Brand & Positioning Insights

Short, practical perspectives on market stance, differentiation, and brand strategy — focused on what actually moves the needle for founder‑led service firms.

What Ancient Greece Taught Us About Innovation

What Ancient Greece Taught Us About Innovation

It’s a little disturbing to realize how much of what we do is simply imitation. If you start analyzing your business objectively, you’ll probably come to the (somewhat depressing) realizing that a lot of it is simply rehashed ideas and behaviors adopted from your competitors, the way you did things …

Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing

Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing

Skip vanity metrics and chase real relationships. Engage, listen, and give value. Grow steadily without viral fantasies. Show up where your audience lives. Create original work people actually care about.

After Money, then What?

After Money, then What?

At larger companies, the phrase “maximize shareholder value” has become a trite summary of what they believe is their core purpose. At smaller companies, it’s usually translated into plain English: “Make the owners a bunch of money.” If you dig deeper, the actual purpose is almost always different. …

Clear Purpose, Clear Decisions

Clear Purpose, Clear Decisions

Stop hemming and hawing. A clear purpose turns messy choices into reflex, rallies your team, justifies tough sacrifices, and keeps you advancing like a disciplined chess player while competitors scramble.

Purpose-Driven Companies Make More Money

Purpose-Driven Companies Make More Money

A slogan won't cut it. When purpose saturates every role, performance explodes. The data's staggering and the wake up call stings. Get uncomfortable, get aligned, and watch revenue multiply.

The Power of the Purpose-Driven Company

The Power of the Purpose-Driven Company

Picture this: You’re standing in the middle of a beautiful meadow on a sunny day. In the middle of this meadow is a large, heavy rock. Your assignment is to move that rock. So, you tie a rope around it, and you start pulling to the north. It’s heavy, but you’re determined to make it happen, so you p…

What's Your Business Really All About?

What's Your Business Really All About?

Purpose isn't a slogan. Assemble a team, share stories, ask whys, and craft a bold phrase. Keep it short, stop committee creep, and make it worthy of a flag.

What's Your Company's Internal Compass?

What's Your Company's Internal Compass?

One of the hardest questions we ask in our discovery workshops is also one of the simplest and most fundamental: “Why does your company exist?” You’d think most CEOs would have a ready (and passionate) response to that question, but most don’t. When asked that question, they usually keep their compo…

What is Design Thinking?

What is Design Thinking?

There’s a common thread between companies like Tesla, Airbnb, Uber, SpaceX, Spotify, Square, Netflix and others that have successfully overturned decades of convention and built business empires around solutions that rendered their competitors almost instantly obsolete. It’s called “design thinking,…

The 5 Key Customer Motivators

The 5 Key Customer Motivators

Far too many experiences are designed around the assumption that people want to be engaging with them. It’s an easy mistake to make. If you’re designing, say, an ecommerce site, it would be natural to assume your customers have an internal drive to find a product they want, add it to their cart, a…

The 50 Most Popular Brand Colors

The 50 Most Popular Brand Colors

While working on a branding project a few weeks ago, I happened to wonder what colors were most frequently used in brand identities. I started poking around online, feeling sure someone had already done this research and neatly organized the results. However, I wasn’t really satisfied with what I fo…