#18 Grow Your Business With A Consistent Brand Experience
After being an attendee for 10 years, yesterday was my first day volunteering with CreativeMornings, a free monthly breakfast lecture series designed for creative communities.
I've lived all over the US and have always found my way to a CreativeMornings event in each city I’ve called home. Today they are in 230 cities across 67 countries and no matter which chapter I visit, it always feels familiar and like I’m with “my people”.
I love it because it’s consistent– I know what I’m getting and I know it’s for me. But it didn’t start as a global community. It started with one local chapter.
So how do you develop a consistent experience that creates this sense of belonging even as you scale?
Today I’m sharing a simple framework to help you get started + we’ll take a closer look at CreativeMornings.
It’s About How You Feel
You know the ol’ branding 101 statement: branding isn’t about a logo, it’s about the way a business makes you feel. That’s the result of a consistent positive experience that has built trust.
Think about the things you love in your life– your family, friends, and favorite places. You love them because they show up for you again and again in a meaningful way– the positive experience and emotion that you feel is consistent.
The key to developing a beloved brand experience is consistency. When a customer knows what they’re going to get and their highest expectations of that experience are always met then they are more likely to share it with their friends– and that’s how businesses grow.
When you have visitors come to town you probably have a short list of places you’ll take them. That’s because you have been there enough times to know what to expect and that your friends and family will love it.
And if you go somewhere you haven’t been you caveat with “I haven’t been here myself but I have heard great things.” … does this sound about right?
Businesses lose trust with an inconsistency like bad customer service or a faulty product.
So how can you set up systems in your business to make sure you’re providing a consistent positive experience as you scale?
Use The VSVQ Framework
The qualities of a consistent brand experience can be broken down into four components: Values, Simplicity, Visual Identity & Quality.
Use the VSVQ framework to build strong foundations that can scale consistently.
Values
Having clear values are core to building a community-driven business. In order to foster community, members and customers must feel belonging with the brand. Belonging comes from having shared values. This notion is becoming more and more important especially with GenZ.
Tips for developing your values:
Start with 3-5 values.
It’s ok to feel like you’re excluding some people by sharing your values. If you serve everyone you serve no one.
Share your values often and weave them through your work and messaging so that they are recognized as part of your brand.
Simplicity
The more complex the experience, the more possible points of failure, confusion and opportunity to create a bad impression. The phrase “simplify to amplify” means the more simple the solution (and therefore focus), the easier it will scale.
Tips for creating a simple experience:
Try a ruthless prioritization of all the areas you’re focusing on in your business. Can anything be cut?
Challenge yourself to simplify the number of steps or offers by 30%.
Start as simple as possible and add complexities only when needed as you grow.
Visual Identity
Branding is about a lot more than a logo, however, having a clear visual identity makes your brand recognizable and consistent. Let’s say you have a newsletter, you might use a particular emoji in your subject lines to remind people that it’s you.
What can you create that you associate with your brand? Jesse Cole wears a yellow tux everywhere he goes when representing the business, Ship30for30 uses a 🚢 … and you might associate the 💜 emoji with me if you’ve been reading my content for a while.
Tips for creating a visual identity:
Do research on what colors are used in your industry. For example, blue is often used in healthcare for the sense of calm and healing, green is often used in energy products because it’s a color that represents health and sustainability.
Keep it simple, embracing the rainbow isn’t for every brand.
If this isn’t your jam, work with a designer– it’s worth it.
Once you have a visual identity use it consistently.
Quality
Most importantly, focus on creating an experience of exceptional quality. The only way to do this is to continuously iterate and improve. When you create something excellent, listen to and serve your community you’ll build an incredibly successful business.
Tips for building something of quality:
Start small and test your concepts with potential customers.
Don’t build products based on assumptions. With every new initiative and further development and improvement do your research.
Experiment in your business constantly in order to create unique and exceptional experiences that your customers will rave about to their friends.
How VSVQ Applies To CreativeMornings:
Let’s analyze CreativeMornings using the VSVQ framework.
Values
At each monthly session before the talk begins they have someone in the community read their manifesto which is as follows:
Everyone is creative.
A creative life requires bravery and action, honesty and hard work. We are here to support you, celebrate with you, and encourage you to make the things you love.
We believe in the power of community. We believe in giving a damn. We believe in face-to-face connections, in learning from others, in hugs and high fives.
We bring together people who are driven by passion and purpose, confident that they will inspire one another, and inspire change in neighborhoods and cities around the world.
Everyone is welcome.
Simplicity
The premise of the CreativeMornings experience is simple. It’s easy and fast to grasp and the experience is always the same:
It’s always free but you have to register
Global theme presented on in each city chapter
Once per month on Friday 8:30 - 10:00 AM
Breakfast + coffee is served
Presenter gives a talk with Q&A
That doesn’t mean there aren’t variables. You want to have strong core consistencies but then you can add delight and change things up to keep things fresh as well. It’s a balance.
For CreativeMornings that means each month they meet at a different location and sometimes there are extra things to experience – this past week the Baltimore chapter offered free headshots.
Visual Identity
Every part of the visual identity– the location based call out bubble, the name tags, their website, the chapter pages, the signage and typeface – it’s all consistent.
As chapters are added it is the same look and feel with a chapter location appended to the end.
Did I pick Denver because their color is purple? Yes. It’s all about visual identity people!
Quality
In 2008, Tina Roth Eisenberg started CreativeMornings out of a desire for an ongoing, accessible event for New York's creative community. The concept was simple: breakfast and a short talk one Friday morning a month.
Now Creative Mornings is in 229 cities across 67 countries.
As CM has expanded they’ve built a job board and online community of creatives. Their website, user experience and community product is top notch.
There is no doubt that Tina Roth Eisenberg has built something of incredible quality– it is only with this kind of quality experience that a community thrives globally.
You can build a profile like mine and register for free events here.
I hope you loved this essay. I’d love to hear how you’re applying VSVQ to your business– drop me a note or if you’re subscribed to the newsletter hit reply! If you’re not subscribed yet you can do that here so you get all the resources + goodies in addition to the weekly essay.