10 Questions. 10 Minutes. What’s helping, or hurting, your brand? →
Brief strategic insights on branding, marketing, leadership, and business growth—designed to help you make clearer decisions and move forward with confidence.
BrandTherapy is a private advisory email shared first with clients, referral partners, and a select group of business owners and leaders. Each edition is released publicly afterward.
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You can only optimize something so much, whether it’s your marketing, your processes, or your operations, before it may be time to admit it isn’t working. Rather than trying to fix it again, eliminate it. Sometimes cutting is the growth strategy. It’s OK. It’s going to be OK. I promise.
Everybody wants a brand that’s different. Ask a room of founders and nearly all of them will say so, and when they describe their own company, nearly all of them describe something that looks, sounds, and behaves like the rest of their industry. That’s the paradox. Most organizations say they want to be distinctive while also wanting to conform to industry norms.
When a client tells me their marketing isn’t working, they’re usually talking about Promotion, things like advertising, content, newsletters, and social media. They want to do more to reach more customers. But marketing has many interconnected moving parts, and Promotion, the fourth P in the famous marketing mix, is only one of them. The real problem is often somewhere among the other seven. Positioning, though last on the list, is the foundation that makes those seven coherent. Before you add another tactic to your marketing plan, take a hard look at which of the eight Ps actually needs attention.
If you haven’t started thinking about 2027, it’s a good time to start, because next year is only 100 or so days away. Starting to plan for next year now means you won’t panic in March when nothing has changed and you’re wondering where all the new business is. The fix isn’t posting more or spending more; it’s knowing what to stop, what to protect, and what to start.
You don’t always know what’s “on-brand” until you’re standing in the middle of it. A regularly scheduled board meeting lost its agenda and turned into an unplanned 90-minute roadmapping session. A reminder that the best work often skips the plan entirely. Recognizing that moment when it’s happening isn’t luck; it’s a skill worth building on purpose.
One A Day Vitamin’s decision to cast Ludacris as their spokesperson wasn’t random. It’s a lesson in understanding your brand’s audience. Knowing your audience isn’t just their age, income, or job title, it’s understanding what they value, who they trust, and how they see themselves. The brands that win go beyond demographics.
It’s something almost every founder wrestles with, and most people spend more time on it than it deserves: what to call your business, and whether the name itself is doing more work than it actually can. A recent client conversation brought this back into focus, and the answer applies well beyond naming.
A referral may introduce you, but AI is increasingly making the first impression. As more prospects turn to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other AI tools to evaluate people and businesses, your reputation depends on more than search rankings, it depends on the body of work you’ve published over time.
As businesses grow, they accumulate services, processes, commitments, and assumptions that no longer fit. Sometimes the fastest path to growth isn’t adding more—it’s removing what’s become off-brand.
Most brands don’t struggle because they lack ideas. They struggle because their positioning, messaging, visuals, and customer experience aren’t working together consistently. Brand consistency is what turns strategy into trust over time.
Pricing isn’t just a number. It’s a signal. When pricing aligns with positioning, it attracts the right prospects, sets expectations early, and reduces friction. If it feels off, for you or your prospect, the issue usually isn’t the price. It’s the positioning behind it.
Q1 is done—and this is where many businesses start to drift. Not because of lack of effort, but because decisions are being made without a clear plan. Using a simple Start, Stop, Continue exercise helps you reset priorities, reduce noise, and make more consistent, on-brand decisions heading into Q2.