the Fiery Truth about Branding: UNCORKED with SUE KIRCHNER

What if your brand isn’t what you think it is? What if every interaction — every word, tone, and experience — is a hot iron pressing into the hearts and minds of the people who encounter you, your company, or your work? 

In this provocative and insightful episode of The UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast, Tim Windsor uncorks a deep conversation with branding expert Sue Kirchner, founder of Brand Strong Marketing and host of The Turbo Branding Show. Together, they explore the fiery truth about branding — that it’s not about colours, logos, or clever taglines, but about the emotional heat we leave behind.

Join us as Sue takes us all on a journey from her days in Motorola’s Latin American markets to her evolution as a brand strategist helping companies and leaders define, communicate, and live their brands. Through engaging stories and sharp insight, she reveals the shocking reality: you don’t own your brand — you only manage it. Your audience, employees, and customers define what your brand truly is based on their experiences with you. And if you’re not intentionally managing those experiences, someone else is writing your story for you.

Key Takeaways: Branding isn’t optional — you’re always branding. Every conversation and decision leaves a mark. Great brands are built on the marriage of message and experience — and when they don’t align, trust erodes fast. Leaders are brand stewards, not just marketers. How they act, decide, and communicate shapes the organization’s promise more than any campaign ever will. Clarity is power: know who you are, who you serve, and what you’ll say no to if you want your brand — and business — to scale with strength.

This episode will challenge how you see branding, leadership, and legacy. It’s not just about being remembered — it’s about deciding what you’ll be remembered for.

Tim Windsor
the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast – Host & Guide
tim@uncommodified.com
https://uncommodified.com/
  
PRODUCERS: Alyne Gagne & Kris MacQueen 
MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/

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• 0:00 Tempo: 120.0

Transcript

PLEASE NOTE: UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast episode transcriptions are raw text files and have not been proofed or edited. They are what they are … Happy Reading.

© UNCOMMODiFiED & TIM WINDSOR

What if branding isn't just about logos, colors, or clever taglines, but what if it was about fire? What if every brand you've ever encountered from a person to a product or a corporation has been burned into your mind, not politely placed there? Think about it. Branding isn't just about creating clever copy and collateral.

It's about making an unforgettable mark on hearts and minds. So here's the question for you to ponder. What's being seared into the minds and hearts of the people who encounter you? Your business and your work branding has always been about searing identity into or onto something. The old branding irons that cattle wrenchers used weren't decorative.

There are instruments of permanence marking and making ownership with fire in flesh. Today our branding irons are invisible but no less powerful. We see our impressions into people with our choices, our language, our customer interactions, and our leadership. And branding isn't just about what you say, it's about the heat that others feel [00:01:00] when they encounter you, your product or your organization.

It's what lingers after they walk away from an encounter with you. The question is never. If you are a branding, because you're always branding, the question is, what mark are you leaving and how well is it landing and lasting in the mind, the heart, and the psyche of your audience? Hey, my friends. Welcome back to the Commodified Podcast.

I'm Tim Windsor, and today the guest of my show is Sue Kushner. Sue, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Tim. I'm so excited to be here.

Uh, it's gonna be a lot of fun. I can't wait to have this conversation. So my listeners is a bit about Sue. So Sue is the founder of a company called Brand Strong Marketing. And her proven brand strong methodology is enabling organizations to attract the right customers and employees, which I find is interesting, both customers and employees.

That's interesting how the brand can do that. We'll talk about that. Enter new markets successfully, create amazing customer experiences and ultimately increase sales And take. That business to the next level. She's also the host of the Turbo Branding [00:02:00] Show, a podcast and video show designed to help founders and CEOs of thriving businesses ignite their growth by leveraging their brand to grow faster, to grow easier, and to grow more successfully.

Now, this is an uncorked conversation, Sue. So we're gonna uncork a drink together and see where we go. Uh, what are you drinking tonight?

I am drinking a Pinot Noir from, uh, Soko Blosser, which is in Willamette Valley, Oregon. My husband and I did a bike ride for our 30th wedding anniversary. We, we, uh, rode all week throughout the valley and, uh, stopped at a bunch of wineries along the way, which was lovely.

That is awesome. That's great. Well listen, I'm gonna have a whiskey tonight and I brought out a special bottle, so I'll show this bottle in my, to

Oh, that's cool. I love that illustration.

this is, you know, Tavo brand now this is called The Deacon and it is a blended scotch whiskey. And the bottle is beautiful.

I, and you can see how this gold and beautiful, and so I'm gonna. Open that up and pour [00:03:00] myself a drink. But I tell ya, scotch has gone through a branding revolution. We could talk a whole show about that, but it's very interesting the whole thing that happens with that. Cheers to you, Sue,

Cheers.

and cheers to you, my listeners. Mm.

Yeah, lovely. Absolutely lovely.

That's a great way to start a conversation.

Exactly. Absolute great way to start a conversation, but just building off of what you were saying with the bottle and all that. Oh man, I got into branding. I wish I could draw, I wish I had any kind of visual talent whatsoever. Uh, because I just love, you know, between wine bottles and craft beers and craft distilleries and all.

Some of the most beautiful artwork gets used for branding purposes for these particular drinks and spirits and things like that. And, all of my creativity goes into, the research and the messaging. Can't do anything visual, but it's not, uh, even, even a knock on, uh, how [00:04:00] important that is.

But, uh, yeah, that's where, that's where I get to be creative is on that end.

That's good. I actually, maybe a month or two ago, I had a gentleman on my show who is a, who's a scotch distiller and , a brewer here in Canada. And he was actually gonna do a private scotch tasting at my house that I had to postpone because of a family event. So I'm had him on. But he actually, runs an organization, a brewer place called Collective Arts, and they have a partnership with artists, which is really interesting in how they do their whole thing.

So listen, we won't get lost in beer and

Yeah. We would get absolutely lost there. Yes.

in that. So let's start this conversation with this question. So I, I'd love to understand a little bit more about your personal and professional journey and how this idea and the power, how power branding, how it fits into that and what ultimately is this thing we call branding and why should maybe all of us think more about it, whether it's our personal brand and I, again, if you're listening in and you're not in business, that's okay.

I think. Branding can be about your personal brand. It could be an organizational brand, it could be a [00:05:00] company brand, it could be lots of different things, but how did you find yourself in this journey, Sue?

Yeah, interestingly enough, as I had mentioned, I have always been attracted to art and creativity, but couldn't do it myself. So when I was trying to decide, gosh, what do I wanna be, when I get outta school and all that, my talent was in writing. So I looked at it, I'm like, gosh, I'm gonna go into advertising copywriting.

That's gonna be where I can make a difference, because I love that it's writing, but it's creative and it's to share an idea about something. But unfortunately at the time when I graduated, , college, and I'm not even gonna mention what year that was, but there was, it was funny, uh, in Chi, I live in Chicago and some of the best ad agencies in the world were outta Chicago.

At that time and as I tried to find a job, I was being told that, gosh, , you need to work for free for two years and we'll see how things go and then maybe we'll hire you as a copywriter. And none of that appealed to me 'cause I was trying so desperately to make [00:06:00] money and, move out of my parents' house and be independent and things like that.

So I ended up actually going to work for a company that was not known for marketing. Which was Motorola. I went to work there, in the height of the cell phone era, so as the flip phones and the cell phones were taking off, I was lucky enough to work in marketing and because I grew up in Latin America, and spoke Spanish.

I got to do all marketing for Latin America for cell phones. So instead of coming outta school and being, oh, you're in charge of brochures, or you are in charge of trade shows, or you're in charge of this, I got to do everything. Which was lovely because then I could see. Well, what aspect of marketing do I like the most?

What intrigues me? What's interesting? I get to use my writing, but now I'm also seeing that there's research involved in marketing and there's, you know, there's convincing distributors to sell your product. There's convincing consumers to buy your product. There's convincing. [00:07:00] People in other countries to come work in your marketing department.

And there was, i I coming outta school and working at Motorola, which like I said, was not known for being a great consumer marketing company, I was able to learn and leverage so much, by being able to touch all aspects, of marketing. So I really, enjoyed it. And I started to lean towards gush. You know, I really like working with.

Distributors and I really liked working with people who would sell your product for you and how do you teach them to do that and train it, and, and it just really had to do with Motorola ahead. Basically they had a brand that was more industrial at the time, two-way radios and things like that.

And now they're moving into consumer and it was exciting to kind of see and be part of that messaging, that growth. And it was driven a lot by the product. The product was amazing at the time. It was one of the few, flip phones. It was, you know, very avant-garde with its [00:08:00] functionality and things like that.

And it was exciting to work there. So I did that for a number of years. About, yeah, probably about five years. And then, I actually ended up getting married and my husband, was being transferred to Argentina and I was not gonna let him go without me. So I was able to then get a job with, one of Motorola's distributors in Argentina.

And so I helped them try to, to change their brand because they were very well known in the country for selling home appliances. For selling microwaves and, stoves and refrigerators and things like that. And now they've picked up this distribution license to sell cell phones to consumers. So it was, it was absolutely amazing.

I loved spending that year in Argentina teaching them all about. How do you understand how a cell phone is a much higher technology type of a sale than a microwave? And how do you convince customers, to [00:09:00] invest in not only the product, but in the service? And, and it was wonderful to get that kind of experience, number one in a different country.

Because cultural norms are obviously different. Buying preferences were different. But then also to kind of, to, to learn how to position this high tech product and help a company that wasn't known for selling high tech products, to be able to sell that to consumers. So that was, that was something that was absolutely, fascinating and, and ultimately my husband got transferred back to the United States.

I went to work with Motorola again, but in their two-way radio division. But long story short, ultimately at the end of the day, Motorola decided to consolidate all of their Latin America. Business in Florida. And so if I wanted to keep my job, I was gonna have to move to Florida and I was not interested in that at the time.

So I decided, I took my first entrepreneurial leap, because at the time Latin America was hot, their economies were stable. A lot of US companies were trying to go down to Latin American Americans sell more products. So I [00:10:00] decided I'm gonna go out and try and be a consultant. And what's the worst case thing that's gonna happen is I get no clients and I'm gonna have to go back and find, you know, a full-time job.

But I launched, my company, um, and I was helping us. Companies take their products into Latin America and sell them effectively. So again, it was about branding. It was about branding the product. It was about branding the company to the distributor to say, Hey, why should you work with with Motorola and why should you sell their products instead of someone else's?

And I just loved that whole concept of, gosh. You're, we're using the brand and what it stands for as a way to leverage and, and gain a little bit of clarity and power in these discussions of why people should work with you. So, I loved all of that. But then again, a number of years went by. I had my first child decided I didn't need to travel much to Latin America anymore.

It was a little bit too much. So I ended up, a friend of mine, was working with an owner of an ad agency and he had the [00:11:00] thought of, gosh, let me see if I can build just a pure brand strategy consulting firm. So he hired a number of people and I was one of them. And we basically built it from, from scratch.

What's the deliverable? Who's our ideal target market? How, you know, what do they want from a branding consultant? What's the best value that we can deliver to them that's gonna let them grow their business? And so it was a fascinating journey. At the end of the year, he ended up closing it because they hadn't grown fast enough.

But a number of us decided, you know what? We just created this amazing business model. Let's see if we can do it on our own. And so, myself, with two partners, we went out and started a brand consulting firm, in the early, two thousands. And it, it was tough. We learned, we learned a lot. We learned why there were no branding consulting firms that were specifically focused on that, right?

Because it, it was a hard sell. Branding was something that we found, people wanted it, but nobody needed it. Unless there was a [00:12:00] couple of key trigger points. So while everyone was like, oh yeah, branding's great and I'd love to talk to you about it, unless they were feeling some kind of pain, you know, which usually had to do with either merger and acquisition, or entering a new market, they would not invest in branding.

So, for a number of years. We started to develop, a reputation, our own brand, for being the m and a branding firm, because that's where we found you could shorten the sales cycle. People had to decide yes or no, whether they were gonna bring a brand consultant on. But we looked at, gosh, do you need a new name?

You know, or how do you communicate that you're gonna be bigger and better after you're bringing these two companies together? How do you, ensure and communicate with your customers about why this is a good thing for them, not just for you? And how do you look at if it's a consumer or even a brand of products, how do you take a look at your architecture to say, oh my gosh, we've just, we've just acquired maybe our biggest competitor.

What are [00:13:00] we gonna do with their brands? Because their brands we're competing with ours, and now what do we do? So how do you build this house of brands or brand architecture to decide which ones stay, which ones go, how you're gonna do that, and things like that. So

I mean, that's a, fascinating journey that you've, you've gone on in your career and it brings you to that point where you're, where you're trying to figure out where does this all fit together? And it's interesting 'cause part of the problem you're describing is, is that when brands are success.

For building a brand, people identify it with a certain core set of values or understanding and then pivoting or changing that isn't that easy because they have. We build an expectation and whether it's a personal brand, I suppose it's my own personal brand that I'm managing. And I, and I think again, if you're listening in, everybody has a personal brand.

You have a brand or a reputation that you have in your community or in your family or at your work. And if you probably need to see it like managing your personal brand. If we saw it that way, we might, [00:14:00] might handle it differently. But there's transition that happens when, when, when acquisitions happen, all this kind of stuff.

So, so. Help me understand a little bit about this. So, how does one, so let's say I, I have branded myself in a certain way, uh, whatever that is, you know, maybe I'm, I've branded myself as the most trusted. Maybe that's my brand identity. It's, I'm the most trusted, but now I'm trying to pivot my brand, and now I wanna be seen as the most innovative.

You

Okay.

know, before I was, you know, the, the most trusted, that was my, that was my whole brand around trust and reliability. But now I, I, now I wanna move into a season and now I wanna be seen as the innovator, which by the way, maybe, then that's about people don't trust me yet 'cause they don't know what I'm doing.

And maybe I don't have that same respect 'cause now I'm doing something new. What kind of process do I start thinking through or need to think through if I'm transitioning or trying to reinvent something?

Yeah, if you're, if you're transitioning, reinventing, [00:15:00] rebranding, whatever you're looking at, it's to say, alright, like you mentioned, where am I starting from? What, what is the perception out there about who I am or who my, what my organization is right now? And then where are we going and what do we want that perception to be?

And is there anything that we can leverage? Is there anything a part of, when you said I'm most trusted, can we leverage anything about that and carry that over to this new, new brand about innovation? And so maybe it's like, Hey, we're now into innovation, but because you trust us. You might be someone who tries it first, or you might be someone who, is always excited about going, you know, testing out anything that comes from a company that you love and trust and things like that.

And guess what you love and trust us. So, so you look at anything that you have that you can leverage and bring forward. But when you're talking about what you wanna be known for in, you know, in, in now or in the future, let's say innovations. Where's the proof, where's where are the stories, right?

[00:16:00] So, you need to do a couple things. You need to sit down and you need to say, all right. What is my messaging? What do I want people to know about me in terms of innovation? So what are the, what are the key points? And I like to say, what are the three things you want people to remember about you when it comes to innovation?

Then how is your innovation different than anyone else's? So you might wanna go and take a look at, well, who would I be competing with with this product service, or even. Myself as maybe an employee or a consultant or things like that. Who am I competing with and how is my innovation different? Because I wanna articulate that, because it will resonate with certain people and hopefully those certain people are your target market, which comes to the third part, which is who is your target market?

Who wants your innovation? Right? , So how do you understand their wants, their needs, their characteristics, their challenges, their fears, and how is your. Your innovative brand going to help them in some way, shape, or form. Is it gonna help them [00:17:00] develop a new product if you're a consultant, or is your innovation gonna help them speed up, whatever process they're doing internally, at the company or things like that?

So you try and figure out. How is my innovation relevant to them? What's, what's in it for them always? And you need to understand them thoroughly with some research and, and creating target personas or ICPs ideal customer profiles to figure out what they want. But then you also have to look at the experience because the brand is the culmination of the messaging and the experience.

So you can say you're innovative as much as you want, Tim, but if they, if you don't have the stories that A, back it up, or B, they start to experience it themselves, it's gonna be. It's not gonna be credible. It, you're not gonna grow as fast as you want or, or get that perception to switch as fast as you want.

So you need to demonstrate, you know, and, and you also need to be, um, authentic in your brand and how you're talking about your brand so that [00:18:00] people believe it. Now, if your previous brand was, I'm, I'm trustworthy, bam, you're good. You, you've got, you can leverage that trust. , To create that authenticity in that building, but it's really, it's understanding what can you leverage from where you're at?

What do you want innovation to stand for? What do you want your new brand to stand for? Who is your ideal target customer and is what you want your brand to be relevant to them? Are they attracted to that? And if they are rock on, and then what's the experience they're gonna have with you? Is the experience gonna be innovative?

Because I've seen some companies where they come out and they're like, oh, we are so innovative. And, and they're doing everything still with paper and pencil or forms, you know, paper forms. I'm like, wait a minute. You say you're innovative and yet nothing in the, in the experience people have with you, even remotely is innovative.

, Or shows that you're an innovative company. So, so define it, we're innovative, but only in product design, not in in, not in our processes or, you know, things [00:19:00] like that. So. So those are the things that you need to kind of look at in order to say, all right, I'm gonna build a strong brand, around this.

Um,

I, I like how you, I, this is kind of an interesting articulation that I'm hearing you, so you talked about branding, is that marrying and, and the combination of messaging and experience and I. I would hazard to say a lot of people think that they can, you know, in a sense, baffle people with bullshit in the sense that they can, they can put a message here that's this and the experience is something different, and they think that the messaging's gonna sort of mask the experience. What I'm hearing you say is that, look, this is all your brand and if you don't, you, you gotta manage the message, but you also have to orchestrate the experience because if you're not doing both, you've gotta disconnect. And ultimately people are going to say, well, hold on, you say your brand is this, but actually your brand is this.

'cause this is our experience. And I do think [00:20:00] that sometimes. Individuals, corporations, they sort of get messed up on this and they think somehow they're gonna sort of market their way out of, or rebrand their way out of a, a shitty experience that I suppose that's not gonna happen.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, ultimately at the end of the day, the brand, this is something I talk about with clients in, in presentations I do, is you do not own your brand.

Hmm.

The best you can do is manage it. And why is that? Because the brand resides in the minds of your stakeholders, right? Whether it's a customer employee, an investor, a strategic partner.

So we have this human need to slot people into a category so that we can remember them later. And that's where branding kind of comes from. That's where the, you know, um, the positioning and the mind book and, and things like that is how do you want people to slot you and remember you? Well, you can tell 'em as many things as you want and hope.

And that's part of the management [00:21:00] process is, you know, I'm innovative. I'm innovative. I'm innovative. Okay. That might get them to try you, but if once their experience with you is that, oh my gosh, they're not innovative. You've broken that brand promise. And now in their head there's a, there's a huge disconnect.

It's a dysfunction, right? So now they're like, well, no, that's not your brand. Your brand is your hard to work with. You're annoying. You promise things you can't deliver on. You know, and now you've lost that person. But that's their experience. And so now that's your brand and, and unfortunately, it's like if you don't define yourself well and then back it up, someone else will define you and you may not like what they choose and you may not like what they say.

Yeah,

yeah. Sue. I always say to my customers, I say, look, you better write the story. 'cause if you don't write it, somebody else will, and you'll never be the hero of that story. So I always tell 'em that, regardless of what they're talking about. I just, but I love what you just said, which is very [00:22:00] fascinating.

Again, if you're listening in, just, just, just park on this for a second, whether it's your personal brand you're managing, or if whether it's a corporate brand, doesn't matter. This thing, you don't own it, you just manage it. Wow. That is really, really provocative. I find that fascinating and that distinction is really important.

'cause when you think you own it, then you think you control it.

When you understand that you manage it, and it is primarily defined and determined by others, that is a very different way of looking at that. So I, I just find that a really fascinating sort of repositioning of this understanding of what this thing looks like.

So, so let me ask you, let's talk about a little bit of how, and we talk about messaging and we talk about story. You talk about story and messaging. When I think of messaging. I think of messages, I think of text, I think of copy. Obviously you started your career as a copywriter, but now let's talk about the visual part of branding.

So you get the messaging part that you're writing, and then you have the messaging that comes through [00:23:00] imagery. So, how does one wanna look at all of this? 'cause obviously images are very, very powerful.

Absolutely.

Um, so how, how does one sort of marry the message and the copy with images and how should we look at that?

Yeah, so there's a couple different things, and you're right. , If you, if you go back to, again, people learn in different ways and they remember things in different ways. So there's some people that absolutely, they need those stories to remember anything, and they're more attracted to. The, the word or, or oral, whether it's oral or written or whatever.

Then you have people that are more visual learners and they want to see something in order to cement it in their mind. So when you talk about the visual part of branding, so there's a couple things. One is everyone thinks of the logo, right? So it's, it's the logo. . The logo, people put so much emphasis on the logo that it was like poor logos couldn't possibly live up to the expectation of being able to carry a company forward.

Right? So, but [00:24:00] what they do is, is they serve as a reminder, right? So when you see the logo, then the messaging and the. Experiences you've had are supposed to click in your brain and you're like, oh yeah, that's that company, right? Because you visually saw the logo, but beyond the logo, there's the photography you use in your marketing, right?

So again, going back to innovative, if you say you're innovative and all of your photos look. Retro or like you did, or they're not, you know, high tech or, or they don't have anything slick about them or exciting or energy about them, well then you're not conveying the idea of innovation with your photography because again, it's subtle.

These are subtle cues. So, , a lot of my clients, when we look at it, we'll look at their website and we'll look at, well, what photos are you using? , And are you using stock photos that everybody else is using? So they're not, they're not authentic. A and they're not memorable because someone might see that and their brain goes, wait, I've seen that photo [00:25:00] before, so I'm not associating it with you.

But you've got that. , The other part. Of the visual is you can tell stories with visuals beyond just the words. So, in advertising and things like that, you can have pictures flying around and it creates a feeling, it creates a mood, it creates an expectation, and there were no words mentioned, but it evoked feelings, the visual evoked feelings, all of that is wrapped up and powerful in the brand.

So, when. When I've done some brand research and brand identification projects for clients, again, people learn differently. So one of the the things is we come up with, alright, here is. Here are your core values. Let's say as part of our process, we'll define your core values. Or here is your brand promise.

Here's your, here's your brand personality, and you write all these things down, on a piece of paper. Some people can just run with that and say, that's great. Others need to have a visual associated with it. So one of the, one of the, Deliverables that I used to do is we used to [00:26:00] create a brand personality board, and it was helpful because it helped.

We would throw pictures in there, kind of like a vision board. You would throw pictures in there. So when you say, okay, your brand personality is fun, well, what kind of fun? Because there's a difference in fun between whimsy and just like, hardcore, offensive jokes or, you know, there's a huge.

You know, , stratosphere between those two things. So help me visualize what fund means, or help me visualize when I say that we're generous as a company. What does that mean? And, and if you were to put, you know, even just a hand where you're giving something, okay, I get it. We're generous. We're giving, , to people and, and things like that.

So, and by using that, that brand personality board, the types of images that we use to present to clients were also the types of images that. An ad agency could then run with and say, oh, okay. I know what kind of icons we should create, or I know what kind of images we should put on the website because all of it blends together to create this mood, this [00:27:00] feeling evoke this emotion that you want when people think about your brand.

So the visual is absolutely. I wouldn't even say it's supportive. It goes hand in hand with how you get that messaging across to people. Because some are gonna pick up on the visual cues and some are gonna pick up on the story or the written cues. S.

Yeah. Well, and that, and that's really important. Again, if you're listening in, maybe you're part of a community organization that's trying to figure out what their brand strategy looks like, what your persona is like. Or maybe it's your company. Maybe it's a company you work for.

But I think that's really wise advice and you know, I think that's what's led me on my own journey when look at the whole un commodified journey for me. Know, in the beginning we, we had this idea around unmodified. I played with this idea for a long time, and then we came up with this, you know, I wanted to actually, the unmodified word is actually , my, my printing.

So I wanted to have that sort of very different feel to it. And then we highlight the UN in that word, but. We really lacked a visual and that's [00:28:00] when we started playing around with this whole idea of sheep, which has really taken over our world. Our brand new website we released recently on commodified.com.

It's got sheep everywhere. My designers went crazy with sheep, which is interesting. But again, that for me is a, is a visual hook. 'cause I always, for me. Growing up, I had this sense that the only way I could stand out was to be the black sheep. And the black sheep is usually the bad sheep. So I had this idea that what if I could stand out by not being the black sheep, but the more colorful sheep?

And so this became a sort of a hook. And now it's interesting as we using it more and more, and it's finding its place in, in the world that we live in, it's very interesting to see people start to resonate with this. This graphic and this image. I think that it's done some very interesting things for us.

So I really see how this can work and, and, and how it plays together. And it is an easy to, to manage and be consistent, you know, and particularly as you give things over to other people. Like I have a [00:29:00] personnel that manages, you know, does all of our I on staff, who does all our social, do us all that, ran all the web design projects.

And it's not easy, by the way, as a small sort of solopreneur as I've been for years, is giving all that up to somebody else. 'cause it's a place of trust. And so again, if your brand is something that you, you, you, you hold dearly. I, but I, but I do like the advice you're telling me. I don't own it, I manage it.

And so I gotta be a good manager of that brand. So what a great, phenomenal conversation. So Sue, here, here's a question I want to think about and then we'll sort of see where we go and land the conversation. So. Really helpful, really practical advice that you're giving people. So I want you to think about this.

So whether it's a personal brand or a professional brand, a corporate brand, whatever, look at this. What's the single biggest mistake that you see people making when they're trying to either build a brand or they're trying to manage their brand. What, single or, or a couple mistakes do you see that tend to [00:30:00] creep in that people just constantly struggle with?

Yeah, well, there's a couple different things. So the first I like to say is, and, and this is my whole mission, and part of why I started my Turbo branding, , podcast show, , was if you're starting to scale, there's a couple things you need. And, and the biggest mistake you can make is ignoring. Or not identifying the brand, because if you don't have that nailed down, you will not have the three things that you need to scale, which are, you're gonna need to attract more customers.

You're gonna need to attract the employees who are gonna serve those customers, and you're going to need to attract the capital that's gonna pay for all of this. And if you can't succinctly articulate who you are, what you do, who you serve, how you're different from other people, and where you're going.

You will not grow at the rate that you need in order to scale, or you will find that you are distracted by shiny objects as a leader, [00:31:00] right? So it's like if you don't have that absolutely set, you're like, oh, we're growing, but someone came and offered us a growth opportunity over here. Let's go that way.

No way a customer asked us if we could do this. Let's go that way. And all of a sudden, you're so diluted. That, A, you don't have a brand that stands for anything strong, and B, you've probably wasted a lot of your investment money chasing different avenues where you could have been very clear on where you're going and picked your niche.

In order to grow faster. So, so the first mistake is not identifying and spending the time to, to, to build that brand, to build what that stands for, right? The second mistake that I see as people are scaling is what I talked about with being distracted by shiny objects, is you need to put a stake in the ground.

Have the courage to say, this is who we are, this is who we serve, this is where we're going. So that everyone in the [00:32:00] organization rallies around you because as you know, as you're scaling, you're adding people, you're getting bigger. It's no longer the founder and a couple executives who have been moving the the company forward.

You now have to inspire, motivate, and educate these new employees on the company that you want. To be right. And you have to educate them on what's the experience, right? Every single person is a brand ambassador in your company and they, they have an opportunity to make or break your brand every day. And if you do not educate them, , whether it starts at onboarding and then continues on, if you don't educate them on, this is what our experience looks like.

Yeah, they won't know how to deliver it. And suddenly you start , bombarding customers with different types of experience. Like, oh, I worked with this sales rep and things were great, and then I got switched to a different sales rep and it's like a different company. I, I, I don't wanna work with them anymore.

And so then that, that creates a problem. So, so yeah. So it's [00:33:00] identifying, it's putting that stake in the ground and having the courage to say no to things. Say This is who we are, and we will say no to things that do not fit. , Within that vision of where we're going. So those are, those are 

that is, that is really interesting because that is hard

for people, like, whether it's on a personal level or whether it's on a corporate level, whatever. But understanding what you need to say no to. Again, if you're listening in, I always say you listening for a reason that this is a really important thing in your personal life, in your professional life, in your, in your business.

From a brand perspective, knowing what you're gonna say no to. Not just what you're gonna say yes to is, is critical. And, you know, my own journey, you know, unmodified is a big part of my world. I have a whole nother world where, our consulting training happens called Vesco. And, and that kind of is an interesting thing.

And, understanding what we would say no to is a big part of that journey. So, for instance, we don't do any training without coaching. , So now over the years we've [00:34:00] modified the way we do that in that we, we can deliver that coaching or the company can deliver that coaching and we can provide a coaching playbook for the do it.

But we don't provide training events or seminars without coaching because I personally don't believe. They have the same effect and the ability to actually catalyze human change. That, that, in the same way you, if you're just going to a seminar, nothing's gonna change in six months. So we're looking for human change and deep seated behavioral adjustment.

And so coaching has to be there. And now we've become very clear on that. And every once in a while I get somebody call me up and say, we want you to come, you know, we got $150,000 contract. Whatever. I, it doesn't matter to me. I don't. Care what it is, uh, but uh, what it's gonna be training. And I say, well, this is our model.

Well, no, we don't, we're not gonna do coaching. And I say, you know what? You need to find somebody else

Yeah, absolutely.

brand is around sustainable behavior change.

That's what we, what we deliver. That's what we promise, and we [00:35:00] know that we can't get it without massaging things deeper in for coaching.

So we've become very, very vigorous, potentially vicious in relationship to saying, no, not, and again, not that that's, that's bad or wrong if you wanna do it, but for us. It's verboten. We, that our brand is not associated on training level. We don't associate our brand with, with, with, with seminars.

That's just not the market we wanna be in. And it's hard it because sometimes you're saying no to a lot of money.

A lot of money. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

that the wisdom that you're exposing here, Sue, is so critical. I really, really love it. So obviously you got some mad skills, Sue.

Well, thank you. And I was gonna, just building on what we were saying, I was just gonna throw out real quickly, the third, the third critical mistake , , is that as the company grows, the leader's like, oh, well branding that, that belongs in the marketing department. Right? Absolutely not the brand.

The CEO and the leader of [00:36:00] the company is the brand steward. That person walks the talk, sets the tone, educates everyone on what the brand stands for in an organization. Right? So you cannot, it is not a marketing problem, it is a strategy, a business strategy, , issue that needs to be spearheaded by the CEO.

So , the one example I was gonna say when you were talking about how do you say no, was we had a client. CEO. And he, they had rebranded and he really wanted to cement this rebranding with his executive team and all his employees. So we created these cards, and on one side of the card, it had the core values of the organization.

On the other side, it had the brand promise and the CEO brought that card to every single meeting. And at the end of the meeting, he would throw the card on the table and he said, are our decisions or the decisions that we just made, are they adhering to our core values? And are they furthering our brand promise?

And if not, why did we [00:37:00] decide? Yes, and he would call everyone on the carpet in terms of it's gotta adhere to the core values and it has to support the brand promise.

Yeah, that is powerful. And, and again, I, what you just said is interesting. So you told me I'm not, I don't own my brand, I manage it, but you also said that leaders are stewards. Again, stewards of the brand, and it actually matters more what they do in a meeting and how they call people to, towards, , consistency, alignment of values, and a promise than frankly what their website says or their last marketing, , campaign says so.

That is a really important thing to remember. And again, if you're listening in, think about that as a leader. If you're a leader in an organization or in your family, our decisions are your decisions consistent with your values and your quote brand promise. 'cause if they're not, everything else is a little bit of bullshit and butterflies at the end of the day.

So Sue, really wise advice and, and, and I appreciate that a lot. So listen, if people wanted to hunt you [00:38:00] down and find the Sioux and put the Sioux on something.

Sure.

how do they find you? What's the best way for them to find you and, and potentially engage with you? Sue?

Absolutely. So absolutely. You can find me on my website, brand Strong Marketing. I'm on LinkedIn as Sue Kirschner, and uh, you can find my podcast of which you were a guest and I was, I'm excited about that. On YouTube, , apple as well as Spotify, it's called the Turbo Branding Show.

Yeah, it's a great show. And again, last name, I'm just gonna spell it for your listeners. It's K-I-R-C-H-N-E-R. Okay. Just so we get that one right. So, so listen, as we bring this in here, here's what I'm thinking as a result of our conversation. It's really interesting. So I think, here's the sort of bottom line for me.

I think that our brands. We'll ultimately outlive the moment if they're really strong. It's gonna echo eventually, hopefully, in people's heads and their hearts long enough after the conversation ends or an encounter ends, after the product's delivered, [00:39:00] after we leave the room. What, that's what remains.

And the real question is, is, you know, I think, what's the echo? Gonna sound like, is it gonna sound like trust? Is it gonna sound like respect? Is it gonna sound like value? Or is it just gonna bring sort of smoke and mirrors at the end of the day? And I, I think that's the challenge in here. And I also recognize from this conversation, and again, if you're listening in, I wanna challenge you.

'cause this is what I'm thinking. Listen, branding isn't optional. You're always branding, I think is what you're telling me. Sue ev every word, every action. , It, it's sort of that hiss of the iron. That branding iron against someone's psyche.

Yeah.

So the question is, and the challenge is, don't leave it to chance.

Choose the mark you're gonna make, whether it's a personal brand, a mark, or a professional one, a corporate one, because the, the world's at the end isn't going to remember what you intended.

Right.

To put in them, they're going to remember what you actually put in them, which [00:40:00] goes back again beyond the messaging to the experience, because at the end of the day, they're gonna remember the impression that you leave in their mind and hurt, and that, I guess, Sue is the essence of.

This idea of branding. And so, Sue, thank you so much for your time today. The listeners, again, you listen for a reason, , activate this in your life, figure it out, unpack it, uncork it like we did a drink tonight. And make branding an important part of your journey and understand you don't own it, you manage it, and you are a steward of your brand.

Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Cheers.

Thank you so much for having me.