Benj has built an exceptional team that leads and challenges clients in discovering and communicating the uniqueness of their businesses. Benj strongly believes the power of this team has a lot to do with our clients' success. In his role as Creative Director, Benj combines his eye for brand and his brain for the "third option" to help lead the design team to excellence.
Great brands don’t just create a brand… they implement it deeply. If you’ve followed any of my recent posts, you know that we’ve been taking a deeper dive into how you can amplify your brand. This time, we’re talking about the rollout. Rolling out a new brand strategy and/or visual identity presents a critical opportunity...
Does your sales/marketing team sound like any of the following? “We do the same thing they do.” “You’ll like us better.” “We have better service.” Expecting to win deals with that pitch is like digging a hole in quicksand. In business, your value proposition is the great X multiplier. Nothing can create more momentum than...
Jim Collins’ Good to Great book gave us the hedgehog concept. Daniel Coyle’s Culture Code tells us that a common purpose is the foundation of any culture. At Syrup, we help companies articulate their Core Focus. This includes all the goodness above and a few other critical components… but then what? We teach our clients...
Great brands don’t just create a brand… they implement it deeply. In this series, we’re taking a deeper dive into how you can amplify your brand. Today we start with vision. Marines, sports teams, civil movements… these are all teams that excel, because they are unified around a common mission. Often companies get formed around a...
Do you know how you are being judged? Your website. A few days ago, Kraig Guffey wrote about how we subconsciously judge or leave websites that don’t load fast enough. I leave websites that look old, dated, boring, or otherwise not credible. Some people look for depth of substance in your blog or white papers,...
Some organizations are mission-driven, some are people-driven, some are results-driven, and some are values-driven. What drives you can define you, for better or for worse. So which are you? Most of us would like to say we are all four, but we have to keep in mind there are real ramifications for which way we...
Recently we made a key new hire to our team. After about a week she made a comment, “Syrup is the unicorn of the agency world.” There was a lot behind her comment, but she was referring to the fact that on the spectrum of processes to creativity, we choose both. And on the spectrum...
I recently introduced the team to Six Hat Thinking as a way to improve our brainstorms and how we think about issues. Six Hat Thinking is a system that was designed by Edward de Bono. It’s used in group discussions, brainstorms, and individual thinking that includes, you guessed it, six different “hats.” This new way of...
Who are your customers? Really. Think about it. (“Everyone” is not an answer here.) Now how often do you talk to them? I’m not talking about marketing to them; I mean actually talking to them and getting to know them. In order to serve your customers well, you have to listen to and understand them. It’s...
Sustainable growth is earned the hard way. There are no shortcuts. You need strategies, tactics, systems, processes, and enough time to allow these things to bear fruit. However, there are several methods for creating short-term boosts. Here are three ways to jumpstart growth for your business: Wake up your “Sleeping Beauties.” Do you have past clients that...
