Some of my favorite brands are: Lululemon, Apple, The North Face, and Starbucks.

I can relate to these brands because I can find myself in their story.

When you sit down to craft your brand, it’s important to think about the elements of what you do that people can relate to, understand and participate in. If someone cannot find themselves in your brand, they won’t connect. Helping me put myself in your story will connect me to your brand, possibly for a very long time.

For example, let’s dive into Lululemon. I have only recently become to know (and love) this brand, but it was a short ride for me to get to know them and find myself in their work. How they talk, how they design, their color choices and their mindset are all top reasons for pulling me into their trenches, but their main attraction was their philosophy. Their story.

“Live the sweat life” and “Gear to get you there” are two simple sentences that just scream at me. I want to push myself to live the good life, which for me includes sweating, and hey, let’s look good while we’re sweating, right?

One way they share their story is through their Manifesto, which is a collection of sayings such as: Do one thing a day that scares you; Stress is related to 99% of all illness; and Children are the orgasm of life. They walk this walk through their education and community work, and help you get started with goals and a simple yoga practice.

I see myself in this company’s story, and, I am inspired by what they do and how I can be because of them. Sounds crazy, but it’s true; for me and millions of other women and men who have helped them become one of the fastest growing health communities with a retail presence. They’re getting it right.

Making this same experience happen for your company is possible. Just make sure your desired audience can see themselves in your story.

Looking back at our pace a year from today, or even six months ago, we were running super fast. Life in our lane is typically fast no matter how you swing it, but, we can work to control the crazies. I think we have accomplished a more controlled pace by adding two uber creatives (did you meet Matt and Emily?) and giving ourselves a couple extra hours a week to just sit and talk about ideas. Do you know how much joy that brings us? Wow.

I was reading an article about James Dyson, the creator of that well-known Dyson vacuum. Did you know he tried 5,127 prototypes before he succeeded? I bet he had a ton of fun working on all those “tries” to get to where he knew he needed to be. I look at how I run my life today and like to think each of my days includes about 100 tries of some type. These daily workouts put me in a good place to really turn on the ideas when I need to. Here is a bit of what I do:

1. Reading. I read constantly. I will read just about anything because I am always curious. I just want to know… about everything. This gets me in trouble sometimes with asking 101 questions, but I am genuine in my quest to learn more.
2. Exercising. If you read this blog regularly you’re probably getting sick of seeing this, but, for me, it’s key to my creativity. I have so many ideas while I’m out walking my dogs that I have started voice recording what I think about. Yeah. Go ahead and make fun of me.
3. Believe. This one is also key because you must believe you’re creative, believe you’ll have a great idea, believe in possibilities. One of my favorite quotes is from Chihuly: Energy, confidence and focus, these are the things you need to be creative. Confidence is a belief. If you have trouble with this one, talk to yourself in the positive phrase you’re struggling with and it will turn around for you.
4. Create. I’ve started painting again and am reminded what a joy this is. I keep evolving my technique – right now I basically use my canvas like one large finger painting project, but it works for me and I love it. My kids help select colors and where I place them. It’s insanely fun and gives me an outlet to turn my right brain on full force.

Please share some of your tips for boosting your creative habits and spirit. I would enjoy learning them (I’m curious about that too) and sharing with our blog readers. In the meantime, go be creative!

Ogilvy-ChatThreads released a study last week basically saying social media is increasing sales. The study took 404 individuals and monitored their touchpoints to fast food restaurants. “Individuals exposed to social content are significantly more likely to increase their spending and consumption than those who aren’t exposed,” was the one sentence summary.

I can relate to this study. When I’m thinking about where to go, whether that’s to eat or shop, I turn to Twitter and Yelp. These two social platforms give me the information I need, quickly, to decide where to go. I typically use Twitter as a group forum and throw out questions like:  “What’s good for dinner tonight” or “Where are the food trucks” and I get answers.

When I use Yelp, I often click the nearby feature to see if there is something new I’ve been missing. If I’m not familiar with the new place, I read the reviews and these sway my decision to take action or to skip to the next thing.

While my gut and personal habits already told me social media is changing the way we find, shop and buy, it’s nice someone took the time to actually monitor and report back via a study. Someone’s gotta keep those marketing firms in line.

When the last few versions of the iPhone were unveiled, Steve Jobs would stand in front of a crowd of ravenous fans with still more people hanging on his every word through a video stream. He’d announce the new capabilities of this generation of iPhone, and even people who didn’t completely understand the significance believed that it was important because Steve told them so. Very few people were listening to him many years earlier when he was starting out, but the number of people following him as the voice of his industry grew throughout his entire professional career.

Was he more enthusiastic when he was presenting the iPhone 4 than he was presenting the first iPhone? It doesn’t seem that way. It seems he was just as passionate about the products he championed in his youth as the products he championed the last few years. The real difference is that he had developed his brand. There’s a process behind establishing credibility in your industry. It requires expertise, consistency, and time. The more you have of any two of those, the less you need of the third. If you have all three in abundance, your success is almost inevitable.

By building his brand Jobs had trained people what to expect from him. They knew he had the answers. They knew he was going to tell them the future. They knew he would give them something that made their life easier and more fun. Jobs was just as brilliant and innovative when he was young, but people didn’t know that. It wasn’t until later in life when he was able to leverage the brand he had built as the man who could put tomorrow in our hands that the masses were lining up to hear him explain where he had taken the industry. Expertise. Consistency. Time.

If you want to have the type of influence on your industry that Steve Jobs had in all of the industries he touched, establish a good marketing foundation with a vision, a key message, and a brand. It may seem like there’s a lot of energy spent up front laying the groundwork, but this is the process that works.

The first thing most people see that provides any detailed information about your business is your website.

Maybe they met you briefly at a networking event, and they want to follow-up. Maybe they want to get a little background information on you before a face-to-face meeting. Maybe they’ve just heard your name, and they want to find out who you are. Or maybe they went to Google and typed in your industry and your city, and that’s how they found you.

So most people will come to your site and after a few minutes decide they have a pretty good understanding of who you are, what services you offer, and (perhaps most importantly) at what level you can provide those services. They decide all of this without you having spent even 60 seconds in front of them.

This begs the question how much time and money do you spend on your sales process. Quite a few prospects won’t even get to that phase. Since just about every single prospect you might meet is going to view your website then, how much time and money should you invest there?

Georgia Street is “the” street that’s getting a full makeover for the 2012 Super Bowl that’s coming to town in about five months. It will be one happening street for sure. I am personally excited to experience our town in all its glory on the days approaching the big event. I already love our downtown and the continued growth in energy and events; this will only add to the experience.

That’s where my support ends. As I went public with on the show, I don’t believe we need to spend the extra time, money and effort necessary to rename this street. It’s the street’s name that will live with us long after the football event is over. I simply don’t believe it’s an important element to the big picture. Actually, I don’t even think it’s a huge issue to the small picture.

So what’s your take? Love it, leave it, hate it or make it? Chime in!

Oprah has the world’s best brand.

Yep, there you go. I arrived on Oprah’s brand as the best and I have a few reasons for thinking this I’ll share below. I would love to hear who you believe has the best brand and why, too.

1. She speaks to a variety of people. Most men won’t admit it, but they like Oprah. I’m not saying a lot of men read or follow her, but most of them like her for what she has done with her brand and business. Most women also love Oprah, in fact, I would guess the vast majority of women age 27-45 could tell you at least a few things that’s going on with Oprah’s brand right now, today. This is a powerful thing to reach so many people in such a deep way. Just take the women and you’ll find a mix of professionals, SAHMs (Stay at Home Moms), and every sub category within those two. She is able to speak to each of us on a level that resonates with us. That’s amazing.
2. She knows how to use media. Ok, you’re thinking, duh. Come on, Raquel. But stay with me here… do you know how difficult it is to successfully and effectively find the right people to help you pull off a success print magazine these days? Let alone launch your own (ha….OWN) network with original shows and guests? It takes a village. Then, to use modern technology and social channels to push it all out… yes, this is unique. Not only because she does it all well, but she gets engagement and results in each of those mediums. I personally relate to her magazine more than her shows or online avenues. I like the articles, I love the one page bios, I always look to see what she recommends on the reading list and I love (LOVE!) the design. The page layouts are stellar. Her iPad app is one of the best I’ve used, which isn’t saying a whole lot since I’m not way into my apps, but I’ve probably seen and used more than the average.
3. She gets people to buy. If you were an author a handful of years back, you were doing all you could to get Oprah to list your work on her list. You knew that would make you into a literary star overnight. Today, it’s pretty much still the same but at a slower pace, and add home decor, handbags, skincare products… just make a list and she’s recommended it somewhere within her world, and people have bought it in droves.
4. She gets you to care. We know about the Angel Network and her charity work; let’s put that aside just for a minute. Her role in the 2008 Presidential Election helped Obama get over the edge. Her ability to bring light to an otherwise less appealing issue is unmatched. I would like to see her use more of her power for good within America and get us all started on mini campaigns right in our own backyards, but right now she seems more focused in other parts of the world (which is still good – don’t get me wrong).
5. She builds you up. With an audience of women for women with women, it seems more the norm for us to be hard on each other than helpful. Oprah helps build us up, helps us see the good in other women, and helps us find it within ourselves to be better. When you help someone make themselves better or get themselves in a better place, you’re a friend for life. Oprah’s made a lot of friends.

These are just a few reasons I am naming Oprah as the best brand. My other notable best brands for consideration I can narrow down to two:  Starbucks and Apple. Who would you give the nod to? Why?

1. Write out your goals. During your initial meeting, don’t begin the conversation by saying what you think you need. Discuss your goals and what you would like to achieve.

For instance, you started a new service at your business and you are absolutely sure you need a brochure that is 8.5 x 11 that has a picture of a telephone operator on the front. You sit down and immediately jump into how you want it to look and begin with size, colors, and “maybe a fancy font”. However, this isn’t the best route and is ineffective. Talk with your designer about the goals of this new service and what you want your audience to know. Perhaps they will suggest a video from the CEO talking about how this new service will improve customer service by streamlining the companies processes.

2. Try to limit or omit your personal opinions during the design process. This is an extremely important step that is often overlooked. It’s not about what you prefer and what you think looks good. It’s about designing an effective piece that is going to emotionally connect to your audience, and their style may very well be different than yours.

3. Know your audience. You can’t say everyone, and I plead with you to NOT say everyone. In a perfect world, we’d all like to say that our product or service is for everyone, but we don’t live in a perfect world. You need to be specific.

For example, in my spare time, I create handbags (yes, I’m quite talented). My bags are made with Italian leather, marine canvas, and nickel hardware that have a price point between $75 and $350 each. The bags have an urban style that sometimes have seams on the outside of the bags. I could say based on that limited information that my intended audience are females, between the ages of 30 to 50 with an income of around $45,000 to $75,000. She lives in the city, listens to the top hits on the radio, goes shopping at Farmers Markets and supports local artists.

With that information, we can craft a message and a communication channel that is specific to that particular audience. If you don’t know who your intended audience is, you might have a little work that needs to be done before a designer can jump in to designing something for you or your business.

4. Research goes a long way. You might need something as soon as yesterday, but you also can’t downplay the research that goes into design. Though many designers will try and work within any given deadline or timeframe, in order to get the most bang for your buck and for your piece to have a long shelf life with minimal changes, you need to let this part of the process take its course. Designers just don’t make things look pretty. Believe it or not, there are strategic plans to everything we design… from the business card all the way to the advertising campaign.

Being the sucker I am for great design, I instantly picked-up the package. That very second my hand touched that label that wrapped so perfectly around that clear bottle, I was SOLD.

It was all in the paper. It was thin, smooth, and had a satin finish. This bottle of hand soap screamed clean, crisp, refreshing and environmentally conscious. I didn’t have to read anything, I just knew it was everything I would need in a hand soap.

Now, I don’t expect all consumers to respond in the same obsessive way I do about paper, however, I do expect you to keep in mind the message you’re sending when you make a paper selection. There are millions of paper options out there. Consider your company and the message you’re trying to convey as you make this very important, and often overlooked, decision.

After I made my hand soap purchase, I couldn’t help myself, I immediately pulled up the company’s website. Sure enough, their tagline read, “Beautifully Clean • Elegantly Green.”

Just as I had expected.

In short: “When everybody zigs, zag”. In the fast paced world of the internet and social media, the number of new businesses popping up are increasing at a gun-shot rate. It’s up to the customers to decide if your brand will survive or not. Therefore, a customer must have a clear understanding about your product, service, and company. It doesn’t matter what you say your company is or what you think your company is about. It’s about your customer, how they perceive you, and what they say about you.

Neumeier goes on to state that the competition isn’t really other companies, but market clutter. You can’t fight clutter with more clutter so your best chance of survival is being so radically different that it gives your customers something to remember.

If you aren’t sure where to begin and how to find your “zag”, Neumeier gives plenty of tools and exercises that you can do along the way to help guide you to where you need to be. One of the first exercises that you do: writing your business’ obituary. Seem crazy? It’s really not. It clears out all the uncertainty and the “foggy stuff” that occurs in the beginning or even towards the middle of creating or re-developing your brand and helps you write out what you wished your business was about. What did people say about you? How much money did your business walk away with after it closed? Does it have a legacy? Writing this down will really help define what you want your brand to be and the goals you have for your business.

If you have a business or are a part of a business that you want to help grow, this book is a great tool to have in your back pocket. It is a very easy to read, inviting book about branding and can help you whether you are exploring ideas for your clients or need to critique your own branding. You will read it once and then again for reference. Neumeier has two other books out that I’ve already purchased. I’ll be sure to report back once I’ve read them.

Enjoy!