What Is a Brand? with Mike Jones | Relationship, Authenticity, & Brand DNA [Part 2]
In Part 2 of my discussion with Mike Jones, CEO of Resound, we venture even deeper into the world of remarkable brands. Together we dive deeper, and get more specific about the core elements that make up your brand DNA and when you should consider investing in your brand.
Mike, a true expert in unlocking remarkable brands through his award-winning agency, Resound, shares his insights on the importance of authenticity and a steadfast commitment to values and purpose. Drawing on his experience as the author of "You Are Remarkable: How To Unlock Your Authentic Brand To Win Loyal Customers" and as the host of two podcasts, Resoundcast and AZ Brandcast, Mike's wisdom is unparalleled in the realm of branding.
In this episode, we discuss the necessity of identifying your brand by reflecting on your ideal customers, connecting with your core uniqueness, and using your existing clients to reveal your organization's identity. Discover the power of polarization to attract your ideal customers and why imitating others in your industry can hinder your brand's growth.
We also lay out the three essential components of your brand DNA: core values, personality, and story, and how to leverage your visual and audio identity to amplify your brand essence. Learn when it's the right time to define your brand identity and how to leverage your creative brand assets to amplify your message.
Tune in to this thought-provoking episode of Storytelligent to gain a deeper understanding of your brand's DNA and the tools you need to craft a remarkable and authentic brand story.
You’ll Learn:
Listening to Your Clients: Mike emphasizes the importance of using your existing clients as a mirror to understand your brand's true identity. They can reveal who you are more accurately than you might think.
Polarize to Magnetize: Learn why it's essential to take a stand, even if it means polarizing some, in order to attract your ideal customers. Playing it safe and imitating others only sets you up to compete solely on price.
The Three Components of Brand DNA: Dive into the core elements of your brand DNA: core values, personality, and story. Understanding these components is crucial for crafting a compelling brand identity.
Visual and Audio Identity: Explore the significance of your brand's visual and audio identity in making a lasting impression on your audience.
Having a Big Vision: Mike reminds us that it's perfectly okay to dream big. A remarkable brand often starts with a bold vision.
Key Terms
Remarkable Brand: An exceptional brand that resonates deeply with its audience through authenticity and purpose.
Brand DNA: The fundamental traits and elements that define a brand's identity and perception.
Transcript
Mike Jones:
It's one of the questions I ask almost all of our clients when we're working through branding is, gimme your top 10 clients who are the top 10. Not revenue. Yes revenue. That can be a part of that, but top 10 where you're like, I want, I want repeated clients like that. And that could be relationship. They have the best relationships. They've been with us a long time. They never blk at anything we recommend to them. Um, they listen, they pay <laugh>. There's good revenue there. They even advocate for us. And there's like referrals. Okay. What is unique about those clients that might actually lead us back to something, one of your particular strengths that is really important to you as a firm that we can leverage in your, in your brand, in your identity. Right. It is you.
Bryce McNabb:
What's going on? Brand storyteller. Alright. Welcome back to the Story Intelligent podcast. I'm your host, Bryce McNabb, and we are wrapping up our conversation with Mike Jones today in part two, where we're going to start to dig into these fundamental characteristics of your brand. D n A, what makes up your brand, d n a, and then how do you go about figuring out what your brand identity even is? What makes you unique? How do you even understand these elements of your brand, D n A? We're gonna dig into that in our conversation. If you missed last episode, episode 39, we began our conversation with Mike Jones. Mike is my friend out of Tempe, Arizona. He runs a brand agency called Resound, and he specializes in creating brands for accounting firms and professional services firms. So if anybody understands brand, it's Mike. The guy is a complete expert on brand. And so I wanted to bring him on so that way we could begin this series where we're no longer looking outward to figure out our story and how to communicate our story, but we're now looking inward to balance that other half of brand storytelling, which is to define the brand. Without further ado, here's Mike Jones.
Bryce McNabb:
So as you're cutting away, cutting away, cutting away, what are you looking for? What are you trying to get to?
Mike Jones:
I'm looking for what about your firm makes certain people like a certain group or certain groups of people the best fit for you? Because that often tells me that there's something unique about your identity as a firm, that you're really good at serving this type of person with this type of service, with these other specific attributes. That is your identity, right? At some level, that's your identity. Now, why is that doable? Right? Maybe there's some fundamental belief behind your brand. Maybe there's some fundamental cultural identifier with your brand. Maybe it's like, uh, you know, we work with, uh, a firm outta Houston, they're very focused on Houston. They live, breathe love Houston. I'm like, great. Then you need to lean into that as hard as you possibly can. That probably means you need to hire people only in Houston.
Bryce McNabb:
Can I speak this back to you real quick? Yeah. So it, it's almost as if you're, you're looking at this like, this organization is operating with specific, unique abilities. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but they are being held back because of their inability to fully communicate those unique abilities that they're, that they have. But by communicating those unique abilities that will add a level of magnetism Yes. That they're not experiencing yet. Yes. That will, that will really surprise them. But it's going to draw these delighted customers and more ideal customers. So they're gonna be able to attract people that they work best with. Yep. And then people that they work best with are going to more immediately find them because they're not trying to sound like everybody else.
Mike Jones:
Yeah. I mean, think about your own personal life, right? How many people do you know who kind of have these vague identities? They're not specific about what they do, they're not specific about how they talk, they're not specific about where they're from. Uh, just grab identifiers, right? Different things that are unique to them, their history, their background, their experience, their skills, right? They're just maybe early in your career, <laugh>, I think like a lot of people, you can, you can think of a lot of friends or even yourself that maybe early in your career you didn't really know, but also you were afraid. You were afraid to kind of be specific. And so for firms, it's the same thing, right? Are we attracted to people that are not specific? No. We're incredibly attracted to people who are very specific that really understand themselves and are willing to so specifically communicate who they are and what they can best do, and how they can best deliver value to others that we're like, oh, I want to, I want to be a part of that.
Mike Jones:
Or That's so not me. That's like, not for me at all. But now it's really clear and I don't have to like think about it. I don't have to worry about it. I might even know somebody who maybe that's a really good fit for, I might make that recommendation, right? So I, I think if you relate it to individuals, it kind of becomes easier to understand as an organization, right? If I have an organization and I have a business, and I'm just not clear on exactly what we do for these types of people, because we have this unique culture, we have this unique, these unique attributes as a firm, right? And therefore we can deliver this kind of real value to you. This is that story like that, those are the fundamentals of story, right?
Bryce McNabb:
As we've been talking, I, it's almost like these two words popped into my head, magnetism and polarizing mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But suddenly I realized it's like they're the same thing. That's the same thing. <laugh>. Yeah.
Mike Jones:
Yeah. Because magnetism doesn't work the other way. Right? North to north doesn't work. It actually is literally polarizing, or
Bryce McNabb:
It has to become polarized. You have to polarize in order to attract, correct.
Mike Jones:
Yeah.
Bryce McNabb:
And so, but that's, that's the fear. Yeah. The fear is, but I'm pushing people away.
Mike Jones:
You, you ever, you ever tried to attract anything with a non magnetized metal? How does that go? <laugh>? It doesn't stick to anything. That's interesting. 'cause a non magnetized metal, like maybe iron, right? Like a piece of iron, it, it will not stick to just anything on its own, right? It won't stick to another piece of iron, right? So it's not gonna attract anything. But guess what it does do? It gets attracted to other magnets. And that I think is kind of goes back to a point I was trying to make was like, if you are not gonna be specific, you're not gonna attract others, but you're also gonna get subsumed into the actual magnets in your industry, right? And that could happen a number of different ways. One is, well, you just copy 'em because it's just easier and you just kind of, I'm always following. And so you just always end up following the leaders within your industry and never actually leading yourself, never actually making decisions for yourself, which means you actually end up just telling your clients subconsciously, or maybe it's sub subversively, we're not the one actually leading here. They are. And you're only picking us probably because we're cheaper than the best.
Bryce McNabb:
I was just gonna say, if you are doing that, you are just the non-brand cereal. Uhhuh
Mike Jones:
<affirmative>, you're, and guess how the non brand
Bryce McNabb:
Makes sales? You're projecting expectation. Yeah. You're projecting this expectation of, Hey, we're as good as they are, but cheaper,
Mike Jones:
But cheaper but cheaper. I mean,
Bryce McNabb:
And that's, that might not even be on your advertising, but that is now the expectation people are going to have coming into this engagement. Yeah. Because
Mike Jones:
I mean, how, how else would I choose you over, like if I walk into the cereal aisle and I see all the cereals up there, and I know all the name brands, and they got the really interesting characters and stuff, and then there's the generic like store brand one. And I'm like, why would I pick that one? Like, what about that would get me really excited? I I don't trust it. It doesn't have a well-known brand. Probably doesn't have really cool packaging. It doesn't tell me that there's quality. All it says is, uh, we're at least as good as the worst of the rest of 'em. Right? And then the last thing you see is the yellow or red sticker that tells you, oh, it's cheaper <laugh>. Right?
Bryce McNabb:
So after you figure out your, your value proposition, you get really clear about that. You're saying what we need to do is figure out who we are best at serving. So figure out our ideal customers. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because that's gonna inform something about ourselves. I think a lot of what we've been saying, we've been indirectly saying that self-awareness is hard. Yep.
Mike Jones:
Right? No. Use your, use your existing clients to tell you who you are. I, I mean, that's a, that's a major step in our process with clients is we start with them and we say, all right, you tell us who you are and we have some exercises to help you do that, honestly. Right? And in a group setting, so that you have an opportunity to kind of discuss it and, and see the different opinions in the room with the leadership team. Okay. That's great. Uh, you're a, you're a 400 person firm. I guarantee your leadership does not know the answers to those questions with a hundred percent certainty. And so the next step is, let's go feedback these assumptions to your clients. I wanna hear what they have to say. What are the words they use? Do they agree with these words? Do they agree with these concepts?
Mike Jones:
Or, you know, a lot of times what we hear, uh, I would say nine times outta 10, what we hear from the clients of our clients is the concept is right. Of what they believe and how they do things the way you know their, their culture, right? Uh, what makes them different, how they service people. But these are the words that we would use. We wouldn't use their words, right. That they came up with. We would use these words. Yeah. And so then we're starting to kind of find the, the apex point where the conceptual idea of who you are internally is starting to meet how the clients think about you. It's
Bryce McNabb:
Venn diagram
Mike Jones:
Language that they understand. Diagram. Yeah. Yeah. And then we add a third, a third layer in there, which is your, your, the rest of your staff, right? Because a lot of times the boots on the ground, the people who are interacting with your clients all day long, um, they're not necessarily at the leadership level, right? And so they're the ones who can also give you feedback that's really helpful of like, yeah, we, we say that that's a value we say we have, but here's what I actually see every day, right? That's,
Bryce McNabb:
I love talking to the sales teams and the biz dev people. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. It's because they're always like, yeah, marketing's giving us these messages, but I just say this to the customer. 'cause this is what they understand. In your mind, what are these core components of a brand, d n a? And I think we just touched on core values. So let's, core values, what are these
Mike Jones:
Things is one. So core values, which is like the fundamental beliefs, I call them the guide rails of your brand and really of your organization. They're the do's and don'ts, right? They're the non-negotiables. These are the rules by which we're gonna do business. And they're hard. They have edges to 'em. So there's things we will do, and there are things we absolutely will not do because of these core values that we have, or fundamental beliefs that we have, right?
Bryce McNabb:
The lines in the sand, they're
Mike Jones:
The lines in the sand, and they're non-negotiable. I, I tell all my clients, like, if you're coming up with really fun words that, you know, you're like, oh man, like, uh, excellence is one of our core values. And there's all sorts of questions I have. If you say that <laugh>, uh, one just being like, tell me more and define that for me. What does that look like? Right? That's a very vague word. Uh, they all are, right? Right. Core value words are really just not great. And then of themselves, integrity. Integrity, okay, what does that mean? <laugh>? Um, I'm gonna throw out some examples to you. I'm gonna throw out some scenarios. Would you say that in that scenario, excellence is the most important thing? Or would you negotiate on excellence in order to live up to maybe another value? Right?
Bryce McNabb:
Oh, I love that.
Mike Jones:
And so then I go, well, then excellence isn't one of your core values. If you want to put it at another tier, or maybe it's an initiative that's important today, but maybe isn't gonna span the lifespan of your company, right? Maybe it's a goal. Maybe it's a, a, a success metric. I don't, I don't know why excellence would be that, but you know, maybe it's, I tell them that a lot with like profit, right? Everyone's like, oh, profit's really important. It should probably be one of our core values. And I'm like, okay. Uh, have you ever negotiated on profit? Oh, yeah. I mean, we gave that client a discount or, uh, you know, we, we had a big initiative for like two years and we were willing to like, you know, really hit the bottom line a little bit and take a hit in order to get to where we wanted to go. I go, so it's not a value, it's a goal. It's a metric of success. It's a maybe an initiative level thing, right? Or
Bryce McNabb:
A cultural response. It almost, it is a, it's like we're answering the question of why is self-awareness so difficult? Is because there's a lot of like trained answers Yeah. That we have. So core values, what are these other fundamental components of, I think there's brand d n a, there's three total
Mike Jones:
In D n A, right? And that is core values personality, right? So how do you, how do you act when you believe these things? How, what were the attributes of your personality, of your firm, of the culture that you have? And they're of direct extension of values, right? When you behave according to these rules, you're gonna have consistent personality traits that come out. I kind of tell our clients like, it's like if you were a person, if your entire firm is summed up in a person, that's actually a great exercise to create kind of a persona for your firm. Maybe use an archetype. We've done that with a lot of firms, or create a metaphor. Maybe go grab some real people in history or in literature or fictional people kind of marry 'em up and go, Hey, these people exemplify the same attributes that we have as a firm.
Mike Jones:
Now we have something we can look at and say, that's who we are. Right? Whenever I write, whenever I design, whenever I create for the brand at any level, right? Not just in marketing, but across the organization, I need to look, feel, sound like that, right? Yeah. Because that's who we are. Uh, and then the third piece we've already talked a lot about is story, right? And that's probably the most external facing of those three. Now, story and personality is when you get into like, well, how do you communicate those things? That's when you get into logo design, you get into colors, you get into actual messaging, tagline, development, the name of the firm itself. Um, you get into like, do you have a voice, right? Maybe putting some voice guidelines together. Um, and then obviously actually executing on those in all sorts of different media, whether that's your website, video, you know, collateral that you're producing, uh, trade show or event experiences that you put together, even your office, right? Like, what does your office communicate about your personality and about your story?
Bryce McNabb:
And to jump on what you just explained, it's like the reason why the, the experiences that we're designing, how, how we're presenting things, how we're communicating colors, like shapes, styles, why that's so important to all be in sync is, um, there's something called dual coded theory, which basically explains how meaning itself is multilayered. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so the way that I look at it is, you know, I come from the visual storytelling aspect. I come from the cinematic aspect. So I always kind of project lessons that I've learned from that onto everything. It's like there's a specific reason. The, the more you can get everything in sync in the film, the more powerful that message is. Yep. So the tone, the, the wardrobe, the colors, the shot angle, the rhythm, the music. Yep. All
Mike Jones:
Of it, it
Bryce McNabb:
All adds up. Is there to reinforce that message so it sticks
Mike Jones:
And it it amplifies it, right? It, yes. It, it's not just like it's, I add one and I add another, and now I have two. It's like I add one, add another. Now I have five, right? Yeah. My amplitude is exponential. The more I can layer these elements in, and as long as they all resonate, right? They're all singing the same song from the same hyn book. Uh, that's one of my other metaphors with our clients. It's like your, your brand is kind like all these assets, your the guidelines around them, that's kind of like your hymn book. We give it to everybody so everyone can be singing the same song in the same way, in the same kind. And you can have harmonies in there, right? Like you can build harmonies and it can all be like really deep and, and interesting. It's not like everyone's all singing the exact same notes all at the same time. Singular melody line. I'm a musician, so I love kind of living in that world. But, um, so it, you know, it's like, hey, you have harmony. You, everyone's kind of touching at this, coming at it from a little different angle, but you're all singing the same song. And there's, but it's
Bryce McNabb:
An act metaphor, because if there's not that harmony, then you, you're creating dissonance. Correct. And so you used a word earlier, friction. Same.
Mike Jones:
Yeah,
Bryce McNabb:
Same idea, same thing. It's because this thing is now incongruent to the message we're, we're communicating, but it's also fighting. Yep. The message we're communicating, because, um, it makes no sense why this should be purple. Yeah. And purple is completely not the message that we're actually trying to say, say here. But
Mike Jones:
Yeah, I mean, like, that dissonance is what is gonna kill you. So like, having everybody on the same handbook, all singing the same song, uh, doing that in, in different levels, right? Visually, verbally. I love, like, I mean, I love talking to people who, who live and breathe video like you do and, and cinema and videography. My, my business partner Sam, is a videographer by background. And so I love like bringing him into the conversation. I, I don't think that way. I don't, I, I, I just don't live and breathe that stuff. I can appreciate great film. Um, but I'm much more of like nuts and bolts, like design words. I mean, I was, early in my career, I was doing a bunch of direct mail stuff, right? Like that's the kinda level I, yeah. I'm used to like, kind of at a, at a heart, at a heart level.
Mike Jones:
That's where, that's where I live. Um, and so to say like, hey, you can layer in like things move right now we're telling a story with movement. We're telling a story with music. We're telling a story audibly, not just words on a page or on a screen. Um, and then you can layer in all sorts. Uh, I love your idea of, or your, your comment about like the cinematography itself, right? Like shot selection. Yeah. Uh, is it wide? Is it narrow? At what point is it? I mean, you then you get into like the real nitty gritty nuances of amazing storytelling. And that's why like cinematography is one, I think one of the best media for, for storytelling, um, is because like you can have every detail you can actually think through. And if I think about films that I like, absolutely love, most of 'em are that level. It's like,
Bryce McNabb:
Are that level like
Mike Jones:
Lawrence of Arabia, right? Like yeah, that's one of my all time favorite films. And it, it's notorious for like, the, the every single shot was like perfectly selected. I think the new Dune film is, is kind of in that realm. Um, and then obviously you layer in all the other elements, music and stuff. And that's an element we don't get into a lot with our clients. But, um, we keep talking about of like, we really want to, how far can we take branding? And one of 'em is like, like, and there are whole firms that do this. They do audio branding, right? It's like, how do you, how do you develop, uh, an audio brand through either music or little audio moments and, and motifs? You
Bryce McNabb:
Know, you can, so I create that with mine too. Yeah. Like, I'm very intentional about thinking about that. Like, I've got like a, a specific audio style that I have in my head the whole time. It's like, uh, 'cause I'm always trying to like find things that sound like Radiohead <laugh>. And on one aspect it's, yeah, I know it's impossible. On one aspect, it's because I like Radiohead. All right. So there's a selfish reason, but it's communicating something because it's, it's like I'm trying to communicate this synthesis of how they can beautifully marry, like, uh, almost like trip hop at times, but with like a symphonic sound. So you've got this like really like earthy, organic piece to a digital piece. And I'm always trying to marry that because at the heart, that can communicates my personal philosophy, that marketing is relationship. Yep. And sometimes it gets frustrating because I feel like certain organizations poo poo brand because they see it as a, as a last step. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> of, well, we're not there yet, so we shouldn't deal with, with brand right now. But I feel like you've even convinced me throughout our conversation that if you're not already tapping into what your unique is, then you are, you are forgettable. Yep,
Mike Jones:
Absolutely. Forgettable, you're just an also and Right. And then we've already touched on it. What do you have left to compete with? Like what, how do you compete in the marketplace when you are forgettable price? Like that? That's really it. That's all you're left with is, I guess will stand out by just being lowest cost. Um, and if that's the route you want to go, I, I, I'm not gonna like fault you for it. Probably we're not a good fit to work with. Like <laugh>. I wouldn't, I'd, you know, and, and there's an element too, I, I caution anyone who's starting a business from scratch, they're just getting going. Like, I would still say, like, read my book or think about branding deeply Yeah. As deep as you can, but also give yourself some grace. Like you don't have any history yet. Exactly. So how can you really know the level of depth that a, a firm that's been around for 60, a hundred years has a level of history and continuity and experience that you don't have to build on with their brand. Now there's, there's a plus to that. That's that you have,
Bryce McNabb:
You can try new things, you can
Mike Jones:
Try some things. Yeah. You can kind of play around a little bit. And I also, you know, caution, I was just talking with somebody, uh, recently, she's starting a little content marketing agency just on her own, it's just her right now. And, uh, she was like, Hey, can I hire you guys? And I was like, Y you could <laugh>, uh, I don't think you should pay what we're gonna charge because you're just not there yet. Like, right. Like, tell me a little bit more about your vision. She's like, oh, well, I kind of only have like the next year kind of thought through of what I want it to be. I'm like, okay, so do you want it to be big or do you want it to be small in 10 years? She's like, I don't really know yet. I said, that's fine. That's totally fine. Start answering some of those questions as best you can. Maybe go hire a really good designer to give you a good kind of baseline visual brand. It might not be as deep and be ready. You'll probably wanna rebrand at some point. Right. I have lot more of those questions figured out.
Bryce McNabb:
Yeah. I'm glad you're even starting here because, so I've, from my observation, I've noticed that there's almost like five different stages of brand growth and stage one i, I call awareness. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that's when I try to convince, I, I try to tell people, it's like when you're just starting out, when you're at a level one brand, you are what you do. Yeah. You don't, it's you, you don't listen to Simon Sinek. You don't start with why <laugh>. You start with who and what. Yeah. Who are we serving and, and what are we doing for them? And how are we, and are we serving them? How are we raising their quality of life? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that's where you start. And then when you get to level two, you, um, you get into lifestyle. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because now you've got the awareness, and now you get to really, you've got the history, right? You've maybe got a couple years under your belt. Now you can go back and be like, okay, let's start drawing out the, the the actual uniques. Yeah. Let's figure out this deeper d n a. That maybe has been a guess initially. Maybe it's been just like a, a, an unconscious decision, but now let's go figure this out. Yeah.
Mike Jones:
I, I think I, I love that. I love the idea of these kind of levels. Um, I think, and we'd say this in the book pretty clearly, I'd argue yes, there are levels you can move through them faster, slow.
Bryce McNabb:
Exactly.
Mike Jones:
Um, I would argue, and this is what I tell every single person I know who's like in startup mode, is the sooner you can answer some of these deeper questions, even now, the sooner you will have something that is, I, I like your word magnetic, right? That has resonance, um, that really will resonate with people, um, has a unique frequency. And you can probably blow through some of these other levels a lot faster because
Bryce McNabb:
A
Mike Jones:
Hundred percent you've done the homework. Now that takes a certain kind of environment. The context has to be there to be able to do that. Someone who maybe has not done what they've, what they're doing for very long at all, uh, who doesn't maybe have a lot of clients already that they've worked with, maybe for other firms, right? Uh, maybe who doesn't, haven't
Bryce McNabb:
Battle tested their skills yet,
Mike Jones:
Doesn't have any business partners with them who bring certain specific uniques to the table. And they're not thinking strategically about how to bring those to, like, these uniques are our identity and we're really well suited for a certain industry or a certain type of client with certain types of problems. Right? Now, there's a level of just sophistication required for that. And if you don't have that within your business, then don't worry about it yet. Like, like, think about it, but maybe like, know that that will come in time. Um, but you can, you can get pretty sophisticated with your brand on day one. There, there are amazing brands who have all have launched with great success because they've thought through some of these things a little bit sooner than others. Um, but also like, be okay with spending 15 years being just the shoe company for professional athletes, right?
Mike Jones:
Or professional runners, right? Like Phil Knight was satisfied for basically 15 years that that was what his company was. They scaled through that, but he wasn't satisfied to be there forever. And he always had that vision in mind. That's, that I think is my lesson that I would want to impart to anybody is like, it's okay to have big vision even early and start to build towards it. And it takes time. You're gonna have to build some credibility. You're gonna have to go through those levels that you were talking about, but start thinking about the vision.
Bryce McNabb:
Mike. How can people get in touch with you?
Mike Jones:
Uh, resound creative.com. R e s o u n d creative.com is our firm's website. You can reach me there, you can find me on LinkedIn. Just search for Mike Jones or remark Mike. That's actually my handle on LinkedIn. So if you do linkedin.com/in/remark, Mike, you will find me. Uh, remark mike.com is also my personal website. If you'll find me there, Twitter, anywhere else, if you Google remark, Mike, you'll find me.
Bryce McNabb:
That's amazing. All right. Plug your book. Alright.
Mike Jones:
Yeah. You are remarkable. And it's all about how you can use your authentic identity to attract long lasting customers for your firm, for your business. You can find it on amazon.com. Just search for you are remarkable. Uh, it's a great book. There's paperback, there's ebook, there's hardcover if you're really want to be very graciously kind and generous to me. Um, but yeah, check it
Bryce McNabb:
Out. I mean, no lie. Absolutely. Great book. You can see like, I've got the whole thing like, like, yeah, <laugh> outlined and got all
Mike Jones:
Marked up.
Bryce McNabb:
Marked up. I've got the special pages already tagged to revisit. Oh yeah. I love the thing. It was awesome. That's awesome, Mike. Thank you, dude, seriously, thank you so much. This was so much fun. We just went way over time,
Mike Jones:
Blew through it and blew
Bryce McNabb:
Through everything. <laugh>. I knew I I maybe asked five questions. I just knew, like when I emailed you, I was like, dude, we're gonna, we're just gonna roll. I, maybe even five was too many questions I needed. That's all needed three. That's all I needed. Yeah, that's all good,
Mike Jones:
<laugh>. It was a blast. It was so fun. We have
Bryce McNabb:
To come back again. Yeah, this is awesome. I
Mike Jones:
I'm working on another book and that gets a little bit more into the audience side of like, okay, how do we take this brand and we bring it to market in a way that is attractive to our clients? Dude,
Bryce McNabb:
If you need a pre-read Yeah,
Mike Jones:
I, oh,
Bryce McNabb:
Definitely will volunteer myself. I'm
Mike Jones:
All over that. I will take you up on that. Uh, we're still working on it. It's gonna be a little while. Um, but if people want to check out my podcast, we're actually kind of slowly dripping. Uh, we're writing the book through a podcast. That's actually our process.
Bryce McNabb:
That was my daggum strategy too. <laugh>, I've got the story intelligent book, like it's, it's in shape. Do it. I'm like, yeah, do it. No, I was, I was very open about it. Yeah, that's, that was the whole point of this podcast was for me to work my ideas out in public.
Mike Jones:
I love it. I I love that process. I highly recommend it. It it worked really well for, we actually did a similar process for our first book and we're doing it for our second, so,
Bryce McNabb:
Oh, dude. See, this is why man.
Mike Jones:
Constant
Bryce McNabb:
Best friend moments. Yeah, I know. Good lord. All right, man. Seriously, Mike, awesome. Thank you, man. Thank you, Bryce. Thank you so very much. Appreciate you.
Mike Jones:
Take care, man.
Bryce McNabb:
All right guys. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Some key takeaways is don't be afraid to ask your current clients to give you clarity around your brand identity or if you are serving clients, look into their clients to uncover information and insight about who they are and what makes them unique. And just remember those three core characteristics of your brand identity are your core values, your personality and your story. And the whole purpose of all of this visual identity, your logo, your colors, your design style is to help to fully communicate the essence of your brand. They should all work in harmony with each other as well as your other creative assets, such as even audio styles or like sound effects. And the music that you select should all work together to fully communicate that essence of your brand. If you enjoyed what you heard in this podcast, got some links in the show notes to how you can track Mike down, don't forget to get yourself a copy of his book.
Bryce McNabb:
You Are Remarkable. This itself is a remarkable book. I love this book. Seriously. It is a, it is a well used reference for me. I have the thing bookmarked and underlined on several pages. It is an incredible crash course into brand identity and uncovering yours or even your client's brand identity. So definitely pick up a copy of that book if you want to take your brand storytelling skills to the next level. I highly encourage that you take my course Brand Storytelling Fundamentals, crafting an Authentic Customer testimonial. I am going to teach you in that course my approach to crafting authentic customer stories. Because the authentic customer story really trains you in the fundamental knowledge of brand storytelling, which is hitting that critical balance between achieving business goals as well as crafting meaningful human centered stories. So you can find that course@brycemcnabb.com slash course. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to me@brycemcnabb.com. And if you want to bring your brand story to life, you can reach me@mcnabbstorytelling.com, which is my agency side, or I specialize in brand story strategy, content strategy, as well as video content campaigns. And I'll see you guys in the next one.