Stop Painting the House Before You Pour the Foundation

 Why You Need to Know the Difference Between Brand and Branding

Somewhere out there this morning,
a business owner woke up, opened their laptop,
sipped their coffee, and declared to the universe:

“Today, we work on our brand. Let’s make the logo bigger.”

And somewhere, a brand strategist screamed into a decorative throw pillow.

The number of companies mixing up brand and branding is starting to rival the number of companies claiming they’re “revolutionizing” their industry by adding an app.

Brand and branding are not twins. 
They’re not cousins. They’re not even on the same group chat. And missing the differentiation can waste resources and negatively impact your business.

Brand is who you are. Branding is how you show up.
One is your personality. The other is your outfit.

Your brand is the stuff that lives in people’s heads after they’ve experienced you: feelings, associations, trust (or lack thereof). It’s the emotional residue.

Your branding is the stuff you manufacture to influence that feeling: your voice, your visuals, your packaging, the way your customer service rep sounds like they’ve had an actual human emotion at least once.

Brand = Perception. Branding = Presentation.

Not the same. Never will be. 

   => Brand is emotional. Branding is intentional. 

   => Brand is the story your audience tells themselves. Branding is the story you wish they’d tell, so you polish, tweak, craft, adjust, redesign, and pray it comes across the way you intended.

   => Brand is the soul. Branding is the stage makeup. Without soul, the makeup looks like… well… makeup.

And here’s the part no one wants to hear: You don’t get to decide your brand.

That’s right. You can nudge it, guide it, whisper sweet nothings to it, but at the end of the day, your audience is holding the steering wheel. They decide what you mean to them.

Your job is to create branding that helps them get there faster and with fewer navigation errors.

Mistaking branding for brand is how you end up decorating a house that doesn’t exist.

You wouldn’t hang curtains on a construction site. You wouldn’t install hardwood floors on a patch of dirt. You wouldn’t try to paint walls that don’t exist.

Yet somehow, businesses do this daily:

“Let’s get new business cards!” Cool. And what exactly are those cards supposed to represent?

“Let’s redo the website!” Awesome. Why should anyone care what’s on it?

You must build the house (the brand) before you pick the paint (the branding).

Get the order right, and everything feels effortless. Get it wrong, and everything feels inconsequential (and expensive).

Brand first. Branding second.

Know who you are. Then show who you are. In that order. And no, there aren’t any shortcuts. 

If you learn the difference, you’ll stop wasting money on shiny things that don’t matter and start investing in the truth of your business … which actually does matter.

Because once the foundation is solid, you can paint the walls whatever color you want. And people will actually care enough to walk through the door.

10 Items or Less

 

"10 items or less" ... somewhere, a grammar lover is gripping the shopping cart extra hard.

Technically, it should be "10 items or fewer." Countable things get fewer. Uncountable stuff gets less. Less patience. Fewer bananas.

I like good grammar, but I don’t get worked up over the sign … cause I’m too busy being annoyed by the person ahead of me with 17 items. 

Anatomy of a Paragraph

Saw this on Course Hero. Don't know the source. Monmouth University writing lab perhaps ... but I couldn't find it on their site. Even though the source is unclear and it's focused more on academic writing (as opposed to marketing writing), I found spending some quality thinking time on it a worthwhile exercise.

And once you've finished wrapping your brain around this,

do yourself a favor by spending some time with the short piece: Rhythm in Writing.

Steak with a side of questions

Don’t make 'em dig through a word salad to find the steak.

Nobody’s showing up for the garnish; they came hungry for the meat.

Keep your message lean and properly seasoned, or your audience will drop their fork and head for somebody else’s drive-thru.

 

When in the groove, my fingers fly and writing appears on my monitor like the three lines above … when all I’m trying to communicate is: If you’ve got something to say, say it simply and directly.

Then, when I review it, I question whether I should’ve just stuck with the simple statement or if my “voice” makes it more interesting and memorable.

Typically, I can’t answer that question so I stick with the original direction, arguing there’s more “me” in it … but the question never feels properly answered.

Is it overthinking? Yes. 

Is it imposter syndrome? Probably.  

Will I ever move past this inner uncertainty? Doubtful.