Great brands are great brands because they constantly tweak, adjust and adjust what they are, because the company, and the world around it has changed.
Tweaking your brand is not a sign of being wrong before, or not knowing what you stand for. It IS a sign of knowing who you are right now.
And that is true for speakers too.
I just went through a brand adjustment and it came from the most unlikely of places: My 8-year old son.
In school he was asked: “What does your dad do?” and he wanted to reply: “My dad is a creativity expert” but it came out as “My dad is a creativity EXPLORER”.
A creativity explorer! When I heard that story, I realised that that is exactly what I am.
My Inner Theme is still “Humanity to the Power of Ideas”, my focus right now is still on my upcoming book “The World of Creativity” and at ProfessionalSpeaking.com I still blog about speaking, but my BRAND is that I am “The Creativity Explorer”.
What does that mean?
It means that I am “discovering the potential of human creativity.”
And I do that “by traveling the world to meet with, learn from and talk to as many people as I can to better understand human creativity so we – together – can unleash its full potential.”
To sit down and clarify who you are, what you do and how you do it is so valuable as it gives you clarity, direction and focus.
I am lucky enough to have a wife who is a branding consultant so we can literally sit down at the dinner table and talk about these things, but I recommend every speaker to find someone to help them develop their brand.
In my case the spark to this year’s brand refresh came from my 8-year old son, so the lesson here really is that anything can spark an idea to re-work your brand. The important thing is that you harness those sparks and take the opportunity to take a re-look at your brand from time to time.
I am very happy that I did.
Defining myself as “The Creativity Explorer” has given me great positive energy.
In a way a good re-branding exercise is like coming out from a great session at the hairdresser: you are still yourself, but you feel fresher, more confident – more your real self than before.
