The four pillars of the podcast are grounded identity, owned narrative, brand in action, and influence with integrity, which serve as guiding principles for leadership and brand representation.

Going Beyond the Image is powered by:
GOBI Marketing Group, LLC

Produced by:
ARISE Group, Inc.

Cover Art by:
Dynamic Works

Transcript

Why Leadership Defines Brand

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm bringing this podcast to you, the listening public, for those who want to learn what a brand really is and how it is embodied through its leadership. Welcome to the inaugural episode of Going Beyond the Image, a podcast about how leaders live their brand. I'm your host and founder of GOI Marketing Group, Loanne Lake. And I'm so excited that you're here with me today. This podcast has been a long time coming as I've worked with leaders and executives throughout the nonprofit sector, government sector, private sector, and community leadership. And I've looked at the ways that people have embodied the brands that they represented in their professional lives. So I'm bringing this podcast to you, the listening public, for those who want to learn what a brand really is and how it is embodied through its leadership. In each episode, I will sit down with leaders and executives who are walking their talk, who understand that branding is behavior, its culture, its service, both inside their organizations and in the community. And what brought this to mind for me was the repeated stories of CEOs who had done something in their private lives that brought a negative cloud, brought shame, damaged the reputation of the companies they have worked so hard to build. And it got me to thinking what can be done to prevent this? How do we educate leaders on what it means to really represent your product or service? It's not that you turn it off at the end of the workday and you go home and do something completely opposite of what you've told the public you represent. And so this is an important conversation to be had within the business community and in other sectors of our society as well, because it doesn't seem to be going away. These conversations are about what it takes to build trust, to inspire teams, and create meaningful impact in today's world. So whether you're leading a company, a nonprofit organization, or a movement, this show will help you to connect with your why or reconnect with your why, why you're doing this work, how it connects to who you are, and how you show up with intention in every space you occupy. So let's get started.

Your Brand Is Not A Logo

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I want to begin with a simple idea. Your brand is not your logo. I will say that again. Your brand is not your logo. I know we spend time looking at the colors, at our website, coming up with the best slogan so we can be the next Nike. It's not even the messaging or your social media presence. Those things matter, but they are not your brand. Your brand really is about how people experience the product or service and you. It's leadership. Your brand is how people experience you, it's what they remember about you, it's what they describe you as when you're not in the room. It's how your clients feel when they interact with your organization, how long they may be put on hold, how they feel when they're in your waiting room, if it's a brick and mortar establishment. It's the tone of your communication that they receive on email or even the hold message. It's the quality of your service, the consistency of your delivery. And we all know that we'll be the first to put reviews online if we have a bad service experience. Those things make the brand of an organization, whether they want it to or not. Your brand is essentially your representation and how others perceive you, regardless of what messaging you may have paid for to put into the atmosphere. More importantly, your brand is how you show up at all times, whether there's someone looking or not. Not when it's convenient, not when you're being seen by others, but in all of the aspects of your life that define who you are as the leader of that product, service, or organization. Now, I've always believed that a brand is much deeper than what we see on the surface, as I've just shared. It's built through the way your team treats people, the way your management treats its team, the way you deliver on your brand promises to your customers or clients, the way you handle challenges behind the scenes, the way leadership shows up in moments of pressure. And believe me, in the times we are in, there are plenty of things that could pressure your leadership. But what it comes down to is how you remain focused on why you're there in the first place. Are we going to let a bad day prevent a customer from getting the service they expect, from ever coming back to our establishment because someone snapped on them when they weren't even the cause for their being upset in the first place? It's those kinds of things that can start to chip away at the reputation that a business has worked so hard to establish. Your brand comes down to your values that you, the leader, occupy in every space, and that trickles down from the top person to everyone underneath you. And it can either be done intentionally or it can be a consequence of poor behavior. So let's let's get into this a little bit more.

Alignment Creates Trust And Credibility

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Over the course of my career in communications, as I said, I'm a communications and public relations strategist. So I have worked with members of Congress, I have worked with executive directors of nonprofit organizations across many industries. I have worked with private sector Fortune 500 companies in helping to build out their brand internally and externally. I've also worked with community organizations that were trying to make their mark, or even with my church during the pandemic. We were a fairly new church established in the city of Charlotte, but my pastor wanted to help. And we went ahead and did some outreach that helped to ease some of the food shortages or food concerns for people in our community. And that sort of put us in a spotlight as one of the resources that people could come to. But it's through that type of work that I really get to see what organizations are made of and what their leadership is made of. And ultimately, the person at the top should represent whatever that product or service or institution says it represents in its business model. I've seen the difference between leaders who manage an image and leaders who live their brand. And what's different is whether or not it's aligned. Meaning, are they who they say they are? Are they going to do what they have said they would do? Does that brand deliver on its promise? Which leads to trust from the customer, from the client, from you. And if you think about in your own lives, the brands that you support on a day-to-day basis, it's based on the ones you know are reliable, that have integrity, that have maybe some type of cause that you believe in and support in their outreach. But it's about trust, it's about credibility. And those same things carry through in our business lives.

Four Pillars For Living Brand

SPEAKER_00 8:40

So I'd like to take a moment to share with you the four pillars behind the Going Beyond the Image podcast. The first one is grounded identity. It's who are you at your core? It's about authenticity. It's not about the role or the position you have in the organization, but what are your values? What are your beliefs? And what are the experiences that shaped you? So as I talk to my guests, we'll find out what grounds them in their work, outside of their work, but at all times. What is it that allows them to show up authentically as themselves, regardless of the situation, and that allows people to be drawn to them because they are exactly who they've said they are in every situation. The second pillar is owned narrative. I chose that, Tom, because your narrative is your story. And either you tell your story or someone tells it for you. And every leader has a story, but not every leader knows how to take ownership of their story. And there's some people, like the ones you will meet in this podcast, who do that very well. They know who they are, they've carved out a place for themselves, and they show up and they work their business, and they make sure that what people know about them is what they have intentionally crafted, what they have intentionally demonstrated day after day, even when no one is looking. It's about how do you ensure that no one else is telling your story for you because no one knows it better than you do. And so I encourage you to look for some of those instructional opportunities, some of those lessons as they talk about how they took ownership of what they wanted the world to know about them as they speak from their heart. My third pillar is brand in action. And I looked at that more as how you lead within an organization, especially if you're responsible for an entire team. Some of us are solopreneurs, some of us are entrepreneurs who lead people, be it small numbers or hundreds or thousands of people in our work. But when your brand is in action, you should be able to see those core values from the head of the organization all the way through to the person who answers the phone, opens the door, opens the mail, greets each of your guests, whatever industry, whatever organization, brand in action means, how is that culture established within an organization by its leadership? And do the team members reflect the culture of the person that they report to? That's an important conversation to have, especially in an age of AI where you may have technology taking the place of individuals, how that's trained, how does that affect your customer experience? So we'll have some opportunities to dig deeper there. And lastly, influence with integrity. And that for me is, you know, not everyone sees themselves as an influencer, but all of us are, because we all have our own networks. And for me, influence with integrity means how are you using your influence? Someone is looking up to you, whether you want them to or not. So when they encounter you, is that encounter going to impact them in a positive way or in a way that repels them, in a way that could discourage them? How are you as a leader interacting with people within your network when they see you in a place they don't ex you don't expect to be seen? Those are some of the things that we will talk about. Are you leading with transparency and accountability? Are you creating opportunity for others using your social capital? And for those that don't know what that is, social capital is the ability to make space for another person in a room that you're not in. I often talk about having my name being called in rooms that I'm not in. And that's because you may have someone else in the room who knows you, who knows your character, who can speak on your behalf. And because they're in a position of influence or authority, they can bring your name into that space, even if you're not there. So that's what it means to influence with integrity. And when you're a person of integrity, then it doesn't matter what room you're in, because you will always show up in the very way that you are meant to every single time. So I've introduced you to my four pillars grounded identity, owned narrative, brand and action, influence with integrity.

Community, Questions, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 14:21

In each interview, you will hear from leaders in various segments. And so I encourage you to come with a notebook or a piece of paper or your notes in your phone and jot down the nuggets that stand out to you. I'm hoping that this space will be one where people will be free to comment about the things that resonate with them and to also ask questions once the show is off. And to do that, you can reach me at my email address that will be in the show notes, but it's hello at gob.com. Each episode will have leaders who bring these pillars to life. We'll talk about the moments that shape them, the challenges that tested their leadership, how they stay aligned with their values, and how they live the brand that they represent every day. These are honest, reflective, and real conversations with leaders whom I've had the opportunity to work with or possibly interview, and some that I don't know but have wanted to know. And so I'm honored to bring their stories to you. I look forward to the time that we will engage together. And I just want to encourage you that if you are a new business owner, a new leader, a new executive, someone who finds themselves responsible for a brand, and you're wondering how do I carry this out? How do I do all these things? If you're in alignment, you're working in a place that fits who you are as a person. So then the way you represent that brand will come naturally to you. And that's really what we're getting to the heart of. So if this episode spoke to you, please don't keep it to yourself. Share it with someone who might need to hear these nuggets, and be sure to join me for the next conversation. Thank you for tuning in, and until next time, this is going beyond the image.