Episode 59 // What is a Brand Anthem and Why is it Imperative for Businesses?

Jan 26, 2023

Mike and Sam (David was out this time) talk about something very near and dear to their hearts: Brand Anthem! Also known as Brand Story, Elevator Pitch, etc, this is a key component in how brands and organizations communicate with their customers, team, and the world.

Contact: Mike Jones mike@resoundcreative.com

Discuss at https://www.linkedin.com/company/resoundagency

The show is recorded at the Resound offices in ever-sunny Tempe, Arizona (the 48th – and best state of them all).

Show Transcript

Mike Jones:
Because even when you think about a country, the word anthem, really? What is that? Yeah, it’s more than just the melody line. It’s more than just the words. It’s like the ideas it evokes and the feeling towards that country, that nation that you call your own, and the camaraderie that you feel with your fellow patriots.

Speaker 2:
You’re listening to the Remarkabrand Podcast, where authentic brands win, with your host, Mike Jones and David Cosand.

Mike Jones:
Yeah, it’s time for another podcast episode. This is Mike Jones, and David is not here. David has left us for today. He’ll be back. He’ll be on the next episode, but of course, Sam’s here. Hey, Sam.

Sam Pagel:
Filling in.

Mike Jones:
I don’t know if you’re filling in. You’re always there.

Sam Pagel:
Well, I have to do two jobs now.

Mike Jones:
I know. You have to produce the show and you have to talk, especially this episode, because we’re going to be talking about brand anthem, what that is, why that’s important for brands. It’s kind of a thing that we coined, but I think it can work for anybody. You don’t have to use our little language for it, but brand anthem, what that is and how you can use that, particularly with video. I’m really excited about that part, so…

Sam Pagel:
That is exciting.

Mike Jones:
But-

Sam Pagel:
Are we going to do a little-

Mike Jones:
… but, first, name the things.

Sam Pagel:
In the vein of what we’re talking about today, I want to name 10 movie titles that never saw the light of day.

Mike Jones:
10 movie titles that never saw the light of day, The Day the Plants Started Growing.

Sam Pagel:
Is that a horror… It’s a horror film?

Mike Jones:
I think it’s a documentary.

Sam Pagel:
A documentary, okay.

Mike Jones:
It’s a documentary. It’s definitely a documentary.

Sam Pagel:
That was the documentary and-

Mike Jones:
I’m imagining just like a non-time lapsed, like GoPro video-

Sam Pagel:
Just two hours shot.

Mike Jones:
… of a plant starting to grow.

Sam Pagel:
A feature length.

Mike Jones:
It’s like two hours in the life of a new plant.

Sam Pagel:
All right-

Mike Jones:
Nothing actually happens.

Sam Pagel:
… I’m going to go with Attack of the Corn Cobs.

Mike Jones:
Ooh.

Sam Pagel:
Little same genre.

Mike Jones:
Yeah.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah.

Mike Jones:
Moving Day. We’ll call out to our friends over at United Dairymen of Arizona.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah.

Mike Jones:
Yeah.

Sam Pagel:
Is that a cartoon? It’s a Pixar-

Mike Jones:
No, it’s a drama.

Sam Pagel:
Oh, it’s a drama.

Mike Jones:
It’s a drama. Yeah. Yeah. Betsy.

Sam Pagel:
A very creamy drama.

Mike Jones:
Betsy’s Moving Out of the Barn. She’s got her own place now.

Sam Pagel:
Wow. That’s great.

Mike Jones:
Yup. Moving Day.

Sam Pagel:
Chalk Wars.

Mike Jones:
Chalk Wars. Vanilla Bite my Children. I don’t know what that means.

Sam Pagel:
Is it a vanilla ice-

Mike Jones:
Yeah. It was like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-

Sam Pagel:
It’s kind of mystery.

Mike Jones:
… but a little more gruesome in the end.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah.

Mike Jones:
Lion Father.

Sam Pagel:
Ooh. Lion Father. That’s great. Honk The Horn, Jim.

Mike Jones:
I love it. Ted Strikes Back.

Sam Pagel:
Ooh, Ted. [inaudible 00:03:36].

Mike Jones:
I don’t know who he is but he strikes back.

Sam Pagel:
All right. We got two more. Roller My Coaster.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. Dude, Where’s My Shades?

Sam Pagel:
Okay, great. I ask that every morning.

Mike Jones:
Everyone hears that movie title and they think sunglasses, but little do you know, the entire movie is about this cloistered, introverted guy who never leaves his house and always keeps the shades closed, and the kids next door stole his shades, his window shades for one day.

Sam Pagel:
Oh, no.

Mike Jones:
“Dude, where’s my shades?”

Sam Pagel:
“Dude, where’s my shades?” And then the town was never the same-

Mike Jones:
Never the same.

Sam Pagel:
Because he went on a rampage.

Mike Jones:
Yup.

Speaker 1:
Find your frequency.

Mike Jones:
So, yeah, we should talk about brand anthem.

Sam Pagel:
Yes.

Mike Jones:
What is it? What in the world is a brand anthem?

Sam Pagel:
Yeah. What is that? There’s a city here in Arizona called Anthem. Is it a brand that lives in Anthem? Is that what it is?

Mike Jones:
It could be. I guess it could be, yeah, Anthem-

Sam Pagel:
Or is it the Anthem brand, as the city?

Mike Jones:
Or is it just your jingle?

Sam Pagel:
Yeah.

Mike Jones:
Like countries have anthems. I think, it’s a little more than that.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah, I think a little bit. Yeah.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. Because even when you think about a country, the word anthem, really, what is that? It’s more than just the melody line. It’s more than just the words. It’s the ideas it evokes and the feeling towards that country, that nation that you call your own, and the camaraderie that you feel with your fellow patriots.

Sam Pagel:
Emotions, pride-

Mike Jones:
Yeah.

Sam Pagel:
… there’s a lot of things wrapped up into that.

Mike Jones:
Yup. And so, when we think about a brand anthem, I think it’s very much those same ingredients, although I think you can mix it a little differently. It doesn’t have to be a song, right?

Sam Pagel:
No.

Mike Jones:
But we think about, it’s telling that story. It’s telling the story of your brand in a really compelling way, and doing that in a way that is memorable, and exciting, and has emotion to it, and leaves people not only understanding, Because there’s really good content in your brand anthem. It’s really telling your story, but it’s also evoking the personality and the emotions of your brand. In a way, that’s very unique and authentic. And we’ve found one of the best ways to do that is through video. It works really, really well for putting your brand anthem out into the world.

Sam Pagel:
It seems to be a natural way to do that. And obviously, you can do that in other parts of your brand, your website, collateral, the way that you talk to clients, those are all really important. The video side is a way that you can really capture your brand anthem, visually, audibly, the written form of that. There’s a lot of elements that really come together with that. And you hope that you do it well enough to evoke emotion. And there’s a lot of times we come across people who, they want to cram everything. And this is a real temptation, is like you want to cram everything, every service, every product that you offer into that brand anthem. Well, you probably shouldn’t do that, but the brand anthem video is a way to show that. You don’t have to say it all, but you can show it. And so, there’s just a lot of elements that come together that are really fun, and you can get really creative with that and create something that’s really powerful.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. But I think, it’s important that the underlying kind of foundation of your brand anthem is that story. And I think, it’s helpful to think through what makes for a great story. And there’s lots of formulas out there for coming up with a story for your brand. I can think of story brands or there’s others with their own trademarked way of doing it. And most of those actually founded on one kind of basic model of storytelling. And for those that want a little history lesson, maybe I’ll lose everybody at this point-

Sam Pagel:
Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Mike Jones:
… Joseph Campbell, philosopher, historian, professor in the 20th century-

Sam Pagel:
Any relation to the soup?

Mike Jones:
No relation that I’m aware of. No, I’m not really sure about that. Although if I’m going to picture Joseph Campbell, I really feel like he’s probably into tomato soup. Yeah-

Sam Pagel:
Oh, yeah.

Mike Jones:
… not cream of mushroom, no.

Sam Pagel:
No, he’s all about the tomato soup.

Mike Jones:
Tomato soup. But, yes, so Joseph Campbell created this framework for storytelling. It was really based on him looking at thousands of years of stories in history that people have been telling and finding these common elements that keep showing up over and over again. And if you want to go research it, I highly recommend it. There’s some really good books. I think Joseph Campbell has a book or had, he is no longer with us, about this framework. He calls it The Hero’s Journey. And so that can be a really helpful tool as you’re thinking through how to tell your story for your brand is maybe use some of those same elements. We’d use that and we use a form of it that I think is a little bit more simplistic and easier for companies to use because 12-steps in the Hero’s Journey can be a lot. And some of them, I don’t know if they’re as easy to translate into the business environment.

And so, I think, every great brand story, every story being told by brands really has to have five fundamental elements. And the first is two characters. Those are your first two elements. And there’s two really important characters in every brand anthem, and that is the hero and the guide. So, if we think about really great stories that we’ve heard in our lives or that have resonated with us or that just we remember, I think, for a lot of people, you can think about Star Wars as an easy one. It’s a pretty memorable story. You have Luke Skywalker, who is the hero in the story, who actually meets quite a few guides, but he meets a couple, particularly Obi-Wan Kenobi, that’s pretty memorable one in the first film that came out, and then Yoda in the second film, the Empire Strikes Back.

And if you’re not familiar with that story, that’s okay. But this formula is something George Lucas is kind of notorious for using and being maybe a little blunt with, especially in the Star War story. And so, it makes it a really easy example to show how these elements work. So, Luke is our hero. And what’s really interesting about heroes and stories is that they have to have a problem. They have to have a problem that they alone by themselves cannot overcome. And so, when we think about Luke, one of the main problems that he has… He has a lot, let’s be honest, and most heroes do.

But one of his main problems is he has this power called the force, and he doesn’t really know how to use it or at least master it. He’s been introduced to it. Obi-Wan Kenobi has made it known to him. He’s done a little bit of training, and then he loses his guide in Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he’s on this search for a new guide. He’s heard that there’s this character named Yoda, and we’re introduced to Yoda in the second film who introduces this archetypal guide, who is old, been around forever, super master at this thing that Luke doesn’t know how to do, super well, is super wise, has 800 years of experience in life and in particular, with this power and is willing to teach others.

And we don’t probably know all of that specifically from the story, but we come to find out later through other stories that have been told that he is a teacher. And so, he can pass along this kind of secret knowledge. And so, he and Luke meet, and through Yoda’s guidance, Luke becomes a master of this power that he has.
And so, every great story has this. It has hero with a unique unsolvable problem who must meet a guide, who has the solution to overcome that problem. And through the meeting of the two, the hero learns or acquires an ability or acquires something that allows them to overcome the problem and not just overcome the problem. Because it’s not a very engaging story. If you have a problem, I’m driving and my car just won’t work anymore, and it’s my transmission, and I find a mechanic. So, mechanic in this story is the guide. I’m the hero who has this problem. I meet this guide, mechanic, who comes along, happens to have a transmission in the back of his truck, swaps it out for me and now, I have a car that runs. Okay, that that’s I guess interesting and it’s helpful.
But what’s really compelling is when we find out that I was on my way to the hospital, and my wife is pregnant, and she’s about to have her baby, and now we get to the hospital right in the nick of time because of this savior who has saved me in this grand story. And it’s not really about the fact that I had a problem. It’s about that through the overcoming of that problem, I was able to help someone else or deliver value to others or realize some new state of being in my life. And in this case, an actual new life has come out of that story. And so, if we go back to Luke and Yoda, Luke doesn’t just become a master of the force. He becomes the savior of the galaxy. He overcomes Darth Vader, and the evil empire, and the emperor, and saves everyone from that, and the rebellion wins. That’s like the end of the story and where the ultimate satisfaction in that overcoming of a problem happens.

So, all the way back to brands. Brands need to tell stories with these two characters. They have to have a hero, they have to have a guide. And the big challenge that we see is a lot of organizations confuse who the hero is in their story. They often think, well, the hero is the focus of the story, the person that the story’s all about. And so, therefore, it should be us, it should be our brand, the brand is the hero of the story. But if you think back again, the hero is the one with the problem. The hero is the one who is trying to do something in the world and can’t, and is stuck in some way, shape, or form, and the guide is the one with the solution.

If your story is about how you as an organization are stuck and can’t overcome their problem that you’re trying to solve, and maybe in a very simplistic way you could say, our problem is we don’t have sales, we can’t get customers. So, we’re telling this story about how we need customers, or we need clients, for professional services or in financial services. That’s not a compelling story to anyone else. That might be a story that’s important to you inside your organization of like, “Hey, how are we going to overcome this problem?” But that’s not your marketing story. That’s not your brand story that you tell in your marketing.

What you tell in your marketing through your brand story is the story of how you, as a guide, help your clients overcome their problems and realize some new state of being, whether that’s growth in their business, or a promotion and a new title or just whatever they’re defining as success for them.

And that’s where you have to do a lot of hard work is figure these elements out. So, again, we have a hero, we have a guide. The hero has a problem, the guide has a solution. So, there’s our four parts, hero, guide, problem, solution. And then finally, what is it that your client is going to actually realize different about themselves, or about their business, or about the world through this process? How do they end up in a new state of being? Not just the problem was overcome, but it helped them achieve something else that they were hoping to get by having that problem overcome.
We can think about if you’re an accountant or if you’re an accounting firm, the problem isn’t just that your client is going to owe taxes at the end of the year and they maybe want to minimize how much they have to pay through deductions, or they want to minimize their risk from an audit or some other kind of tactical issue. It’s that they actually want their business to grow. They want to realize more profit, or they want to realize more that reinvestment back in their business, or they have some new initiative that they’re really wanting to put that money into.

And so, how do you tell that story in a way that really paints the picture of, you are going to overcome this problem with our help, and you’re going to realize a new state of being? That is your story that you’re going to tell through your brand. And a brand anthem takes all of that and puts it into a really compelling, creative story and then delivers that in formats that are engaging to people, like video. You could do it in other ways. You could take that brand anthem and you could deliver it through a podcast. Take each of those elements, break them down, make them into multiple episodes, find questions that you can ask about the problem, about the hero, about the guide, about the different solutions, about the end state. Write up all those questions, every one of those should be a podcast episode, and then drip that out. That’s another way that you can create tons and tons of storytelling that actually fits what you do as a brand.

And it’s compelling. It’s very compelling to the audiences that you’re trying to talk to because you’re not telling a story about just, “Oh, this is what we do.” That’s important. You do have to talk about the things you do, but you’re really talking about what they are encountering, the problems they’re facing, the challenges that are keeping them from where they want to be.

Sam Pagel:
And I think there’s a couple things that we see that come out of the brand anthem. One really interesting part is the brand anthem process really forces you to figure out who the hero of your story is. It can’t just be the whole world, everyone, humanity, whatever.

Mike Jones:
Why not Sam?

Sam Pagel:
No business is built to serve all people.

Mike Jones:
N.

Sam Pagel:
… even governments if you want to go down that trail.

Mike Jones:
But in the world that we play in, full service-

Sam Pagel:
Full service.

Mike Jones:
… is often used as kind of a euphemism for we serve everybody in every way that is generally in our area of expertise.

Sam Pagel:
If you come to us, we’ll serve you. We can do it all.

Mike Jones:
And it’s not a differentiator, and it also doesn’t really speak to the problem. Now, there might be something about full service that’s helpful, that speaks to a particular set of problems. That’s where I think there’s a lot of opportunity for organizations to be a lot clearer. What is that problem, and what is that in-state that you’re really helping them with when you say full service?

Sam Pagel:
Well, and your-

Mike Jones:
Connect the dots.

Sam Pagel:
… your story, your brand anthem is so much more interesting and powerful when you are able to define that clearly and really granular, get down to the details of, we’re an accounting firm and the hero of our story is the CFO of the car lot down there. And that’s so interesting because that’s really the market you want to go after. Everyone in the market’s going to want to work with you because you’re specialized in them. You’re talking to them directly. No one else is doing that. So that’s one part you’re focused on your hero, the persona, the person you’re supposed to be talking to from a sales perspective.
The other part, which is really cool, we see this kind of naturally flow out of the brand anthem when you do it, is you can kind of come up with your tagline, which we see a lot of businesses, professional services, they’re lacking that or they’ve had one for a long time that they’re not fond of, or it’s the same as everyone else’s. And so, that process probably that process really helps you get creative in putting the right things into your brand’s tagline. And that’s going to go everywhere.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. And it gets you out of cliches, it gets you out of buzzwords, and it really starts to say, “No, what is it that we really do? Who do we really serve that is specific to us?” Instead of just grabbing at words and ideas that are common in your industry or that even you hear your clients talking about that really are not what you specifically are kind of best able to do, or they just become generalized. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, we deliver growth.” I’m like, “Okay, how do you do that differently?” Maybe that is the end that your client wants, but there’s probably something more specific. There’s something more specific about your client, that is more interesting and it will resonate with them. Or is maybe there’s a step in that process of growth that you’re most able to help them with. What is that? Help me define that in more specific terms so that it really, really resonates with your target instead of just kind of big generalities.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah. And there’s risks to that, obviously. You don’t want to go so small to where you don’t have any more customers, but it really helps you focus on the right things when you’re coming up with some of those marketing or sales materials. So, those are some just really practical things that come out of that process.

Mike Jones:
Yup. Yeah, it’s been interesting kind of letting the cat out of the bag slightly here. We’re working on a big study of accounting firms and their brands, and it’s going to be coming out in May. And one of the things that we’ve been finding is that there’s a clear drop-off in clarity of who people serve and how they serve them in specific service sets for certain size of firm. And I think, there’s a variety of reasons for that, some of which is just inherent to smaller firms probably feeling that risk really high of like, “Oh, man, if we specialize, we’re going to lose out on potential clients who are right here. Maybe we’re more focused on just geography as our differentiator.
But I also think it’s interesting that as you scale, you would think that scaling would require you to be less specific and try to offer more services to more industries. And yet, what we’re finding is that high strength brands in the accounting world actually prove that the more specific you can be, the more power your brand has, and you’re able to grow more efficiently because you make it much easier for people to select in and say, “Yes, you are the right fit for me. You have expertise that no one else has. And so, when you say, “Well, we serve a lot of different industries with a lot of different accounting services,” you make it harder for someone to say yes, you and not anyone else.
And there’s some logic to that. Okay, that makes sense, but it’s interesting when you actually see that played out in a big survey. We’re looking at 1,800 firms across the United States right now, and there’s a clear drop-off in that specificity, and I don’t remember exactly off the top of my head where that number is, but as they get smaller and smaller, you see less and less specificity. And I do think that there’s a bit of an assumption here, yeah. Maybe we’ll prove this out, but that your ability to grow does come through your story, this anthem that you can tell, that you can put out in the world, and be really direct about who you serve, and how you serve them, and the solutions, and how you get them to where they’re trying to get to.

Sam Pagel:
Yup. Yeah, and I think, the process where maybe, the most difficult part of this brand anthem process is putting it all together. So, you sit down at a table for an hour or two and you say, “Okay, who’s the hero of our story?” We’ll go back to the used car lot. So, the manager at the used car lot. Okay, we got that. Okay, what’s his problem? He is really stressed out and he can’t do all of his finances. All right. We come in, we’re the guide. We take all of that off his plate so he can focus on making people super happy to get their new minivan and drive their family across the country, whatever that is. Now, the part that’s really tricky and difficult is putting all those elements together in a compelling way, because you can’t just say, “We’re the accounting firm that serves used car lots to make people happy with their cars.”

Mike Jones:
I mean, you could. And I think, for some firms, that might actually be better than what they’ve got right now. It might, yeah. But yeah, it doesn’t come across very creative or it doesn’t flow.

Sam Pagel:
It doesn’t flow. And I think too… So, if you’re an accounting firm, you probably don’t only want to serve managers that have used car lots, but that might be a big part of your business, and you certainly want to cater to them. Just as an example, accounting firms, typically, they’ll have the business side, the personal side, they’ll have different levels of businesses, they have geography, they have all these things. So, to say it that plainly would probably alienate a ton of people. And so, there’s ways to craft that. Obviously, we just talked about, we do want to be specific with that story, but the way you can creatively do that will make sure that you’re not leaving money on the table.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. Yeah, or finding specificity that isn’t just these really overt things like the job title or the particular type of business that you’re selling to. Maybe there’s something about this car lot manager that is also resonates really well across other industries, but is specific maybe to a positional issue or where you’re at in business growth, maybe it’s certain businesses that have been around for a certain amount of time and are encountering these very specific problems that you are really best suited to solve. And there’s also opportunity in that to even look at how do you package your services, how do you maybe productize them or create packages around them that help say, we’re really good at solving this problem. And then, the other thing you can do, you have to be careful with this, but you can create different versions of your brand anthem. There can be more of a generalized one that maybe is your overarching brand anthem, and then create specialized ones.
Maybe you do have a couple verticals that you’re in and you create one for this vertical, maybe the car dealership vertical, and then maybe you’ve got something that’s somewhat related. Maybe you have automotive mechanics, and you could kind of start to see how, “Okay, all of these play in one big field. Maybe it’s just automotive.” We have this kind of general specificity, if I could say that, across automotively-minded businesses. And oh, “By the way, we do this for car dealerships, we do this for mechanics, we do this for manufacturers.” And so, you can own that entire vertical of business without having to be like, “Oh, and we also do dairy.” Something that’s just so far left field that it’s like, “Well, now, I don’t understand, and you’ve lost me why… I hit your industry tab, and there’s 18 of them that have no connection point.”

Sam Pagel:
Committing to a brand anthem, it does require growing up, if you’re a smaller company, if you’re one person, even if you’re a medium size company, it requires you to take that risk to say, we’re going to stick to what we say here because this is who we are, and this is our story, this is our anthem, and run with it and really own that. So, it does require this maturity on a business level to say, “We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do it the right way, and we’re going to do it well.”

Mike Jones:
Yeah, and I think if you do it well, you’re not limiting growth. You’re not necessarily limiting what you can do in the future, but you’re giving yourself a roadmap for that growth instead of just having every option as possible, every service we could offer every industry that we could, as long as we just find the right person who can get in there, we could have that industry. Instead, you’re saying, “No, we’re going to have a roadmap for growth. We’re going to stick to a specific area that we’re going to be really good at,” and I guarantee you there are tons and tons of clients in that area, and you’re going to build expertise that no one’s going to be able to challenge. All right.
You’re going to have a brand that really stands out that people are going to be like, “Oh, yeah, them, they are the ones for X, Y, Z.” Instead of having a conversation I had yesterday with some law firms about one of them looking at another one and going, “Wait, aren’t you guys supposed to be the sports and the sports law guys in town?” Because I saw this other firm that was advertising they were that, but I’d never even heard of them before, but there was this question mark of like, “You do sports, but you also do a lot of other things, right?” It’s like, they’re kind of known, but they’re also known for three, four… And they even said it, “Oh, yeah, we do sports and we do X, Y, Z, and we do X, Y, Z industry.” And it was like, “Okay, so you can’t just pick one. So, it’s going to be harder for people to remember that that sports is one of your things. “

Sam Pagel:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you do find pretty quickly that one way or another, these specific groups of people or industries or sectors are really connected. A lot of people know each other. And so, you jump in there with something that stands out from the rest of the people that are trying to talk to these other companies or clients, and it makes a huge difference. You might not see a big difference on day one, but you start talking that way and you start putting that stuff out there and it’s noticeable.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. Some of the benefits that you’ll probably see sooner or later are going to be things like you will have to respond if fewer RFPs that just aren’t a good fit for you anymore, you’re going to stop getting some of those lame RFPs or some of the lame leads that you’ve probably been complaining about, right? Because it’s going to be a lot clearer sooner in the marketing cycle that you are the right fit for some and the wrong fit for others. You’re going to start winning more of the RFPs within that focus. Whatever that is that you pick or that you kind of lean into because you’re already really good at it, you’re going to start winning more of those because you’ve been more specific and you’ve been more defined with your brand anthem in that storytelling process. You’re going to see that you can charge more.
You’re going to see margins increase. You’re going to see efficiencies come out of that. You’re going to keep clients longer in those categories because it’s going to be really hard to leave the experts. There’s going to be fear. I hate to say that. It’s a good fear that there’s going to be some trepidation for a client who’s like, “Yeah, we’re thinking about leaving, but I don’t know if we can find any belt who knows us like you do, who really knows our industry and knows the problems that we’re encountering like you do.” And you’re also going to be able to shuffle off some clients that are not good fits.

Sam Pagel:
You’ll see people start leaving due to price, not because of failure on your part.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. Or if you’ve got some clients that you’ve been trying to get rid of them for a while, this is a good excuse. That’s a minor point, but you’re like, “Hey, we’re really focused on this industry now.” And they’re going to be like, “Oh, okay. What do you want?” “Yeah, you need to find somebody else. Here, let me give you a three, it might be a better fit for you.”

Sam Pagel:
Yeah. And those decisions can be really freeing and helpful, which is sweet.

Mike Jones:
Yup. Definitely. It’s good to say no.

Sam Pagel:
All right. I’ve got an example here.

Mike Jones:
Okay.

Sam Pagel:
I don’t think we officially went through the brand anthem process with them, but this is a construction-based business, and they started as a roofing company back in, I think the 70s. And they were doing these metal roofs, and it was kind of a new thing, but they started in a garage, grew pretty quickly, and then started turning the metal roofs into these metal panels, like building clad, and then it went from purely like, “Hey, we’re just trying to keep rain out of our building to how can we make this building look amazing?”

Mike Jones:
Yeah. It’s like enclosures.

Sam Pagel:
Yup. Yup. So, building enclosures, they weren’t going to build the building for you, but they were going to take what you built and make it look really good. Then they got into glass, and so they were doing glass and metal, then they did stone. So, years ago, I think it was maybe 2014, so it’s been a while, but I was sitting in a room with them and they were trying to figure out, I think we were putting their website together, trying to figure out what do we do for a tagline? How do we sum up what we do? And I really like what we came up with, and it was push the envelope, and their whole thing was, how do you take a budget? So, an owner of this building, how do you take their budget? How do you take the existing designs and-

Mike Jones:
Yeah. Because they’re working with pretty hard and fast.

Sam Pagel:
They’re working with the owners, they’re working with architects, they’re working with the GCs-

Mike Jones:
Yeah. Stuff’s already been designed or it’s even been built so-

Sam Pagel:
… so, a lot of times these companies would come to them, actually, the architects would come to them and say, “Hey, we want to do this design. It’s way too expensive. How do we do it?” And so, they would say, “Oh, we’ll just use a different material. Instead of sourcing that, we’ll paint it or we’ll prefab it, whatever.” So, they really were pushing the envelope of what was possible. And also, the dual meaning, of course.

Mike Jones:
It’s an envelope of the building, yeah-

Sam Pagel:
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Mike Jones:
… [inaudible 00:36:30] industry.

Sam Pagel:
Anyways, stuff like that where it’s like you come up with that and you’re like, that’s awesome. Yeah, it’s really cool. It’s creative, it’s memorable. It tells the story of what we do, why we do it, how we do it, and-

Mike Jones:
And even just the term envelope in that industry speak. It speaks to their audience that they’re talking to without actually saying it. You don’t have to be pushing the envelope for owners and architects and GCs who are building really complex stuff.

Sam Pagel:
Well, and one thing that was super helpful for them was they figured out over time who they were actually talking to. They actually weren’t talking to the owners. They weren’t talking to the GCs. They were talking to the architects. Because if the architects were bought into what they were doing, or if the architect thought that they could get their design to completion through this company-

Mike Jones:
They’d fight tooth and nail to have them on that project.

Sam Pagel:
… they would say, we have to use these guys. Because every architect wants their initial-

Mike Jones:
Yeah, their vision-

Sam Pagel:
… full-fledged design, which probably is not common to have a full beautiful design from an architect get to completion because they think of these crazy things. But when you have a company that is saying, “No, we’re going to take your design. We’re going to get it there. We’re going to make it awesome.” So anyways, that’s just a quick example of I think, when you can do that really well and all those kind of pieces kind of come together, they fall in line, you get a little creative with it, maybe a little fun. Maybe you hear that and you chuckle a little bit, but it’s memorable and it tells your story, and you remember that.

Mike Jones:
Yup. Yup. We had something similar with another client in the accounting space after a lot of research and really helping them do some kind of soul searching on, they’d had a lot of growth over the years. They’d been around for over 60 years and had grown into 150 person firm, regionally-focused, and really just seeing, “What is special, what is unique, and what do our clients need?” And one of the things they found was that their clients needed expertise across disciplines. So, a business owner who they were working with might, every year, need tax compliance help and tax filing help, but they also needed help with valuation or perhaps an audit that was coming up. And even across industries, trying to find where they needed more, and there was a really strong strength in the firm of their people and growing their talent kind of in-house and building them up over long periods of time and keeping their clients. A lot of their clients had been around for a really long time with the firm.
And so as we worked through that process, trying to find how do we tell this story? What’s an anthem or a tagline that’s going to really hit home? We came up with offering you more. And we even took that and spun it a little bit with specifics. Well, what do we mean by more? Because that’s a little bit general. So, on the website, it would actually flip out different specific things that they meant by that. So, offering you more expertise, or more creativity, or more things that this group of people… And actually, became a mantra for even designing the website, making sure that the people were really highlighted, the experts within the firm, and how they worked together, that there’s this collaboration that you’re getting behind the scenes that a lot of their clients weren’t always sure about or didn’t always know about.
And so, it was really cool to see that become their story. Funny enough, we’ve watched since then, and it’s been a little bit borrowed and tweaked by several other accounting firms. Maybe… What is it? Theft is the highest form of flattery in the art world or copying. So, I’ll take that as a win.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah. I think that’s a good example of taking not just hero-guide, but also what you do into account. And so, you mentioned it earlier, Mike, where you have this story, but you crafted in a way to where, as a CPA firm, you don’t just do one thing, you’ve got all these different things. And a lot of businesses don’t just do one thing. They’re doing multiple services, they’ve got multiple products. And so, you craft that brand anthem in a way to where it is flexible with those different things, those different sectors, services, products, whatever it is. And that that’s where, again, creativity, you look at the big picture and you say, “Okay, how are we going to craft this so we’re not kind of containing ourselves too much?” Or-

Mike Jones:
Yeah. And you have to work within the constraints of your business, right? For the risks of being that specific maybe of saying, “Oh, we’re going to pick only one industry,” or “We’re going to offer one set of services.” That might just be really hard. Maybe that’s down the road or that’s just not a decision our leadership is willing to make. I think you can still take this process and get benefit out of it. You can still really try to get as focused as you can, and maybe it’s not as far as someone thinks it could be, but at least it’s better than where it’s been, right? It’s opaque, it’s vague, it’s not specific, it’s not clear, and probably not even super creative either.
Be as focused as you can be within the constraints of your business and where you want to go and vision and all that stuff. Find something about your firm that is unique and different. There’s something, there’s always something, because every firm has an intrinsic remarkability to it. We use that word a lot, but there’s something intrinsically remarkable about every firm, and it’s just a matter of digging and digging and digging until you find it and discover it. And then you can unlock that through a process like a brand anthem where you can really start to put those story elements together in a compelling and creative way.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah. And I think we touched on this a little bit, but really thinking through what is really unique about us as a company, as a brand, and really leaning into those in your anthem, really leaning into them, because I think it was the, either Brian Regan or Seinfeld, they had a little skit about the billboards for the political campaigns, like trustworthy, honorable. And then, you’ve got the other guy who’s like, liar, and he’s talking about himself, and it’s like, “Wait a minute, I’m not voting for you.” It’s like everyone’s going to say that they do-

Mike Jones:
They’re all going to say that, yeah.

Sam Pagel:
… the best work, they do it this way. And so-

Mike Jones:
Best service.

Sam Pagel:
… what-

Mike Jones:
Got the best people.

Sam Pagel:
… yeah. It’s all about our people, whatever. But what’s really unique about you? Why do people want to work with you? Why do people come back? And that might be a discovery process. Maybe you don’t know what that is yet, but that brand anthem process can help flesh that out. So, Mike, how do people this? How do you do this as a company, as a brand? Maybe the leadership team-

Mike Jones:
Yeah. I think you wave your magic branding wand and it just magically appears on the whiteboard.

Sam Pagel:
Yup. Amazon-

Mike Jones:
Perfectly crafted, ready to go.

Sam Pagel:
Amazon sells those.

Mike Jones:
Yeah, I think Amazon, actually… I think they’re on sale. You might be able to get a discount right now.

Sam Pagel:
Amazon Basics.

Mike Jones:
Yeah. So, there’s truth in the joke. The reality is really hard. It takes a lot of work. I think it does need to start with leadership. We’ve found just one of the best ways to start this process is to put leadership in a room together and start working through these elements, say, “All right, who are the heroes that we work with? Who are our best clients?” Maybe start there. Start with the really good examples of times when it’s gone really well with particular clients and say, “Can we develop a model from that that we can extend out to future clients?” But yeah, start having those conversations. Say, “Who is our hero? What are their problems? Who are we? What is unique about us?” It can be a lot of soul searching there. Maybe look at your core values and say, “Are these really as specific as they could be? Can we ask why about each one of them one more time? And say, “Can we get one layer deeper on them? Maybe go two layers deeper. Where did these come from? What’s the history? Where did we come from?”
We’ve talked about this a lot on other episodes of the podcast. So, I’d encourage people to dig back into those of what are the foundations of a good brand. But you really need to know your brand if you want to have a really compelling brand anthem in order to be able to tell that story in a really, really compelling way. And then, understand where your clients need to go, what’s the end state for them? And sometimes, it helps to just write it, have everybody kind of fill in the blanks here on each of these elements, and then write their own version, compare notes with one another.
That’s the process that we’ve kind of taken and we’ve developed some exercises around that. They’re really helpful for clients. And then, you need to gut check those. You can’t walk out of the room and assume that this is right. And especially, the larger you are, I think the less sure you should be. And so, go start talking to other people in the firm, start talking to other staff. “Does this resonate with you? Does this anthem make sense?” And then, also, definitely go to clients. They’re probably one of the best feedback platforms to say this is right or wrong. If they’re like, “I didn’t understand anything you just said.” Okay. That’s good feedback. Time to go back to the drawing board and try again.

Sam Pagel:
You give the example in our workshops, Mike, of you go to your mom. And you-

Mike Jones:
Yes. See your mom.

Sam Pagel:
You read her your brand story, your brand anthem. And if she’s like, “Oh, that’s great. Yeah, I love it.” “Well, did you understand it?” “No, that’s great, honey.”

Mike Jones:
I don’t need to.

Sam Pagel:
“What do you do?” Does somebody like that who’s disconnected, kind of get it, understand it?

Mike Jones:
I think, that’s a sign of a good brand anthem is that when you all are done with the process or you feel like, “Man, I think we’re really close here.” Can you all use it in your firm as the answer to the question, “What do you do?” When you walk into a room, you’re meeting new people, even if it’s people not in your industry. Maybe you walk into the next family holiday party, get together, and somebody brought their new girlfriend and they’re like, “Oh, what do you do?” And you have an answer. If that brand anthem works in that setting, you’ve got a great brand anthem.
And ideally, it is something… It’s a tool that now everyone uses. We talk a lot. It’s basically your elevator pitch. And obviously, you can deliver it in lots of other ways. You can put that video together, you can put it on your website, come up with some really creative ways to deliver that, make some ads or something with it. But I think at its heart, that’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking for as very succinct, quick, compelling, and clear way to explain what you do, but through the lens of who you help and how you serve them, how you help them overcome problems.

Sam Pagel:
And you do that right, and it’s not just the CEO or the sales guys saying that-

Mike Jones:
No, it’s everyone.

Sam Pagel:
… it’s everyone in the firm. And eventually, it’s your customers, and it scales on from there. And those are things where you don’t just stick this on a poster and put it in your break room. You have to work on it.

Mike Jones:
You could do that too. That’s always fun.

Sam Pagel:
Well, yeah, you could, but you have to work on it. And you have to continually be putting this in front of new hires, existing team members, reworking it, and reworking it on your website, not changing it. It shouldn’t change too often, but reworking it for sales copy, ad [inaudible 00:48:59], whatever it is, it should be this kind of roadmap, this compass if you will, to come back to and say, “Oh, yeah, who are we talking to again? Why are we doing what we do?” All hands meetings, team meetings, staff meetings, whatever it is, “Guys, why do we exist?” And everyone should have the same answer.

Mike Jones:
Yup. And I think, that leads to maybe a really interesting deliverable that can come out of this process. Why do we exist? And not every firm is going to get to this point, but perhaps the answer to that question is worthy of a lot of words, maybe more than what a brand anthem typically contains. We usually tell people, shoot for two to three sentences, or maybe a paragraph, sometimes two. Now, we’re starting to stretch it. Maybe not succinct enough, not something you can memorize, but there might be enough in there that you’re like, “Man, I really need to explain a lot more. I need to tell this story in a more full way with lots of examples and really talk about how we got to this because nobody else is doing it this way. And that’s when I look at those clients or another business owner who’s telling me kind of their story and I go, “You have all the elements for a book. You have something really unique and special that others need to know about and hear about.”
And I could think of clients who we’ve had where it’s like their brand story isn’t just rooted in function, it’s not just rooted in, we’re really good at this one thing, and that’s why we do it over and over for our clients. They are, they’re really good at it, but it’s based on maybe, a philosophy or a way of seeing the world and wanting to see change happen in the world in particular ways through the service of their clients. And I think those are really compelling opportunities to share that in a much broader way and maybe even build some momentum with other like-minded businesses who want to come on that journey and say, “Yeah, we all do different things, but we’re all aiming at the same thing and we really want to serve people well.” And I think that can be a fantastic kind of inspiration point for a book or something else of that kind of weightiness. All right, Sam brand anthem, brand story.

Sam Pagel:
Yeah.

Mike Jones:
I’m sure people have tons of questions. I’d love to hear some questions from people that are listening in, and we look forward to hearing more from you all. If you want to give us some questions or maybe your take on your brand story or your brand anthem, we’d love to hear that. If you’ve got a really compelling tagline, send it over and I’ll throw it at our copywriters and watch them rip it apart. No, it’d be awesome. We’d love to hear examples and hear what people are doing, so hit us up. Obviously, you can find us at resoundcreative.com or you can just email me, mike@resoundcreative.com.
The Remarkabrand Podcast is a project of Resound and is recorded in Tempe, Arizona with hosts, Mike Jones and David Cosand. It’s produced and edited by Sam Pagel. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and at remarkablecast.com. If you’d like more episodes, subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever you prefer to get your podcasts. To contact the show, find out more about the Remarkabrand Podcast or to join our newsletter list to make sure you never miss another episode, check out our website at remarkablecast.com. Copyright Resound Creative Media LLC 2022.

 

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