Your Brand is Who You Are. Not What You Do.

Who you are and what you do are two different things.

Companies lose sight of this all the time in their branding. What they do becomes who they are and there’s no anchor, no identity beyond their services or products.

Your core values are an essential part of your brand, whether we’re talking about a person, employee, team, or company. It’s who you are in the good times — and bad.

This is so important because who you are ultimately fuels what you do and how well you do it.

So many of us had our lives turned upside down these past few weeks. Professionally, personally, all of it.

Now we find out who we are because what we do was taken from us — temporarily at least.

Some companies and people have made it clear who they really are by what they’ve done and said and how they treated people. That’s their brand now and for some it’s not good.

Some people have made it clear who they are by trying to help people — often complete strangers — find jobs or offer support in other ways such as references. They’re affirming their personal brand.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I am one of the tens of thousands who have lost their jobs in the DOGE layoffs. As I’m looking around for a place to land, I don’t want to lose site of who I am as I look to who I’ll work for and just settle without the company’s values aligning with mine.

So who am I? Just over 10 years ago I made a career switch from newspaper reporter. I started looking around for a consulting job and researched companies.

I found a company whose brand appealed to me. Not a big company, not one anyone would recognize. But three words I found on their website stood out to me as they described their purpose and values: “We over me.”

It appealed to one of my core values: teamwork. Values that helped shaped me a long time ago on cross country teams at Bend High School in Oregon. We worked hard. We cheered each other on. We picked each other up when one of us was having an off day.

We chose we over me and it helped us win a state title. I’ve never forgotten those lessons.

We over me is also a central tenet of my Christian faith. To serve. To help. To uplift.

I build. I affirm and elevate and hope to make things better when I leave them than when I found them. And I want people to join me.

We over me. That’s a brand and an identity.

Your audience wants writing that is easy to read. Make it clear. Simple. Painless. Effortless.

One thing matters the most to your audience. They want to read what you write just once and “get it.”

They don’t want to read something twice to understand it. Especially three or four times.

They don’t want their eyes to glaze over.

Don’t ever forget that. You may feel like a safe play is to repeat the jargon and clunky wording of your client, especially if you work for governments.

You don’t have to use the words “leverage” or “utilize.” Steer clear of writing “cascading messaging” and “value proposition” and “lean in.”

Don’t do it. It’s annoying and unnecessary.

There’s a reason governments are on “plain language” kicks.

The Atlantic magazine even had a March Madness-style playoff of worst corporate buzzwords. Funny stuff … in a sad sort of way.

Don’t try and sound intelligent when you write because chances are you will lose your audience with big words and lots of commas. There’s a reason you like reading “Good Night Moon” or “The Cat in the Hat” to your kids.

You want to help people. You want to make things easy for them.

Short words. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. White space.

Repeat that formula.

5 quick tips on how to write a press release

I have 30 years of press release experience. Most of that was as a newspaper reporter reading them so I know good from bad.

The last eight years I’ve spent as a strategic communications pro writing press releases for clients. Here’s what I know to be true about writing a press release.

These are easy five easy tips to follow and will help you write a high-quality press release that your target audience will read.

1) Make news — Tell me quickly why I should care about your product. How does it help me? How does it help my company?

2) Make it short — Think short and to the point. It’s like getting your coffee in the drive-thru. You want it fast and hassle-free. Quickly give the who, what, why, where, when and how of something. The why is huge, as in why it’s important, why it matters, why you should care. Reporters don’t want to wade through a bunch of words to figure it out. It drove me nuts when I was a reporter. Five-word sentences are totally legit.

3) Make a catchy headline — People do a quick scan to see if they want to read it. Take what Microsoft says in its style guide to heart: “We’re to the point. We write for scanning first, reading second. We make it simple above all.” Make it short and catchy. Make a headline that will make me care.

4) Make a link — Write a blog post with more details about your product and put it on your website. Include a 15-second video and professional photos. Link to it in your press release so the journalist can get more information if that’s what they want.

5) Make a good quote — Don’t say blah, blah, blah that no one ever says in conversation. Tell me something amazing about your product and why it’s so valuable. Give me the WHY! In words I understand, please.

Need some help writing and editing your press release?

I’m at jmatthewsabo | at | gmail.com

How does your brand connect with your community? What's your why?

Your company’s brand is how you connect with your community. And communities you want to connect with.

Brand and culture are closely connected. It’s simple then: Good brands connect culture with community.

Think of Patagonia. Apple. Porsche. Rolex. Amazon.

They all have such a strong brand because they connect so well with their community.

These are all thoughts my friend and branding and marketing guru/mentor Josh Rowe said to me recently. Josh is marketing director at Harvard Innovation Labs, and formerly worked in marketing at Nike and New Balance.

I called him because I was really curious about how brands connect with audiences.

He told me a brand reflects what the community expects. Great brands know what their community wants.

Maybe their community wants low environmental impact. It might be technological innovation. I mean, what will you stand in a line for five hours for? For some people it’s an iPhone.

A brand’s community may want quality. Or performance.

Longevity. Sustainability. Luxury.

Josh talked about Porsche, for example. He said “Porsche” and these words popped into my head: Performance. Sleek. Engineering. Speed.

Or a Swiss watch. You expect it to last forever.

Then he asked me a question.

“You know who might be the strongest brand in America right now?”

I said I didn’t know.

“Trump.”

I wasn’t expecting that.

“They’re all in,” he said. “So much so that they are driving a Biden bus off the highway in Texas.”

 I really wasn’t expecting that. But it’s true. Sadly?

Anyway, good brands do a great job connecting their culture with their community. Foundering brands don’t do that.

They just give you a product. There’s no identity. No affinity. No connection. Hello Reebok, Kmart or Oldsmobile.

Brands need to create ambassadors to survive. Your product then, is a medium to connect your culture to a community, often through ambassadors.

Good companies have brand values. What are your brand values? How do you deliver them to that customer base or community?

Your brand is a mirror, reflecting you, your culture and your values.

This is why it’s so important for companies and organizations to establish their brand values.

Here’s a link from Ogilvy I found super valuable to help you with that: https://www.ogilvy.com/ideas/whats-big-ideal

Establishing brand values is essential. It can’t be a shotgun approach.

Josh said something that sticks with me. He quoted marketing guru Simon Sinek: It’s all about the why, not the what.

People connect with the why.

What’s your brand’s why?