I surprised a CMO, telling her something she was NOT expecting to read in an introductory email. Here’s the story.
A long-time friend was making an introduction between one of her current clients and me. The focus was her firm needing to develop its brand strategy. Following up the initial email exchange, I shared this:
"If you are looking to accelerate branding development, we use a streamlined process that is highly collaborative. This lets you, as the brand owner, actively participate in shaping the innovative, on-target strategy and implementation plan. Our approach isn't tailored for every company. Should you want to explore how our branding development approach might work, we'd welcome a call to explore possibilities, if you see that as a logical next step."
She emailed back within minutes, wanting to clarify if I REALLY meant to write that our approach ISN'T for every company. If that were the case, she said she was very intrigued.
Brainzooming Isn't for Everyone
I responded to her question:
"Our approach to fun strategic planning ISN'T tailored for every organization. Let me explain.
"I created what became Brainzooming while I was on the client side. We wanted to be highly-engaged with our outside strategy partners. They wanted to maintain a black box approach, however, sucking all the information from us, then retreating by themselves to dream up "creative" branding ideas. We wasted significant time briefing agencies on our strategy only to find our knowledge about customers and markets didn't translate to the branding work they presented. Then, we'd have to redo what they'd done.
"Because I grew up on the client side, we have tremendous respect and appreciation for the insights that exist within an organization. That's why our approach is all about collaborating with a client's management group, broader team, and even outside audiences to build on their understanding. We bring our experience, tools, and time-efficient process to the table. Combined with the brand's initial insights, it's a potent combination for on-target strategy.
"For organizations that valuable broad collaboration, we deliver fantastic results. For management teams that simply want an outside partner to go off and come up with all the ideas and pitch them, we aren't a good fit."
Why am I sharing this?
I don't typically write much about what we do for clients because I realize that's not why you read Brainzooming articles.
Yet, many executives have been beating their heads against the wall trying to more actively engage their employees and customers to shape strategy. They can't find partners who get that vision and want to collaborate to make it happen. We know that, because that initially describes almost EVERY Brainzooming client.
This probably doesn’t sound like your exact situation.
If it does describe your frustration with being unable to develop strategy in a new way, then you owe it to yourself to contact us for a chat - sooner than later.
Helping executives engage their most important audiences in developing better, more on-target, and highly actionable strategies is at the very heart of what we do very well. We can end your frustrations. Plus, it will be fun for you – and your team. I guarantee that!
You can email me at Mike.brown@brainzooming.com, call me at 816-509-5320, or reply here. Let's start making your vision come to life – now!
