brand is relationship
September 3, 2024
written by
Stephanie Frier
Bringing out the humanity in leadership.
Brand and all that it encompasses has become a word of many meanings. As part of our Brand is Relationship series, we are asking others what brand means to them. We sat down with a client Molly Rosen, Co-CEO + Founder of ProjectNext Leadership, and had a heart-to-heart about the experience of building a brand foundation from the inside out.
Steph: As you know from refreshing the brand for ProjectNext leadership, you come into corporate brand strategy with certain ideas, and then you begin to work the process and you realize “Oh wait, this isn’t what I thought it was going to be.” Everyone has their own expectations about brand and brand identity. So, we’d love to take a beat and simply ask, ‘What does brand mean to you? And has your definition changed at all during this process?’
Molly: To me, why we’ve really loved working with you all is that it’s not just a head thing. It’s a head and heart exercise.
It’s more than just looking at the brand in terms of our market, our competitors and what our clients are looking for. While that’s important, it’s a mental exercise. What really felt good about this process was that it was about answering “Who are you really?” It was a soul + mental exercise. Who are you on the inside? What are you trying to create in the world? You were pushing us on that the whole time and that’s what really felt different. I get emotional just even thinking about it. Really thinking about how we are making a difference in the world.
Steph: That’s awesome because it means it’s real to you. And we love that. Real means it will last. Real means it will have an impact on others.
Molly: Yeah…I’ve started using the word soul a lot and referring to that often. There was real authenticity on our calls and in our meetings, and we felt so comfortable coming as who we are.
Steph:It was fun and interesting for us to learn about your field. We are often in that situation when it’s truly a partnership because we bring our area of expertise and still rely on you for your area of expertise. Did you have any concerns going into the process about the specialty of your field?
Molly: The fact that you didn’t have a lot of experience in our exact field was a good thing because you brought a different perspective and respected what we brought to the table. We know our field and have been in the industry a long time, but you showed us how we might approach things differently.
As individuals, our leadership team had different perspectives and you did a beautiful job of making sure everyone felt heard and then throwing it back to us to get aligned with each other — but also just hearing and supporting us along the way.
When we work with you and we’re figuring out the next stage of the process, you’re not trying to sell us. You’re hearing what is needed and looking to give us what we need —as opposed to trying to sell us on doing stuff that may not be right for where we are or what we need right now. That’s important and different from others we’ve worked with.
Steph: What has been the most challenging part of redefining the PNL brand? Was there a part of the brand positioning process that really stuck out? Either rethinking the brand itself or maybe a part of the process that you were thinking “I don’t like this.”
Molly: The brand archetype process really sticks in my mind. It was difficult for us because we didn’t have total agreement.
What felt good is that you brought us along in the process and gave us enough information along the way that we were ready to lean into that next step. You helped push us further than we would have gotten on our own, but you also didn’t push us too far. That kind of bend, not break feeling.
It was also a hard transition to move from the brand foundation (soul, essence and what we are all about) to “What are we going to market with?” and “What is our tagline?” The notion of understanding what is true to us; what we are going to talk to the market about that they will relate to, if they don’t know us; and does it even matter if they don’t know us?
You showed us how to bring our brand truth, not just to the words, but to the colors and the images and all these intuitive elements that people will pick up on subconsciously.
Steph: What has been the most rewarding part of this process for you?
Molly: It was really illuminating for us to see our current brand images on a storyboard with our competitors’ imagery. And to hear the explanation of the impact of that imagery. Things like typeface choices we had thought were friendly, we learned might be perceived differently. And understanding how color can evoke experience. You brought all those things to life, and it has been hugely helpful for us. That wasn’t a hard part – that was a fun part.
You are great at taking some intuitive feelings we had and some general preferences and being able to make them real and concrete. You created real examples we could react to and recognize, “Yes, that’s us.” It was exciting —starting with the idea of brand archetypes and seeing how the archetypes play out over time in the personality of the brand.
Steph: Did you discover anything unexpected about yourselves or the company through the process?
Molly: Yes, I think it really forced us to reflect on the feedback we had gotten from clients in a way that maybe we hadn’t before about our impact.
I think it connected how we do things with who we are in a way that was different. It’s not just what we do — a lot of people do what we do. You helped us see that the way we do it is very different from others. It was by pushing on that feedback that you helped us see who we really are. We say the phrase ,“We go beyond the mechanics of good leadership” all the time, but we hadn’t really thought about just how true that was until it became the inspiration for our brand.
This client we just signed is so wildly enthusiastic to start working with us. And when we talked with them yesterday there was a lot of laughter on the call. There was this sense of just feeling good. People could really be themselves. And that’s the perfect client fit for us. We know it’s going to be a good thing from the start. The client even said at the end, “I just feel so much calmer working with you guys, because you are calm.” That’s what we want. We want people to feel good working with us. It’s important. It’s the brand core of what we do — “bringing out the humanity in leadership.”
Steph: That’s wonderful. We are so excited for you and your team. And this is just the beginning. We can’t wait to see how ProjectNext Leadership uses the brand foundation to positively impact others.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. Through this process we have grown to not only call you partners, but friends. We are looking forward to the next chapter – the website.