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Explore every episode of the podcast Brand Tuned - Rounded Business Design

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TitlePub. DateDuration
Exploring IP Internationally via Puerto Rico's Legal Landscape06 Sep 202400:30:09

In this episode, Paola Zaragoza Cardenales, a dual qualified New York and Puerto Rico attorney discusses the similarities and differences between intellectual property laws in Puerto Rico and the UK. We discuss: 

  • Intellectual Property Issues Faced By Farmers
  • Importance Of Integrating IP Into Business Plans
  • Legal Checks to clear names
  • Collaborating with Branding Agencies On Trademark matters
  • Misconception around IP


LinkedIn: Paola Gabriela Zaragoza Cardenales

Facebook: Paola G Zaragoza Cardenales

Website: Zaragoza Cardenales

Instagram: zaragoza_cardenales


Valuable Resources:⁠⁠⁠⁠

Brand Tuned Newsletter⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠

Brand Tuned Training Courses

Are IP Principles Different in Latin America?05 Jul 202400:48:27

IP is much less formal in Latin America's economy according to Alberto Ramirez Bonilla, founder of BR Latin America. Tune in to explore how trademark practices differ in the South American economic landscape and why that matters.


Among other things the episode discusses:

  • How business design and naming unfold across Latin America
  • Branding and intellectual property in Latin America
  • Copyright protection for software and guidelines for naming conventions
  • Branding and naming strategies for businesses
  • Importance of understanding IP law for businesses


LinkedIn: Alvaro Ramirez Bonilla

Website: BR Latin America

 

Valuable Resources:⁠⁠⁠⁠

Brand Tuned Newsletter⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠

Brand Tuned Training Courses

Strategic Creativity - Being Relevant and Resonating14 Oct 202200:53:42

In this episode Robin Landa explains strategic creativity. 

Robin Landa is a Distinguished Professor in the Michael Graves College at Kean University. She specializes in advertising ideas and art direction, creative thinking, graphic design and branding and has written bestselling books including Graphic Design Solutions, 6th ed., Build Your Own Brand, and Nimble: Thinking Creatively in the Digital Age.

What's the first thing you think of when you hear the phrase "brand identity"? A logo, color palette, and characters right? But that's only a small part of the story.

To have a successful brand identity be strategically creative. A brand identity is the representation of the brand and it is the strategic position in the marketplace. So, it has to be strategically creative in order to gel with the target audience.

Brand identity does more than just build an imaginary world, it creates a relationship between people who have heard you and made your name part of their lives. A logo mark is more than just a logo. It's the entry point for your brand and its identity. It's your name and the way you're perceived by customers, and it's the foundation for everything else you do. It's what sets you apart from other brands and allows you to stand out from the crowd. It has to be memorable, differentiating, imprinting on people, and most importantly, it needs to be easy to remember—and ideally, emotionally inspiring.

It's really hard to make a brand identity that is personal and unique when you're working with a company that has thousands of designers and their work is available for all to see. This is why we need to be careful that we don't just lift someone else's work and use it without permission. Brand identity must be unique and personable!

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Brand Identity and how to make it memorable and distinctive
  • Brand construct and manifesto
  • Basic design principle you need to know
  • The idea behind balance design and color associations
  • Sonic branding
  • How to identify talent in identity design
  • Intellectual property law
  • Identifiers in brand design


Valuable Resources:

For the latest insights on branding, and brand strategy sign up to receive TUNED news weekly.

Brand Tuned Newsletter
Brand Tuned Training Courses

Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Why is Failing to Capture Your Intellectual Property a Costly Problem?30 Nov 202000:09:33

Have you successfully captured your intellectual property? Why is failing to do so a costly problem? Let’s look in more detail at the disastrous consequences of failing to capture your IP.

Topics Discussed in this Episode:

  • Why it’s not enough to simply register a trade mark
  • Why it’s important to take great care of trade marks
  • Why failing to address IP can result in lost opportunities
  • What to do when you discover gaps in your trade mark protection

Key Takeaways:

  • It is surprisingly easy to overlook the importance of IP in the early stages of the creative process. Some people believe that tasks like choosing a business name for a new product or service do not involve legal considerations, that they can pick any name, do a check on Google, and if nothing untoward is found, proceed to use the name.
  • It’s actually trade marks that govern ownership rights in names, so it’s essential to search the trade mark registers. A Google search is not enough. Not everything you need to know about a name shows up on Google.  People risk losing everything overnight when they use names that don’t take account of registered trade marks of others.
  • Online searching has its place but it’s no substitute for information focused on transforming ideas into reality. While there’s a wealth of information on the web, a crucial issue when it comes to intellectual property advice online is that much of what you find is generic, sometimes outdated, inaccurate, conflicting, and may vary depending on where you’re based.

Action Steps:

  • If you’re an inventor, writer, coach, marketer, creative or entrepreneur, you need to know how to identify the various IP rights you’ll be creating as you turn ideas into reality. Some basic tools at your fingertips will help you take initial steps to protect IP like doing due diligence.
  • When you have new ideas to implement, you’ll need to know the right actions to take, the right processes to use to protect IP that’s being created.
  • If you discover gaps in your trade mark protection, find out how to address them with the help of education and DIY. And consult a lawyer if you have remaining questions.

Shireen said:

“The internet has revolutionised the way we look for information, entertainment, and even relationships… So it’s increasingly common for businesses to look for legal advice online, too.”

“If you don’t know what you don’t know, how can you search for it or know whether you’ve found out everything you need to know? ...You need to learn to do things properly if you’re going to do your own trademark registration.”

Thank you for listening!

If you have any questions, connect with me on your preferred social media platform. I’d love to help. And if you’ve learned from this series of podcasts, do consider leaving a review.

Links to my books:

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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How to Turn Blogging Into a Huge Income27 Nov 202000:28:47

Dominic Wells, the founder of Onfolio helps his clients to invest in websites buying and building content websites, he explains the hardest part about a content website is getting it to rank highly in Google in the first place and how he manages to do it.  

He also discusses podcasting how it’s a growing media, finding a niche is super important and the ability to execute and create content that people would want to read and getting it in front of people. We discuss:

  • How Dominic started and launched his business
  • What is a content website?
  • Buying quality content websites
  • The price range of content websites
  • How you can turn blogging into something profitable
  • Podcasting & video — a growing medium for content
  • Why having a niche is super important
  • His experience creating his brand
  • Turning an active investment into a passive investment with selling websites

LinkedIn - Dom Wells
Twitter - @TeamOnFolio
onfolio.co

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Intellectual Property – The Challenges of Protecting Ideas23 Nov 202000:15:09

In this episode, I talk about how intellectual property comprises copyright, trademark, design, patent, and confidentiality it means that the actions necessary to turn an idea into reality will differ depending on the type of IP that idea would generate once it’s implemented.

I share how everything begins with an idea, every idea invariably results in an intangible manifestation of it once it’s brought into the real world. In this episode I cover:

  • Leveraging IP and its value 
  • Turning an idea into IP – namely a trade mark 
  • The significance of intellectual property in today’s digital world
  • Personal experiences in handling intellectual property matters
  • The overall objective of building a brand, product or business
  • How you can approach intellectual property
  • Addressing intellectual property by doing an IP audit  & take corrective action
  • Intellectual property – being proactive at the early stages of any project 

Links to my books:

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

Brand Tuned's Newsletter

Alex Bodini - How to Manage a Successful Digital Marketing Agency20 Nov 202000:29:18

 Alex Bodini is an e-commerce entrepreneur running 5 businesses including the UK’s #1 social media agency, Spin Brands. He explains how he helps business scale using digital marketing and how to achieve engagement on your social media.

He shares their business and brand journey, how they evolved their business, their mission and the values that created their identity. In this episode we cover:

  • Alex’s views on branding 
  • What is ambassador marketing?
  • Spin Brand’s business and brand journey
  • His background and how he started his five businesses
  • How they work with clients and the challenges they had
  • The power of social media platforms to put yourself on the map
  • Achieving scale in terms of digital footprint 
  • Social media management and measuring of engagement 
  • Three things they help client’s with — organic social management, paid social media and ambassador marketing/influencer marketing

LinkedIn - Alex Bodini 
www.spinbrands.co.uk

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - What is Copyright?16 Nov 202000:26:09

My aim in this episode is to answer 3 essential questions about what copyright is by giving you:

  1. Examples of copyright
  2. Reasons why you might want to have copyright
  3. Some ideas for how to avoid some common copyright problems

Copyright is very wide-ranging in scope. Some examples of what it protects include:

  1. Photographs
  2. Maps
  3. Drawings
  4. Typefaces, music and videos
  5. Works of art and performances
  6. Software
  7. Books
  8. Content on websites
  9. Videos
  10. Logos 

It is important to note that copyright is a property right and think of copyright as you might think of a plot of land, even though the example of copyright are intangible, they are nevertheless considered assets. 

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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Simon Banks - Using Video to Scale Your Business13 Nov 202000:24:11

In this episode, Simon Banks, a video strategist with 30 years of experience in the media & video industries and the author of  'How to Get Video Right' - The essential guide to video strategy explains how he helps business owners to get video right and create effective video content to increase sales to grow their business. 

He shares that people associate brand with the visual identity, video brand guidelines, how he started his career and the challenges he had in setting up his business. We discuss:

  • The journey of his career and business
  • Challenges that he had at the start of his business
  • Helping business grow with video
  • Video brand guidelines
  • How to make a video effective by having a plan or strategy
  • Video as the most effective way of communicating
  • Simon’s experience of creating his brand and how did he develop it
  • Tips for businesses that are trying to get video right 
  • What you need to keep in mind when creating video content

LinkedIn - Simon Banks
Twitter - @tallboytweets 
Facebook - Tallboy Video Production
www.tallboy.co.uk

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Why Understanding Intellectual Property Limitations Helps You to Be More Commercially Savvy09 Nov 202000:21:27

In this episode, I share the fundamentals to understand if you are serious about your business. IP is business, it’s not just laws you can leave to the lawyers which is such a misconception. I share my insights on securing a trade mark, the importance of developing IP skills and the knowledge that you need in your business.

Once you let the world know your ideas; such as by publishing them, then the law will protect the way you have expressed your idea. This is so important to understand as a limitation of IP rights because it will help you to protect your business. In this episode I cover:

  • Securing a trade mark
  • Copyright protection 
  • Deep understanding of intellectual property
  • Protecting you’re business against copycats
  • How Google built itself as one of the largest brands thanks to intellectual property
  • Developing IP skills and knowledge that you need in your business
  • Developing your commercial awareness — understanding IP and its limitations
  • Intellectual property — avoiding the need to sue or the risk of being sued 

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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Alison Edgar - Understanding Secrets of Successful Sales06 Nov 202000:30:09

In this episode, Alison Edgar known as the Entrepreneur's Godmother, who is a successful international speaker and the author of the best selling book Secrets of Successful Sale,  explains that sales is actually about listening and really understanding what your client needs, not what your client wants.

She shares the methodology around behaviours and one of the important thing in sales is to  treat people how they want to be treated and this is the key to understanding people’s behaviour. 

Alison discusses why sales for her doesn’t come from a script and it comes from a genuine interest in the customer. In this episode we discuss:

  • The story of her name Entrepreneurs Godmother
  • Her approach with mentoring and coaching
  • What brand she particular admires
  • The methodology around behaviours when it comes to sales
  • What are the limiting beliefs in sales and how you can overcome it
  • The importance of why your brand should stand out especially in the marketing space
  • Understanding the correct sales process and asking the right questions to give you the right strength and confidence
  • Dyslexia - as being the biggest challenge Alison faced at the start of her career and business and how she overcame it

Alison’s book - Secrets of Successful Sales
alisonedgar.com
entrepreneursgodmother.com 

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - How to Protect Ideas Against Theft by Competitors and Others02 Nov 202000:25:59

In this episode, I discuss why keeping ideas secret is fundamental to protecting them. When you have a new idea, you’ll need to carefully weigh up who you disclose it to and how. I also share why confidentiality is one of the core three IP rights, and it’s a very important way in which ideas, systems, processes, and databases are protected. 

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • How to protect ideas against theft by competitors and others
  • The importance of confidentiality
  • How the patent system works
  • The rationale behind IP
  • When to use a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)
  • The case of Microsoft’s Tablet PC versus Apple’s iPad
  • How to maintain your competitive advantage
  • The use of confidentiality to keep methodologies and recipes a secret

Key Takeaways:

  • Keeping ideas secret is fundamental to protecting them
  • Confidentiality is one of the core three IP rights
  • Every great innovation began simply as an idea in someone’s head
  • Why the patent system will only grant a patent on innovations that are not in the public domain
  • The trade-off that the state gives us for revealing our ideas is a monopoly right
  • Copyright does not protect the underlying ideas but it only protects the way you express them.
  • Copying of ideas may pose a serious threat to your business
  • Why the state is constantly doing a balancing act
  • Protecting your ideas against competitors and others
  • How an idea is implemented determines how well it’s received in the market
  • What’re the huge commercial advantages to being first to market

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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The Why and How of A Perfect Pitch for your Business30 Oct 202000:29:18

In this episode, Chala Dincoy, the CEO and founder of The Repositioning Expert and the host of her own podcast 'Polish My Pitch' shares the journey of how she created the brand for her business and the three ways you can differentiate your brand.

She also shares coaching tips and the formula to the perfect elevator pitch — how it should be based around your super niche. In this episode we cover:

  • Enhancing your coaching skills
  • The formula to a perfect elevator pitch
  • The brand Chala particularly admires
  • How to tell if a business has a good niche or not
  • Creating a brand for your business — three ways to really differentiate yourself
  • How she help’s people solve positioning challenges and grow their sales
  • The biggest mistake that's paralyzing small businesses right now
  • How she started her business and the challenges she faced
  • How she pivoted her business online once the pandemic started

Repositioner.com

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Why Focus on Ownership07 Oct 202200:15:47

There are many misconceptions when in comes to IP ownership.

In this podcast I outline why it's important to ensure you own what you create for your business. Owning what we do is about retaining control rather than giving away the value of our knowledge and skills.

Among other things, that involves understanding the role of names in business, and what is involved to legally own a name. 

Failing to focus on ownership shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the interplay between branding and brand protection.  The episode touches on:

  • Why marketers and designers need training in intellectual property.
  • What ownership of names involves. 
  • The 2-step process to securing ownership rights in a name.
  • That ownability of brand elements involves making the right choices. 
  • The drawback of failing to focus on ownership


Valuable Resources:

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - What is Intellectual Property and What You Need to Know About It26 Oct 202000:24:40

In this episode, I discuss intellectual property rights, which cover intangibles. IP is a huge body of law, consisting of individual series of rights known as patents, trademarks, copyright, designs, and confidentiality and each of these is a vast area of law.

I discuss that every time you create something new or set up a new project it's important to consider confidentiality, trademarks and copyright. I also share my insights on why IP is the nuts and bolts of your business.

In brief the episode covers:

  • Raising awareness of IP
  • The problem with IP at the moment 
  • IP is the nuts and bolts of your business
  • Patents protect the way things work and how they function
  • The protection involved when you're creating a name
  • What you need to do wherever you are located in the world will be the same in order to protect your position
  • Three rights that come into their own — confidentiality, trademarks, and copyright
  • Trademarks protect your names, your logo and your distinctive branding
  • Your website, music, images, content, any software you have are protected by copyright
  • The idea behind trademarks is that terms that other traders need to use should be kept free
  • Naming is very important to suspend your beliefs about what makes for a good name

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Franchising, All You Need to Know23 Oct 202000:29:31

Paul Mitchell is an authority on franchising, he is a seasoned entrepreneur, franchisor, and fellow author of the book, Franchising Freedom. He explains all about franchising and what you need to know before getting started, what to expect from it and also speaks about what brand and branding is for him.

In this episode Paul shares, the biggest challenge for most would be franchisors, on how to  get started and recommends engaging with consultants. 

In brief the episode covers:

  • Valuable insights about franchise
  • The biggest challenge in franchising
  • What you should consider when franchising 
  • Paul’s insights on how he started his business
  • The good practices and proper procedure in franchising
  • The framework of the modern-day franchising

LinkedIn - Paul Mitchell
www.accentia-franchise.co.uk

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Brand Names and Trademarks – What We Can Learn From Oscar Wilde19 Oct 202000:24:54

Some of the problems stem from the fact that a name needs to do some of the heavy lifting in order to market the business, and yet if it veers too much towards a description of the services, it can’t function as a trade mark, which means everyone else can also use the name. So effectively, people in that position are throwing their marketing spend down the drain, as it benefits their competitors as much as themselves.

  • When we first meet someone, that person’s handshake, their demeanour, clothes, and the way they speak all create an initial opinion about them
  • There are ways in which we all tend to feel different, even alienated from the world around us
  • A brand that attains cult status has a protective shield to stave off adversity that could seriously damage a lesser brand
  • The first impression includes the designs, but design is not the only factor that matters
  • The Name Is The Most Important Decision You Make
  • A name does indeed carry certain connotations, and is far from being just a randomly arranged set of letters
  • A lot of the big well-known companies have put a lot of thought into their names- Google based its name on a mathematical term, whilst Amazon chose its name due to its association with the South American river
  • Nowadays there is widespread awareness of the importance of being authentic
  • A brand is about delivering on a specific promise- it is something a business is known for

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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Why You Should Sell on Amazon16 Oct 202000:31:20

Janis Carmena, the Ecommerce Queen Bee, talks about what started out as her Amazon Side hustle and how she grew her online business.

  • She would buy the same things as other people would, and they would compete together on Amazon
  • She started building brands and got two six-figure brands going now one is a whole line of reusable straws
  • The big thing with Amazon is you have to differentiate
  • She suggests you to check the competition's reviews, that's how to make your product much better than your competitors because the client already tells you in a review, so read them all
  • There's actually quite a lot of competition on Amazon from third-party sellers
  • She is trademarked  in Canada, and then she did what's called Brand Registry down in with Amazon
  • "I was reading about Amazon and its approach. They prefer wordmarks. For that reason that it actually gives you a monopoly over the words, a logo mark, you can register anything as a logo"
  • She has a bootcamp and guarantees you at the end of boot camp, you'll have your own Amazon store up and running, at least have the store so then you can figure out how you want to start selling on Amazon
  • When it comes to brands she admires, she really likes Tesla, their marketing and how they have situated themselves in the marketplace

Free Bootcamp

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Shireen Smith (from You Tube) - How to Start An Online Business Taking Action In the Right Order12 Oct 202000:16:07

Setting up an online business is relatively straightforward and cheap to do. You can have a basic website up and running for very little cost. That’s why it’s ideal to focus your money and energy on testing the market and properly thinking through your proposition

  • The more thoughtfully you implement your ideas when starting your online business, the fewer actions you’ll need to undo or redo later
  • Being mindful of where you are right now will help you to reach your end goal faster and more effectively because you can more properly plan how you will get there
  • Online businesses can be set up very inexpensively, so it’s easier to test your concepts first, and it’s extremely important to do so
  • The first decision is whether to form a company and trade with limited liability or whether to operate as a sole trader
  • One of the earliest considerations for any business will be its trading (brand) name
  • To come up with a brand proposition that’s compelling and unique involves working out your purpose, positioning, brand personality, values and more
  • Unless you’re getting a low-cost website with little functionality do take legal advice before engaging a web designer or developer
  • Avoid doing things in the wrong order and your path to success will be much swifter

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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Shireen Smith - How to Use the Brand To Guide your Business Journey.09 Oct 202000:28:52

 In this episode, I discuss what should be included in your brand book, not just brand guidelines, once you’ve been through a branding exercise. There’s useful information in there too about how to position yourself to be more distinctive in your market.

  • Many businesses I come across or who I interview on the podcast have, like me, just had designs created for them in the name of branding
  • A comprehensive branding exercise should provide you with a strategy that is a central, unifying idea around which all behaviour, actions and communications of your company can be aligned
  • Business success is much more about how effective you are in running your business than it is about your visual designs
  • While I am still writing my brand book, I have learnt a huge amount from the exercise, which will inform the new book I will be releasing in 2021
  • The strategic direction is hardly ever articulated verbally in a brand book by designers. Instead, you tend to get brand guidelines, which are essentially a style guide
  • Having clarity around your positioning is key
  • A comprehensive brand book would drill down into the language you would use, words you would or would not say even
  • Your mission is all about what your company aims to do
  • Strategy is something you use long term to inform your decisions
  • My experience with brand guidelines is that is not always comprehensive enough in scope to guide others in all the different situations when the brand needs to be used in a consistent way

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Managing Your Brand05 Oct 202000:06:24

To better understand how to think about your branding, start by considering the associations you have when you come across successful household name brands such as Disney, Ikea or Apple.

  • When we buy Apple products, we expect to get something well designed, intuitive and easy to use
  • Every brand has its own distinct ‘identity’ and ‘promise’
  • A brand is ultimately about substance rather than surface visual imagery
  • Brand Value: The Brand is a Valuable Asset
  • The name is a very important component of your brand identity and should be chosen with trade mark law in mind
  • The question of brand management is an important one because it is often absent for small businesses

Access the 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Branding or Rebranding eBook when you subscribe to TUNED NEWS.

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Shireen Smith - Brand Purpose Leads to More Success02 Oct 202000:31:15

Purpose, why the standard business advice nowadays is to have one, the considerations when you do have a purpose, what to do to identify one for your business, I detail how I found my purpose in case it helps you in identifying yours.

  • The new digital environment has changed the forces that drive business 
  • If you’re in an industry which intrinsically has a social impact so that you can do what you do in a more sustainable way you can readily demonstrate purpose
  • It is a bad idea to build in a purpose if it just isn’t there because it’s not going to be enough to just state your purpose 
  • This emphasis on purpose has something to do with the millennial generation 
  • Study after study urges companies to be purpose-driven
  • Simon Sinek picked up on this theme of purpose in his best-selling book Start with Why which sets out to demonstrate that a purpose-driven team achieves so much more
  • A purpose that your team members can get behind needs to be a high-level aspirational reason for existing and acting in your business
  • Purpose-driven organisations stay core to their mission by always keeping the “why” in mind
  • I have personally found it quite an elusive exercise to identify my purpose 
  • Ted’s purpose is to spread ideas. They look for ways to make this purpose come to life
  • Only 15% of employees have an emotional connection to the company they work for
  • Research exists to show that consumers value brands that support charitable causes 
  • If you can’t identify a purpose yet, then my suggestion is to just use mission and purpose as interchangeable terms 
  • Personally, I have been interested to try to identify my purpose, what fulfils me, out of sheer curiosity
  • As Steve Jobs put it, doing work you love is important 
  • The 17 sustainable development goals to transform the world 
  • I kept revisiting my brand strategy, and recently when I was thinking about my purpose again, I had a flash of inspiration 

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - The Knowledge Economy - The More You Learn The More You Earn28 Sep 202000:08:44

Growing a brand involves a lot of self-education. I doubt it is enough that the entrepreneurs to just hand over to a creative agency, get their brand designed and to just continue to grow the brand. You need to really understand how to use the brand to grow, so reading widely is recommended.

  • Many entrepreneurs I know talk about their coaches unlocking the path to progress for them, but so far I’ve never really done more than dabble in hiring coaches, even for fitness
  • In this new world of online digital assets, we need to develop the skills to get maximum benefits from them
  • In terms of ways to access knowledge, as a self-professed bookaholic, I own more books and kindle books than I will ever get a chance to read in my lifetime
  • My subscription to Audible has enabled me to consume numerous books as I go about my daily activities – such as when I’m walking or cooking
  • The beauty of this is that I can now try out an infinite number of books as I am out and about moving from one place to another or when I’m in the kitchen
  • Taking action is then essential

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From Corporate Executive to Building A Personal Branding and Marketing Business25 Sep 202000:42:25

Jeff J. Hunter builds personal brands for accomplished CEOs and founders, who are ready to leverage their business achievements to become influencers in their category. He explains his processes and what are the best marketing and branding trends at the moment.

  • He has always been in IT, and got really good at one particular skill, which is virtual teams, he used to manage and build virtual teams.
  • In 2014, when he actually built out a team of his own dedicated hired them, internally, even though they're all virtually, they were all people that are dedicated to him. 
  • By 2016 he had grown from basically a company of one to two people, to over 20 contractors, that work dedicated to him, and now he has 87 people that are all 100% remote
  • Jeff looks for people that are tenured, and age isn't really the big factor for his business
  • He has two businesses, the marketing and branding agency, and 70% of his revenue comes from his second VA staffer business
  • He made a switch from being a cost for people to being a revenue driver doing marketing
  • His business has finally got to a point to where it runs itself. He doesn't do the hiring, he doesn't do the firing, he doesn't do the training. The only responsibility that he has in his business is a call at nine o'clock in the morning, that goes about one hour with his project management team.
  • It's about having a deep emotional connection to your audience. It's about being relevant and omnipresent in your industry
  • His favorite way to do marketing right now, which is totally under leveraged by most people is actually podcasting

savagemarketer.com

vastaffer.com

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One Brand, One Brand Voice - How to Align Everyone in your Company with the One Brand Voice30 Sep 202200:41:52

In this episode, we discuss having one brand voice with Chris West, the founder of Verbal Identity. Chris is a specialist in helping brand leaders align their teams in one voice. He is also the author of Strong Language, the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in Language Communication. 

 We tackle the importance of having a great language and how this could create differentiation for brands. As we go through the podcast, we explore:

  • The power of language
  • Three levels of language
  • Having one brand voice for early-stage businesses
  • Visual attracts, verbals engage
  • Aligning everyone in a company with a one brand voice
  • How brand message resonates


Linkedin: Chris West
Twitter: @VerbID
Book: Strong Language
verbalidentity.com

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Are You Getting Engagement On Your Social Media Posts?21 Sep 202000:17:53

Over the last few years, I have really enjoyed creating content to share my thoughts about brands and IP because that is how I refine my thinking and develop new ideas
Although it is sound advice to double down your efforts to one or two platforms, I do believe it is more important to be everywhere first. I guess I prefer to build an omnipresent brand

  • Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice is to engage more with others’ content if you want engagement with your content
  • Is there any point to my providing education and information for the world to freely take and use?’
  • I know this is a long-term game, and deep down I am confident the lack of massive engagement does not really matter, that I continue
  • Likes and comments aren’t the right metrics to focus on for anyone
  • Continuous improvement is something to strive for in every facet of the business, if not in life
  • Better to keep a presence on them all and then home in on improving your presence on your one or two platforms of choice in due course
  • There are a lot of silent listeners out there
  • You need clarity to build your brand, and brand strategy is something I very much help my clients with using our Brand Tuned offering

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Kitty Newman - How People Can Manage Their Social Media18 Sep 202000:36:49

Kitty Newman of TrapezMedia runs a social media agency which she set up herself, so we hear about her business journey with that and her suggestions for how people can manage their social media.

  • She has been in digital marketing for the last 12 years and started working in online marketing after a previous job in a call centre
  • She set up her own business four years ago
  • As an agency, they work on any ad on any platform, but when they look at a new client, they will definitely look at what's right for them
  • "I love hearing about the kinds of ways to put things across and the way to get people talking to you about their business"
  • As mandated service they will post every other day someone on Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook, Twitter will do twice a day, tweets twice a day
  • During the first month, Kitty says they go through and audit all the channels, look at what works, run some reports and look at what your customers are engaging with
  • She suggests trying to get your content written up ahead of time. 
  • You need to consider strategy within your social media as she says
  • As she mentioned, you need to consider your tone of voice, your messaging, your call to actions, your creative your brand
  • Learn what she thinks are content pillars
  • She suggests if you're not having the desired effect, then let's look at what's what's going on for that

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Part 2 Licensing And Franchising, What Is The Difference And Does It Matter?14 Sep 202000:17:09

When it comes to licensing a business format, whereby you grant a third party the right to replicate your business, the important point is that franchising traditionally involves a number of formalities and costs that you can avoid when you choose the licensing route

  • One way to scale their business is to issue a licence to a third party to deliver a related product under their brand name
  • Grant a licence to someone to sell your product under their own brand name
  • Luxury brands are highly sought after for licensing, as their brand brings a cachet to the product to which they lend their name
  •  Pierre Cardin is a classic example of this, by engaging in indiscriminate licensing, it devalued its brand and lost much of its cachet
  • One of the key issues is how ownership, control and use of the brand can be spread between different businesses
  • Why the Distinction Between Franchising and Licensing Matters
  • It’s not possible to escape the regulators’ attention by passing off a franchise as a licence because the law looks at the essence of an arrangement rather than its name
  • Business owners in the UK can, therefore, be misled into believing that franchising is their only option
  • Franchising gives you the potential for national and international expansion, rapid growth with lower capital outlay.
  • My suggestion, if it would work for your business model, is to give yourself time to evaluate whether franchising is the right option by testing the waters with licensing first
  • Licensing is a type of legal agreement for exploiting IP that is highly flexible

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Tommy Balaam - Creating His Business and Growing it Through Franchising11 Sep 202000:32:20

Tommy Balaam founded his business Captain fantastic, a children's entertainment franchise operation which is voted UK is number one children's entertainment company.

  • He set up Captain Fantastic because, at the time, there was a lot of people doing kids parties were, older dads weren't trained actors
  • He gradually built up and then he got 40 entertainers that worked for him
  • First children's company that did a toddler group online
  • Started doing our online parties, and used zoom for parties
  • Doing parties in America, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa every, - UK business was global
  • "I want to be unique, be my own, and then you can grow it"
  • The big goal is really to get on, you know, children's TV
  • Now to make money as a performer,  it's literally just business skills for actors
  • Brand changed over the last 10 years
  • Each time you do a franchise, you got to really know who your client is

Here's a link to preorder his new book: "PAIN IN THE ARTS": How to earn money as a performer" by Tommy Balaam

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Part 1 Licensing And Franchising, What Is The Difference And Does It Matter?07 Sep 202000:14:01

There is widespread confusion about an aspect of franchising and licensing which is caused by the difference between the laws in the USA and the UK. So, I will be clearing up the confusion that I see in many articles online.

  • Franchising is a way to scale a business once the business model is successful and proven
  • A franchise agreement will usually give the franchisor the ability to control how the business is run
  • The franchisor is expected to provide support to its franchisees in the form of marketing, access to trusted suppliers, systems, and other resources and skills
  • Franchising a business involves finding franchisees with the necessary skills and experience to operate branches of the same business
  • Licensing is essentially how you exploit intellectual property
  • Franchising is a type of licensing arrangement
  • The details of the terms and conditions in a licensing agreement will vary considerably depending on the business transaction you’re aiming to achieve
  • Before you embark on licensing it’s essential to ensure you have the necessary intellectual property rights in place
  • Another example of how licensing can be used involves giving access to your methodology for doing something
  • Using the wrong terminology, such as giving an exclusive licence to someone can destroy the owner’s rights to exploit its intellectual property

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Alex Hamilton - Creating the Team Culture04 Sep 202000:28:22

Alex Hamilton, CEO and founder of radiant law. He took his knowledge as a lawyer specializing in outsourcing technology and commercial contracts to create a groundbreaking innovative new law type business that he built up from the ground up. He speaks about his journey of founding a law company and how the business developed and sustainable.

  • There were five of us who started the business, and most of us had been partners previously, so we had lots of contacts
  • About three years in we had a rebranding exercise and came up with a current logo and look and feel which we've pretty much stuck with ever since
  • I massively underestimated how hard it would be to put a new kind of business model in place in the law, to build up the business
  • We have refined the values over the year, but it's more a question of simplifying them rather than changing them
  • Start with the customer's needs, and that is absolutely fundamental to our thinking and we do keep coming back to that
  • We distribute responsibility across the firm and you can have quite a lot of responsibility as a junior lawyer
  • We do like kind of global market data contracts or content licensing agreements or service agreements and so on
  • It is very different, I think from a traditional law firm which emphasizes, I would say autonomy of partners, in terms of they can operate anyway they like, obviously, they, in turn, require the junior lawyers working for them to work in very particular ways
  • What we found most successful is feeding data back to the individual team members so they can always see how they're doing
  • a lot of companies were sceptical about buying remote legal services, and have accepted it now in view of the lockdown

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Why Begin With the End in Mind31 Aug 202000:18:23

People assume branding is about getting pretty design work done, whereas the visual identity is the last thing to work on not the first. You just need some inexpensive designs initially while you test the market, and focus on designing the actual business itself rather than its visual appearance.

  • Studies have shown that living a life of purpose leads to better health and overall happiness
  • Working Out My Purpose
  • Those Who Always Knew Their Purpose Are Rare
  • Background Behind My Career Choice of Law
  • Intellectual Property and Business Are Intertwined
  • People simply need to adopt recommended processes and then induct their team to follow them when implementing new ideas
  • One problem is that people assume branding is about getting pretty design work done
  • Another problem is that people don’t realise how vital it is to register their rights once they undergo branding
  • Businesses tend to change radically in the early years
  • Education and a commitment to working on the business is what branding should involve in the early days
  • Trademarks and IP, Business and Branding
  • Providing a multidisciplinary approach when branding a business is the key to ensuring that businesses undergoing branding increase their chances of success
  • Whether you’re looking for employment or are starting a new venture it’s vital to ask yourself some searching questions
  • Aspirations change over time

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Shireen Smith - Why Have a Brand Strategy for Your Business? Part 228 Aug 202000:18:46

An effective brand strategy should provide a central, unifying idea around which all behaviour, actions and communications of the business can be aligned. It should work across products and services and will be effective over time. The best strategies are so powerful that they deflect the competition. 

  • Think about what deep beliefs you cherish above all else 
  • Think about what is your overarching ethos or the values by which you want to approach everything you do in your business? 
  • People apparently buy why you sell the product you sell 
  • It’s about the solution, the difference you will make in people’s lives 
  • It’s not about how you differ from your competitors. It’s about the difference you make to people’s lives that should be your focus 
  • Talk about that difference and value you bring, the outcome people can expect when they choose your business
  • Your values form the basis of your Mission and Vision statement 
  • Often there is no urgent need to change your brand designs if you already have a visual identity 
  • The brand strategy is essentially about creating a growth platform for your business 
  • As part of your brand strategy consider what your brand personality will be 
  • Making our communications effective in the face of an overload of information out there in a noisy world takes some thought 

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - Brands Staying Relevant at a Time of Deep Crisis24 Aug 202000:13:10

We’re all in distress mode, and as such are more likely to pay attention to the brands that engage with us in the right way. The right way is to avoid being perceived to be a crisis profiteer. Instead lead with the emotional journeys of your customer, with your purpose and the power of your personal brand.

  • The best brands are responding in a human way, with compassion and empathy
  • It’s easier to be seen during a recession than during a boom when there is a lot of noise
  • We tend to tune out most messages in order to cope in a noisy world
  • We are having to adapt to the changes
  • Providing support to help people get through this crisis, answering their questions whether on webinars or posted within the groups, or in other ways
  • Now is a great time for seizing that opportunity because the world has shifted and people are having to change their normal behaviour
  • Remember you have a window of opportunity right now to earn the trust of customers
  • We are out of our normal routines, so we are listening rather than in auto pilot mode ignoring most messages

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Shireen Smith - Why Have a Brand Strategy for Your Business? Part 121 Aug 202000:22:35

Whatever your circumstances, setting your brand strategy can be really useful whether you’re branding a new business or rebranding an existing one. Start by considering what your overarching ambition and vision is for your business. Thinking through your brand strategy over a period of time helps in clarifying your vision, mission and values. 

  • Aligning your personal and business goals gives you the right mindset to achieve your ultimate objectives 
  • I believe there’s huge value in testing your ideas for a new business concept first before spending money on getting a visual identity, trade marking, and the like 
  • Think about your brand strategy gradually, make notes, and keep updating your thinking 
  • To stand out a brand needs to be legally distinctive, not just visually noticeable 
  • In the 21st century it’s necessary to use IP to brand your business effectively 
  • The name plays a fundamental role because many actions by competitors that you might want to stave off involve the brand name or brand designs 
  • What associations do you have when you think of brands like Ikea or Apple? 
  • What brand promise do you want people to associate with your business? 
  • “Brand” is why we expect one thing when we come across a SWATCH and another when we hear the ROLEX name 
  • Brand strategy also involves thinking about how to create a customer experience, branding, and communication messages to support the impression you want to convey 
  • What quality or outcome do you want to deliver consistently and reliably 
  • You should have a clear vision of the business you’re building so you can design your business to support how you want it to be known 
  • The aim is to create a brand that comes to mind when consumers are looking to buy the product or service you offer 
  • Work out WHY you do what you do 
  • Nike’s purpose is to bring inspiration to every athlete in the world 

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Brand Strategy for Start-ups and Beyond23 Sep 202200:40:17

In this episode, I talk about brand strategy for start-ups. 

Brand strategy is an overused term in the branding industry. I discuss what makes for a good brand strategist and how they can best support businesses. 

Sometimes, design is what's needed. Other times it's support to understand which segment to target and how to discover buyers' wants and needs.

 When working on brand strategy it is essential to be aware that there is a world of difference between the actions you need to take for a start-up to those you would take for an early-stage business to those you would take for an established brand. The work differs, not just because of the size or stage the business has reached but also due to the reason that the business is seeking your support with its brand strategy. 

 I discuss:

 - The different brand strategies

- Proof of concept

- What makes for a good brand strategist

- The different needs that start-ups and early-stage businesses have

- Why choosing names and identifiers needs to be informed by intellectual property law.


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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - What Business Are You Really In?17 Aug 202000:18:43

Asking yourself the question ‘what business am I really in’ is well worth doing periodically – the answer might just help you to discover hidden opportunities or an angle for business development that you otherwise wouldn’t have considered.

  • Somewhere along the line cinemas began to look at their business in a different way
  • The classic example that is given when people are talking about this topic of what business are you really in is the railroads
  • The businesses that best understand the customer and create solutions that the customer wants to buy are the ones that ultimately win
  • Kodak is a cautionary tale that illustrates why it’s imperative to stay relevant to customers
  • I see a potentially worrying parallel for many law businesses such as my own intellectual property law firm
  • Clients need to get a brand, create an identity, and protect their intellectual property
  • Customers face real problems attaining a brand that’s legally protected and makes them more money because they often don’t know who to turn to achieve that goal
  • The intellectual property dimension falls by the wayside because its relevance isn’t that obvious to clients or to the agencies they use
  • Once the brand is created, businesses are unsure how to promote themselves
  • Clients need to promote their business to get customers and build their brand online
  • Smaller businesses lack the insights into brand management so don’t get the best from their branding spend
  • It makes complete sense for us to offer products and services related to intellectual property to support clients to get a helicopter view of their business, build effective brands, and have a more joined up approach to marketing

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Shireen Smith - How Brand, Branding and Marketing Impact Your Business Success14 Aug 202000:22:18

Branding has become a bigger thing than its origin as a visual designation of origin of cattle. Today branding lives in a different world. The pendulum has swung so far that everything is said to be branding, even marketing and advertising are said to be branding. A better way to think about it is that branding is who you are—and marketing is how you build awareness.

  • If you’re a business owner wanting to know how to increase your success you need to understand what “brand”, and branding really mean and involve so you can take the right steps to develop your business. 
  • We all have a name, a way of dressing, talking, and walking and subjects we are known for or topics we discuss. We have our own individual beliefs and opinions, and a certain personality.
  • As you become more known, you will evoke a certain response in others. The business will get a reputation, and its brand will develop.
  • One difference between a person’s brand and a business’ brand is that people tend to have an existing personality and style
  • Design is about how your business will work, not just how it will look.
  • The business’ identity is quite separate from your own personal brand even if you are a sole trader running your business singlehandedly. 
  • Once you have worked out how you want to be known as a business you can get some designs to help support the overall impression and feelings you want your brand to evoke and convey
  • A common misconception people have is that you have to be a big household name to be a brand.
  • As founder of your organisation, you need to think about your vision for the business is
  • Branding is the activity of creating the visual identity for your brand. 
  • Branding is as much about how you design your business as it is about your visual designs.
  • The visual identity would be the final aspect of the brand to put in place after you’ve thought through your brand strategy.
  • Branding gives your business an identity beyond its product or service. It gives consumers something to relate to and connect with
  • Marketing is more about bringing a product or service to market

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - 3 Facts About Copyright Everyone Should Know10 Aug 202000:23:34

There is quite a lot of confusion generally with intellectual property terms like copyright, trademarks, and patents. You need to have some understanding of these terms as they are a type of “property” that it’s possible to own, just like land. They impact every business nowadays in the digital economy.

  • It pays to be mindful of the longer term implications of your early actions when implementing new ideas.  
  • Copyright is essential to understand if you want to create assets that will grow in value as your business becomes more established. It crops up in many different ways.
  • There is quite a lot of confusion generally with intellectual property terms like copyright, trademarks, and patents.
  • The types of copyright works which are potentially relevant to individuals and businesses alike include:
    • books, brochures and written content
    • music
    • films and videos
    • photographs, drawings, and illustrations
    • logos and packaging
    • computer programs, and games.
  • Copyright only comes into being when a work is fixed in some sort of tangible forms, such as when it’s written down
  • There is no copyright infringement involved as long as the recipe they write isn’t a word for word copy of your recipe with just one or two minor changes say.
  • When it is not clear cut an experienced copyright lawyer may be able to advise you, but ultimately if it’s really borderline whether there is copyright infringement or not, this is ultimately a question of fact.
  • Ultimately we all stand on the shoulders of giants and there is no completely original thought. So, if you’ve developed your ideas drawing from a combination of sources then it’s more likely than not that it would be your own IP.

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Levent Yildizgoren - Building a Translation Business07 Aug 202000:34:11

Levent satisfied his burning desire to run his own business in 1995, joining his wife in her translation business, running the business from their dining room while bringing up a young family.

  • Levent’s background was in print, starting as an apprentice, he moved to production management and then to digital production. He was about to be made a director when he resigned to run his own business.
  • Running a team of translators, he and his wife focused on quality assurance, ensuring the tone of voice was correct for the customers' purpose.
  • They rebranded in 2013, but this wasn’t without its problems as the original name Levent chose and fell in love with couldn’t be trademarked, so they had to come up with a different name and settled on TTC We Translate.
  • They used the rebranding to emphasise their core values and how they are different to other translation companies
  • Their core values are - social responsibility, care for the environment, put people first, invest in people and they aim to align their core values with those companies they work with
  • Another aspect of their work is offering advice on cultural differences in different countries to help companies avoid making cultural errors
  • Levent particularly admires Amazon because of their customer service and their vision.
  • You can find Levent at ttcwetranslate.com

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Shireen Smith (from YouTube) - How to Increase the Value of Your Business Without Increasing Turnover05 Aug 202000:24:55

Building your business’ Intellectual Capital is the way to increase the value of a business because it’s the intangible assets that account for most of the value of corporates nowadays – as much as 70-80%. It’s important to note that intellectual property is PROPERTY and therefore needs careful handling. 

  • Focusing on turnover is not necessarily the way to increase the multiple your business might achieve on exit
  • EBITDA – with its focus on increasing revenues is not always the yardstick by which a business will be valued
  • If there is a strategic fit, and a little competition from another potential buyer in the wings, a buyer may well be willing to pay a significant premium 
  • Whatever stage your business is at – and particularly if you are at a growth stage or thinking about exit – focus on adding value to your business, you can’t look at IP soon enough
  • Examples of Sales Instagram, Whatsapp and technology companies Skyscanner

Intellectual capital includes  

  • Human – that is the people element
  • Customer – all buyers of your products and services
  • Structural
  • Social

The human element comprises knowledge assets as described in the book Wealth of Knowledge by Thomas A Stewart. Strong customer capital is the value and strength of relationships that a business builds with its customers, and which is reflected in their loyalty to the business and/or its products and services. It’s a measure of the company’s brand. Douglas Atkin in the Culting of Brands maintains that the aim of a really successful business is to create a cult following among its customers. 

  • Structural Capital  - consists of the organisation’s infrastructure, processes and databases that enable its human capital to function. It’s the tools on which the organisation is built. They support the organisation to add value to customers. It includes the capabilities, routines, methods, procedures and methodologies embedded in the organisation. 
  • Social Capital - refers to what makes social groups function effectively, such as the relationships between the various players, a shared sense of identity, norms and values. It’s a complex subject so a single definition of it is difficult. Social media is a component of this.

The objective when creating a valuable business is to focus on these different forms of capital and replace yourself so that it’s not about you anymore. Focusing on your systems and processes rather than purely on increasing sales and other revenue-generating activities enables you to increase the value of your business.

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Shireen Smith - Building a Business to Exit03 Aug 202000:17:42

In practice selling a business usually involves preparing for a sale at least 2 years in advance. It’s about identifying potential buyers, creating competition between them, making the business the best it can be in terms of EBITDA, and being ready for the sale so that nothing holds you up when a buyer for the business is available.

  • Vague idea that they will grow their business and sell it one day
  • Exit is generally an end that isn’t well understood
  • Realise that for every success there will be many businesses that don’t make it to the other side.
  • EBITDA is the traditional method of valuing a business used by accountants, namely earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation.
  • Value certain parts of the business – such as stock, fixed assets 
  • In practice, exiting a business comes down to focusing on increasing revenues so that you have recurring income (preferably on contract). Other value drivers include IP, technology or media doing the work (to produce predictable and high margin revenues). 
  • Synergies within businesses can result in a valuation that is far higher than the company turnover or traditional methods of valuation might suggest
  • We are living at a time when any company, even your small business, could learn from these examples, and be savvy about how to increase its value
  • As the web and technology become more important in our lives, it means intellectual property is inevitably critical to businesses aiming to succeed in some way using technology.
  • Daniel Priestley believes that one problem business owners have is that they don’t believe their business would operate without them.
  • If you decide that you want to work till you drop then perhaps your exit planning should involve identifying a few competitors your executors could approach when the time comes

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Shireen Smith - Continuous Improvement – Get Going with Your Podcast31 Jul 202000:22:37

In this episode, I discuss continuous improvement as a philosophy for life and business. I share my insights on why it’s important when tackling something new to not let imposter syndrome or the wish to be perfect get in your way. 

In brief the episode covers:

  • Podcasting is the next marketing frontier 
  • The way to overcome imposter syndrome
  • Understand the value of getting a podcast up and running
  • 3 specific benefits that listeners will get from each episode moving forward
  • Things to learn and get right if you want to have a successful podcast
  • It’s possible with podcasting to make changes to your podcast and refine and improve it over time
  • Getting a bank of podcasts in place before you launch your podcast means you can get started less stressfully
  • You don’t need to be an established content creator to become a successful podcaster
  • A podcast is an excellent way to build an audience from scratch and position yourself as an authority in your industry

Brand Tuned belongs to azrights.com- info@azrights.com

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Jeremy Miller - Brand Naming Process From Brand New Name Book24 Jul 202000:31:50

Jeremy Miller is the President of Sticky Branding, which is a brand building agency that helps businesses to have sticky brands. He is also the author of the book Brand New Name. He has:

  • a proven step by step process to create an unforgettable brand name. 
  • enables entrepreneurs and marketers to name something after setting their strategy - ie what it is that the brand is or what the product or service will be, and how the name needs to perform. Establish some guidelines for success.
  • it’s essential to generate a lot of potential names because we are experiencing a naming drought, so the hard part of naming is not coming up with a great idea. The hard part is finding an available name.
  • Names like Kodak or Acura that are invented words provide an abstract term or an empty vessel. And so the benefit of that is you can breathe life into it in any way you want. 
  • Brand New Name is designed to be a naming sprint. Bring together a group of employees or individuals that are involved in the whole cycle.
  • Instagramer Kail Letkemann is a startup individual and doesn't have any employees at this point. So he assembled a group of individuals that were friends, colleagues, other followers on Instagram and he put a sprinting team together. And there were eight of them that participated in the process. They were volunteers who loved participating. 
  • You need to work with legal in some way. You're not able to do it on your own. So, engage a trademark lawyer early in the process, 
  • if you know right up front that you're going to need, if you're building say, a Google or a tech products that's going to be used in multiple jurisdictions or even a financial services product that might be used in multiple jurisdictions, knowing that is going to be the most important and complicated wrinkle of the whole project because now you've increased the complexity of finding an available name exponentially. That might determine the type of name you choose. 
  • Global does not come up all that often, the majority of companies are focused on specific markets.
  • One of Jeremy’s favourite brands is Twitter. It's a suggestive evocative name of what the platform is like and it inform their entire identity and ethos from the beginning. 

If you have questions on this episode or any other of the past episodes and would like Shireen Smith to answer them on the podcast please send a voice message to info@azrights.com

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Stephen Robertson - Accountant's perspective on IP Value and importance of IP foundations.17 Jul 202000:40:14

Stephen Robertson graduated with a law degree before qualifying as a chartered accountant with Deloitte. During his thirty years in corporate finance, he has worked in banking, angel investment and the PLC sector. He founded Metis Partners in 2003 to support businesses to maximise the value of their IP assets.

  • He believes in the importance of setting the foundations in place early for both a personal brand and corporate brand and not to ignore developing a solid product brand for your products so you can spin them off in the future if you choose.
  • Helps clients identify IP assets beyond traditional registrable assets such as software, trade secrets, data and analytics.
  • Strong IP has value when selling a business and when properly valued can increase the amount a seller can expect to receive.
  • Shows clients how IP can increase the value of a business when selling: for example through strong customer relationships built over time, software licences and trade secrets in the form of unique processes.
  • Helps clients understand that IP can only go onto their balance sheet at market value by separating it out of the business. Also he outlines the value in using a holding company to shield the IP assets of the business.
  • Guides clients to develop an IP strategy that is a set of objectives that protects their IP and allows their business to become more successful.
  • You can email Shireen at: info@azrights.com with any questions for Stephen 

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Shireen Smith - Why Brand Protection is Important in Marketing10 Jul 202000:26:30

In this episode, Shireen Smith discusses the importance of brand protection in marketing. Surprisingly, less than a third of agencies register their names as a trademark. This suggests many designers and others who offer branding services have little appreciation of the relationship between brand creation and brand protection. 

The ramifications of not registering a trademark are many: 

  • You have no recourse if you have not used the name in business. So once you choose a name, register it for your brand.
  • Registering a company name or domain name won’t give you any protection and you don’t own the rights to the brand name unless you register a trademark
  • Securing your name as a word trademark is the priority and you can then register a logo, tagline, music and packaging or other elements of your brand later
  • Trademark registration gives you power. If a big business wants to use the same name, they’ll often offer money to buy your trademark if you have legal title.
  • The trademark registry in the US will not allow registration if there is any conflict with an existing trademark
  • Laws in the UK and EU are not as stringent
  • It’s advisable to use a trademark professional in the first instance as it is easy to get it wrong
  • It costs ten times as much to deal with a complication as it does to register your name in the first place
  • China is a case in point if you manufacturer in China secure local trademark protection to avoid your brand being hijacked
  • Trademark is just one way in which you protect your brand. Another is copyright which is hugely relevant and will be covered in depth in the future.

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Calling Bullsh*t on Brand Love16 Sep 202200:36:00

Austin Franke is the founder of Woo Punch, a brand design consultancy rooted in the science of how brands grow. Austin is also the man behind brandingbullshit.com, a newsletter that exposes common branding, marketing, and advertising myths, and co-hosts The BS Show with Stef Hamerlinck on YouTube.

In this episode of the podcast, Austin shares why the old notions of brand love are outdated. In keeping with the new format of the podcast, he delivers a 10-minute masterclass before being interviewed. 

  •  A 10-minute masterclass about brand love 
  • The old notions of brand love that are outdated
  • Why distinctiveness is not synonymous with differentiation
  • The reality and the evidence-based insights into how brands grow

www.woopunch.com
brandingbullshit.com 

Books mentioned:

Building Distinctive Brand Assets
How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know
Seducing the Subconscious: The Psychology of Emotional Influence in Advertising

Valuable Resources:

Brand Tuned Newsletter
Brand Tuned Training Courses

Chrissie Lighfoot - Why a Brand Triage - Personal, Product and Company Brand - Increases Reach01 Jul 202000:41:57

Chrissie Lightfoot is a prominent international legal figure, entrepreneur, author and CEO of Robot Lawyer LISA. She has written two books including - The Naked Lawyer and Tomorrow’s Naked Lawyer.

  • Started in business before training as a lawyer in her mid-30s and used her own personal brand to bring in clients for the solicitor’s practice where she did her training.
  • After the launch of her first book, The Naked Lawyer in late 2010, she was asked to speak at a number of legal events around the world.
  • Has worked with many solicitors and barristers at different stages of their careers to help them with their personal branding
  • Has worked remotely with lawyers worldwide, mentoring them to niche themselves and dovetail their personal brand with their company's strategy.
  • Uses the brand triage - strong personal brand, strong product brand and strong company brand to increase reach and depth of reach
  • Developed Robot Lawyer LISA in 2017 to help automate legal agreements online
  • Chrissie admires Oprah Winfrey for the way she uses her brand to bring about positive change as well as David Beckham for his use of his personal brand.
  • Get The Naked Lawyer and Tomorrow’s Naked Lawyer.

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A Product Designer's Perspective on Branding24 Jun 202000:43:02

Theo Williams is a creative whose superpower is to provoke new ways of thinking so retailers and brands can better realise their goals. He has held many influential designs and creative roles for the likes of Habitat, John Lewis Home and others.

  • After studying industrial design at Manchester University, he went to Milan in 1991 and stayed for 15 years
  •  Has designed packaging for Armani. products for Alessi, cardio fitness equipment for Technogym all the way up to designing brands for John Lewis
  •  He uses the five principles that are built into a product when designing the brand of the company selling the product
  • Currently, his typical project for a client is large and encompasses product design, packaging design and brand design including logo, name and messaging
  •  He particularly admires Whole Foods and Apple for their consistent coordination and sticking to their fundamental principles.
  • Theo can be contacted through theowilliams.com

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Hannah Power - Develop Your Personal Brand and Grow Your Business.16 Jun 202000:25:36

Hannah Power is a personal branding specialist who focuses on supporting purpose driven entrepreneurs and experts to become powerful online leaders.

  • Has been immersed in the world of personal branding since she was six when her parents set up the first online business network.
  • Two sides to her business: one side is about coaching and training and the other is an agency where they offer done for you services.
  • Her agency does content creation and content sharing on social media and content collation platforms like YouTube
  • Hannah is the author of the book - The Power of You, which helps inspire anybody to build their personal brand.
  • Hannah's methodology comprises the seven core components of powerful personal branding. Her Scorecard helps you assess your personal brand to understand how well developed it is www.hannahpower.co.uk
  •  Brands Hannah admires are:
    •  Gabby Bernstein
    •   Gary Vaynerchuk
    • Dr Joe Dispenza
    • Simon Sinek
    • Jeff Bezos
    • Steve Jobs
    • Bill Gates
    •  Accenture

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