brand strategy and storyline series 12  ·  march 28, 2023

Unlocks Your Brand’s Potential

An easier, simpler, and more effective way to manage your brand.

“Listen to your heart. Listen to your head. Always trust your gut.” -Unknown

We’re ending this brand strategy blog series where we started, that all successful brands have Head, Heart, and Guts. A strong HeadStory™ that delivers the promise and secures loyalty. A HeartStory™ that makes an emotional connection with people. And the in-market Guts to stay consistent and on-brand. I devised this structure to give my clients an easier understanding of their brand by keeping it simple and eliminating all marketing-speak.

This simpler approach to branding is job-critical thanks to three market dynamics that have dramatically increased the number of your brand owners.

  • Many more people are working with your brand now, including freelancers or junior people who haven’t been grounded in your brand, much less trained.
  • Content has exploded, and your brand shows up in ways you didn’t expect, much less manage.
  • Customers feel more and more ownership of your brand and expect nothing less than complete openness, truth, and dedication.

But Head, Heart, and Guts go beyond simplicity and ease. Our brains are already wired the way as well, with the Head (Rational Brain), Heart (Emotional Brain), and Gut (Intuitive Brain).

Branding Changes Everything.

brand strategy and storyline series 12  ·  march 28, 2023

When all our three brains are working together, we’re aligned, and you can feel that. But when they’re not, cognitive dissonance tells us something is off. You’ll even feel that discomfort in your chest (heart) and your stomach (gut), or you’ll try to avoid thinking about it (head).

You can use that same mindfulness to better create, evaluate, and defend your brand. It might sound a little out there, but it works, and here’s how.

Take a moment, eliminate distractions, become present, and take a few deep breaths.

  1. Bring awareness to head, forget about emotions, and focus on only the facts. What are the facts? What are the pros and cons? What is the best and worse that can happen?
  2. Now, bring that awareness to your heart and let your emotions speak. What does your heart tell you? What are your feelings? Is there anything that is causing you to hesitate? If yes, then investigate the reason for these feelings.
  3. Finally, drop your awareness to your gut. This can be challenging as it’s about intuition, your inherent intelligence. Ask, will you regret this decision? How will it look over time? What is your gut telling you?

If you’d like to learn more, check out our website. You will find much more about winning with your target audience in our free e-book—Brand Strategy How to build a brand that grows your business for years to come, available in our resources section.

And remember, Branding Changes Everything.

Never apologize for trusting your intuition—your brain can play tricks, your heart can blind, but your gut is always right.

–Rachel Wolchin

A huge shout-out to Marion Tilly, the Founder of The Institute of You. Her article “How to Listen to Your Head, Your Heart, and Your Gut,” inspired this article. And to David Martin, who has taught me more about awareness and brain science than I ever expected, https://davidmartinco.com/. And to Lynn Christian and the amazing writers at SoulSalt, check out Lynn’s Ted Talk.

Branding Changes Everything.