4 Ways We Help Our Clients Rise

When you’re really passionate about something, it can be easy to get lost in microscopic details. That’s not a bad thing—expertise in any field involves the ability to attend to the small stuff. But when you’re always looking at the brush strokes, you can lose sight of the painting. 

Marketing is a big-picture concept that often gets lost in the day-to-day management of the business. If you’re always helping the people who walk through your door, you’re not working on what helps them find your door in the first place.

Last month we introduced this year’s theme, Rise, in relation to our team—the level of work we expect from ourselves and how we make it happen. This month we’re shifting the focus to our clients. Here are 4 ways we help set up our clients to Rise:

1. Educate

It’s important for us to educate our clients in the potential of an effective branding strategy and the benefits it provides for their organization. When our work is done, we want to make sure a business has all the knowledge they need to build on-brand communications with the tools we’ve given them. 

For example, when we launch a new website for clients, we also do an internal training to make sure their staff knows how to use the new site. When we rebrand an organization, we arm them with robust brand guidelines so they can maintain brand integrity throughout all communications moving forward. And, throughout the process, we educate clients on marketing best practices and industry standards to help them make informed decisions. 

2. Represent

Clients educate us, too. They teach us about their values, and we translate that to a brand that represents the internal culture of their business. Sharing that culture can be a vulnerable process, but we pride ourselves on our ability to develop trust with our clients. 

In order for us to really get to the root of each clients’ position in their market, we build a brand foundation with them that could include branded key words, a positioning statement, and a brand model. These elements may never be seen by an external audience, but they inform all external communications and are key to internal alignment. This sets our clients up to truly understand what makes them different.

3. Reflect

You know those roadside speed sensors that tell you how fast you’re going? You go past one and it blinks at you that you’re doing ten over, and you slam on the brakes, because you didn’t mean to be going that fast. 

Like those roadside speed warning signs, a big part of our job is reflecting a business’s work back to them. We help them see the things they miss when they’re too busy paying attention to the road ahead. We want them to slow down and see what makes them stand out. 

4. Rally

A good brand is a rallying cry. It unites everyone in an organization by defining their common purpose. When an employee is tackling a busy day or full inbox, we want them to be motivated by knowing exactly why they do what they do.

A rebrand or new brand launch event is a great way to communicate to staff the direction of the organization and what makes them special. It will infuse excitement into and energy around the brand. 

Once we’ve done our work, we want to make sure every client can move forward with intention, a plan to be executed in a confident and meaningful way. We help plant the garden, but they’re the ones who reap the harvest. We’ve seen this happen with several clients, including Community Alliance, OneEighty, and Signature Health. 

We try to make it easy for clients to Rise above the horizon and see the garden they’ve planted, the wider view of the organization they’ve built. Because when they Rise, they can shine—their identity becomes bright, clear, and meaningful.