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Tell me about your vision.

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My vision of what I'm trying to accomplish?

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Yeah, your vision.

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So I'm an author.

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I have a day job and I have this job

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that I'm writing books about branding.

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In my day job, I'm the vice president of communications

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for a Fortune 500 company here in Canada.

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So it's a busy job.

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I've written one book so far

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and I'm ready to publish a second book on branding.

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I am passionate about what a brand is

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and how do you get a brand?

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I think there's lots of misunderstanding

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of what branding is today.

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There is people keep talking about

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everyone has to be a brand.

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I'm not convinced that everybody has to be a brand.

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The brand is something that is very unique

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and somewhat complicated.

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So I don't know if we all have to be a brand.

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It's kind of like talking to a box of cereal.

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And I don't think we all have to be a box of cereal.

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Okay, that's amazing thought.

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So tell me where did this vision come from of you

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about branding and wanting to build or make

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or not make brands?

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So I've been working with brands for about three decades.

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I've worked, as I said earlier to you,

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I worked in the advertising industry.

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I work for a brand that is,

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it's one of the top 100 brands in the world.

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I've seen brands falter.

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I've helped brands try to succeed and some have not.

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And so for me, it's understanding what is it

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that makes a brand.

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And to me, you gotta come up with a clear definition

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of what a brand is.

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And my definition, I'm kind of paraphrasing

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a great quote from Maya Angelou,

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which is a brand isn't about what it says or does,

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but how it makes its customers feel.

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So it is about a feeling.

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That's what a brand is.

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And that feeling resides with those people

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that consume that brand.

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Doesn't stop you from making all of the touch points

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create that feeling,

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but that feeling exists within the customer,

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not with the brand itself.

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So how do you build a brand?

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There's, it's like, how do you create a human being?

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Same thing, it's very complex.

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There's things you can control

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and there's things that you can't control.

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Interesting.

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That's an amazing point.

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I've never thought about it that way.

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That's a great insight.

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So would you say that that's your why as well?

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Yes.

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So my why is to try and educate people

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when they say they wanna be a brand,

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really understand what is it you're trying to achieve.

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Today, I hear so many people talk

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about the tactics of branding.

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And we're now using, because we have social media,

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we have digital abilities to broadcast.

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We've all now been trained or told we have to be a brand.

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And that's all they're actually telling you

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is they want you to put content out there.

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And I can be cynical and say that,

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is this driven by social media?

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Because for them to exist, we have to create content.

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That is true.

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So they want the best content as possible.

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So I keep hearing to build your brand,

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your personal brand, guess what?

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You've gotta have a presence in social.

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And I'm going, it's bigger than that.

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You actually do.

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If you are the product or the service,

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first most important element for a brand

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is you've gotta have something that you're selling.

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It's some transaction between the thing that you have,

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the product and a customer.

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Outside that, it becomes a relationship.

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And a relationship, I have relationships every day.

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I have people that I know today

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that are very close friends.

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I have associates.

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Those aren't transactions.

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Those are just relationships.

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A brand has to have a transaction.

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Otherwise the definition has to change.

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And you can't compare yourself to a box of cereal.

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But I can compare all the attributes of a box of cereal

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and how to build that brand.

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I build it through what I call the five Cs of branding.

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And that is about consistency, about content,

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it's about community, and it's about construct,

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and it's about commitment.

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So if you want to build a brand because you are consultant,

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you're trying to sell your services,

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you're trying to sell your ideas,

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yeah, you should probably think about building a brand.

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But understand you have to give up some of your personality,

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some of the things that you,

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because otherwise people can't understand.

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We're complex.

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People are complex.

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So if I show my full self, I can't, that's not a brand.

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A brand is about a box.

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And I keep using the cereal box

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because I think it's a really good example

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of a finite aspect of a brand.

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Because to be consistent, you have to live consistently

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with the attributes and the things

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that you are offering consistently.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions

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as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is gonna get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.