Build a Strong Foundation for Your Business: Define Your Company’s Values & Develop a Guide for Ensuring the Integrity of Your Brand
Amy Jacobus
Grounding Marketing in Meaning | For Artists, Nonprofits & Service-Based Business Owners
Are you afraid of heights?
I am.
I can usually get “up” places, but then I fall into a real panic coming down…
One 4th of July, my dad (an ironworker very comfortable with heights) said we should watch fireworks from the roof of our house.
I got up there fine, but at the end of the night, I had a total freak out and Dad had to carry my 120-lb teenage ass back down the ladder. ??
Still, I tend to romanticize tall structures, so I’m usually bugging friends and family to climb to the top of lighthouses or landmarks or hike up mountains…
Only to drive them crazy when I start acting weird and refuse to look down.
This is why my partner Ben rolled his eyes at me when I wanted to visit One World Trade Center on my 10th anniversary with New York City.
The tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, One World Trade reaches 1,776 feet (104 stories) into the clouds.
I wanted to really take in the size and scope of my chosen city, so I convinced Ben I could do it.
Then, in the elevator, I got really nervous that the building would sway and I would throw up. ??
Which is totally understandable, in my opinion, because when you enter the Observatory on floors 100–102 (!!), you would expect to feel the tower sway a bit in the wind.
But it doesn’t sway. That building doesn’t move. It’s solid, still, rooted.
Why? It has a strong foundation.
One World Trade is LITERALLY rooted into the ground. There is a 185-foot deep concrete foundation, fixed into the earth!!!
That is GENIUS. And so it goes with your marketing.
I believe that defining your company’s values and developing a guide for ensuring the integrity of your brand is the work you must do to build a strong foundation for your business — before you build the first floor of your marketing for your business.
I believe you must dig deep to build a skyscraper that doesn’t sway in an errant breeze.
If you start building at street level, you’re gonna feel unsteady.
You’re gonna look unsteady.
You’re going to make people nervous, instead of inspiring them to say yes, hand over money and hire you.
People will recognize if your business isn’t built on a strong foundation.
Our approach to marketing (we call it Grounded Growth Strategy) doesn’t skip over any of the deep work before building your marketing master plan, because that’s what makes a company strong, resilient and calm in a storm.
If you want marketing strategies that are evergreen and buildable and true to your unique values, strengths & services, we want to work with you to create them.
?Are you bringing your personal values and stories into your marketing?
You should!
That’s why we created 5 creative prompts for coaches, creatives & consultants to write, produce and share compelling stories in your emails, on social and more. These are the stories that make you stand out in a crowd.
Sign up to get your free prompts >>
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