Invisible Details

When a new idea pops into your head, or the vision of another product or different direction sets in your mind, it’s easy to follow the “shiny object” and forget the other things that are happening. How do we know if we’re chasing the right things? How can we determine if the idea we’ve just had lines up with our brand’s mission, values, and purpose? It’s time to get practical. In this episode we’re going to be talking about The Brand Consistency Test, a straight-forward formula of specific questions designed to help you make a decision faster and with greater confidence. Using this test will help you clarify if what you’re doing is beneficial to your target audience, your overall brand goals, and the direction your brand is headed.

I’m going to be frank: there are a lot of mixed messages out there about whether or not your work should or can be original. It can be hard to get the attention you want your brand to have, and it can be doubly as difficult to innovate and produce original work. It’s why we find advice to create concepts based on what already exists and why we’re okay with “stealing ideas.” Regardless of where this advice originates, it can be very misleading. As your brand develops, you’re working to produce assets, things you own that are useful in generating income. The less you own, the less control you truly have over your income, and the more uncertain the future of your brand becomes. In today’s episode, we’re discussing the ideas of building original assets to utilize for your brand, when copying is okay, and why you should steer clear of relying upon someone else’s success.

When it comes to creating anything of value, whether it’s products or content, there are usually two trains of thought: produce as much as you can and ship it quickly, or produce in smaller quantities with higher quality. The “ship much, ship quick” mindset is about expanding fast, reaching as many people as possible with as many things as possible. It promotes having a minimum viable product and getting something out the door as fast as possible. The “ship fewer, ship better” mindset emphasizes quality and care, putting more time into perfecting what you do put out there, but may limit how many people you can actually reach. This also applies in a larger way to audience reach. You may be able to “reach” large amounts of people, but the trade-off might be the quality of what you can produce. On today’s show we’ll be talking about finding balance between quality and quantity and how to tell if you’re diluting your brand by reaching too far.

Domain name. Hosting. Logo. Business plan. Employees. HR. Hardware. Software. Training. Property rental. Video gear. Money to pay for it all. Building a brand sounds like a great idea until you start thinking about all of the things that need to be done. What was once an exciting idea has become a mountain to climb, and you don’t even know what to pack for the journey. It seems unconquerable because there are so many things. Someone once said the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. In today’s episode, we’ll give you some ideas for defining that first step so you can get started.

Most brands seem to have this great history attached, some great obstacle or problem that was overcome, or a daring innovation that truly changed the face of history as we know it. Not every brand has that, though. Some brands started out by having an idea and then simply acting on it. Others just had the company handed to them. Others still are built upon a single person’s desire to put something in the world. How does a brand produce something as important as a story if there’s really nothing about the brand that stands out? In today’s episode, I’ll give you some ideas on how to craft a brand story and produce something inviting and intriguing, even if your brand story is “boring”.

The purpose of a brand is to create a specific perception about your company, product, service, or anything else you’re creating. As time goes on, it can be easy to think that the brand is about the thing itself. Unfortunately, the more the focus of your brand turns inward, the more your audience is going to feel unwelcome and ignored. People are looking for what is going to make them better, not what is going to make someone else look good. Spoilers: Your brand is not about you. It’s not even about the thing it represents. It’s about the people who are going to be engaging, interacting, and connecting with it. In today's episode, we explore what it looks like to build a brand that is centered around other people while maintaining the heartbeat that you bring as an individual.

The internet is an incredible invention that has effectively facilitated the global connectedness of cultures and countries around the world. It's nearly impossible to have an online presence that is not encountered by someone from another culture. With this deeper worldwide connection comes complications. People want to consume your content and interact with your brand, but they may speak other languages or not understand the nuances of your brand. Figuring out how to interact with people from other cultures has a lot of implications, and having a plan for how you can accommodate other cultures might be exactly what your brand needs. In this episode, we discuss the responsibility that the modern-day brand has to figure out where it fits in the ever-connected world.

Your brand has a message you are trying to communicate with your audience, a story you are trying to convey through words, imagery, and the like. You have a mission and a purpose, and you're working hard to reach the right people with the right message. But something's not quite right. You're not really sure why, but it doesn't seem like your message is very effective. You may not know how to actually communicate correctly with your audience, and you know it's hurting your brand. You might struggle finding the right words, or you might struggle with finding any words at all. Without clarity, a brand is lost. How can you communicate your message without knowing how your audience is going to respond to it, and what can you do to improve your communication skills? In this solo episode, Kyle shows you how you can improve your brand message, provide clarity in how you communicate, and reach your audience better than you've been able to yet.

A healthy brand requires a significant amount of focus in specific areas. Certain seasons of your brand’s life may look different than the others, and you may end up building out different things throughout the years. Times will come when you need to evaluate where you are spending your time and money. Are your purchases aiding your goal, and is the time you’ve allocated toward certain things actually building your brand in the right direction? You have to take a step back every once in a while and assess the situation. Regular evaluation times are a necessity for a healthy, growing brand. You may have to make some hard decisions. You might need to cut things out of your life. You may need to stop spending money in an area that is more fun than others because it’s not actually helping your mission. In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to consistently and regularly evaluate how you are investing in your brand, and how to reposition your focus to accomplish your goals.

Being a “jack of all trades” is exhausting. You do all of the heavy lifting, the administrative work, the uploads, the phone calls, and there never seems like there’s enough time in the day. The problem isn’t that you can’t do everything; the problem is that you can. Why hire a web designer when you took a $3,000 web design course two years ago? Why hire an accounting firm when you can just buy a program you can learn how to use? When you do everything yourself, you’re going to hit a ceiling. You can only get so far by running your brand by yourself. Maybe that’s your goal, and maybe you’re okay with keeping things as they are. But if you want to keep growing, you are going to need to outsource. Outsourcing can look different to different brands: hiring employees or virtual assistants, partnering with a call center, working with a designer to create your next run of t-shirts, or maybe hiring an editor for your videos. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to determine when to bring on outside hel

There are over a billion websites on the internet. In the chaos of everyone scrambling to be noticed online, instant-website solutions with trendy templates have become incredibly popular. The result is an overwhelming number of websites that look exactly the same. It can be truly difficult to set yourself apart online without investing a lot of time or money. You have to be creative when it comes to your website, and not just in the way it looks. Engaging with your audience is more than the colors of your website. It’s about how it works, the way it functions, and how it speaks to your visitors. In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to look at your website with fresh eyes and craft a meaningful, memorable, and engaging experience for your users.

One of the obvious building blocks of having a brand is having people who interact with you. Customers, subscribers, followers, and fans are inevitable parts of your brand. You might decide to sell t-shirts or something else to bring in some extra income, or perhaps you decide to build a new membership website for your content. No matter how good you are at running your business, you’re probably going to run into issues that will affect your customers. Orders get dropped, payments don’t go through, web pages don’t load, and somewhere down the line someone will have a bad experience. How you respond in these situations will dictate the relationship between you and your audience. It’s not just about customer retention, it’s how you are you allowing your brand to be perceived. In the episode, we’ll be sharing stories of exceptional customer service and how to apply that to your brand.

If you’re a business that has any kind of presence on social media, you’ve noticed the various changes that have been taking place on those platforms. Algorithm changes to promote friends and family over advertisements, businesses, or media outlets has many people scrambling to adjust. Every time a major social media platform makes a change, there is a massive outcry. Change is difficult, especially on places that are known and loved. The hard part is when businesses and individuals who have placed their whole business model on these platforms become disoriented and affected negatively by the change. Algorithm changes can come out of nowhere, and they can hurt the bottom line significantly. The truth is this: if you don't own the code, you don't get to complain. In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to prepare for unforeseen changes to the way social platforms work and why you should never rely on someone else’s platform.

On Invisible Details we talk about a lot of brands, from giant, well-known corporations to local coffee shops. We’re not afraid to talk about the popular ones, and we absolutely love the unknown ones. This show is going to be a little different. You’re going to get a fly-on-the-wall experience as Kyle and I have a conversation about our own brands—what we’ve learned, what we want, the struggles we face, and some of our big dreams. In the episode, we’ll be talking as if we just sat down for coffee and weren’t streaming live or recording. You get a special, behind-the-scenes look at how we run our brands, what our goals are, and how we're working to accomplish those goals.

The way we communicate to our audiences online is typically referred to as messaging. The copy you write, the images you use, and the overall direction of your brand material is sending various messages to the people who see it. Today’s online audiences have statistically short attention spans. It takes less than 5 seconds for a visitor to determine if they are going to stay on a website or find something else to do. If they aren’t convinced they need to stay, they won’t. There are a lot of reasons people may not be staying longer on your website, or why they’re not reading your promotional material. The fault doesn’t lie with their attention spans, it lies with your messaging. Everything about your content needs to draw in your target audience. It has to be attractive, it has to be specific, and it needs to meet them where they are at. In today’s episode we’re going to be talking about how to audit your brand’s copy to determine if it’s chasing users away, and some of the problems to watch out for so you

No matter where you go in the world, you’ll find that people have their favorite places. One coffee shop is better than the other five, there’s a particular restaurant you should go to, and there’s even a better place to change the oil in your car. We have preferences for where we shop online and which websites we read the news. Everyone has their favorite everything. So what makes a brand “favorite”? Why are we attracted to some and not to others, and why is there a disconnect between what we like and what others like? Like a magnet, a brand has the power to pull in the ones who are attracted to it. There is a direct correlation between how a brand expresses itself and who is drawn to it. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss how to determine if your brand is attracting the right people and how to adjust your brand for the right people.

Over the last few years, crowdfunding has surged in popularity, from product campaigns to funding personal trips to monthly donations to keep the lights on. Something incredible about crowdfunding is its ability to bring the idea of investment to a lower level. Previously investment seemed daunting and so far away, when it required thousands upon thousands of dollars to pour into stocks or bonds or real estate. Today, it seems so simple. Unfortunately, many people do not view crowdfunding as investment. It’s easy to see a new product that could be and pay for it, viewing it as a purchase instead of as a risk. When your brand or product is based on crowdfunding, you are producing brand equity and perception. You are creating an environment for your customers to see you in a certain way, and you must be prepared for however that unfolds. In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing the pros and cons of crowdfunding to help you evaluate if it’s right for your brand.

Communication is everything for a brand. It's how you deliver information to your audience, it's how you invite them into your story, and it's the way we connect and develop relationally. There will always be people at varying levels of relationship to your brand, all the way from being first introduced to your industry to being someone who's been around longer than you. You have to learn how to communicate in a way that reaches as many people in your audience as possible. This is possible by understanding the four tiers of brand language: introductory, basic, advanced, and fluent. Knowing the different levels will help improve your writing and bring clarity to your messaging. Today's episode is a little shorter, but packed with information on the four tiers of brand language and how you can connect better with your audience with clearer communication.

Comparison is the root of discouragement and frustration. Achieving our desired level of success seems so far away when it appears that everyone else is doing so much better. Only if you look at what everyone else is doing. Self-reflection is important as your brand grows, and simply moving the focus back to your own work is key to your future success. In today's episode, we talk about how to look at how far you've come so you can build up momentum to continue looking forward.

Iconic brand names like Tesla, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola seem to stand out among the competition, carrying such incredible meaning and history. You only have to hear the name and you immediately know what they’re about. It’s easy to assume that there is some secret formula for producing a brand name that will stand the test of time. So many of us have spent countless hours at the drawing board, pouring over iterations and variations of names, and we’re just waiting for the perfect one to jump out at us. The truth is there isn't any secret. There are no magic steps, no perfect formulas, and no easy blueprint to follow. Today we’ll be talking about what’s in a name and some principles to keep in mind while deciding the name of your brand.