It's Time for Me to Stop Hiding Behind My Logo
Sometimes, I am really full of crap.
It was only a week or so ago, I was bloviating to a room full of people in Louisiana, telling them all to do something that I wasn't doing myself.
"Do as I say, not as I do," I might as well have said.
The advice was to be open about who you are in your video marketing, to prominently integrate your own story into your marketing, and to stop hiding behind a logo.
If you're running a small business or a small nonprofit, the fact is, the biggest and most compelling part of your organization... is you. The story of who you are, why you're here and what you stand for. People want to hear and connect with that. It's just more interesting.
People want to connect with people. Not with big corporations or faceless entities.
Bigger the Bettter
The problem is, many of us have grown up watching businesses and brands try to look as "big" as possible.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen a really smart and otherwise successful entrepreneur slather layer upon layer of bullshit in their marketing material to create the illusion that his business isn't just one guy operating out of his home office.
They've convinced themselves that their clients or customers won't show up unless the business projects a slick, big-time image. But is that really true?
Or, how many nonprofits are there that are pretty much led (and operated) by just one or two people? And yet, you go to their website or social media channels, and all you see is a logo, and a whole bunch of talking points about their issue - but nothing about that super-awesome, passionate person who's running the whole shebang?
Practicing What We Preach
And in many ways, I've been guilty of this myself.
Beyond Measure Media is made up of just two people - me and Michele. That's it.
Clearly, this is a small business where WE are the product: Two video storytellers who are passionate about telling compelling video stories that spark action. When you do business with Beyond Measure Media, that is what you get: Us.
But (before the day I wrote this blog post) you'd never have known that by visiting our Facebook or Twitter pages. We have been literally hiding behind our business name and logo...exactly what we've been telling other people not to do.
We had been trying to look extremely professional, but the real product of Beyond Measure Media - US - got lost in the process.
So we've fixed it. Now, when you go to those social media channels, you see me and Michele. We've even renamed the accounts to include our names.
Layers of Pretension
The truth is, we like what we do. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it. And we really don't have any plans to grow our business into a giant empire with dozens or hundreds of employees. It isn't our dream.
Our dream is this. We're already living it: Doing our thing with clients we truly love. It's as simple as that.
For our business, we think it's the right move. It was time to strip away the layers of pretension and show potential clients and partners who we really are, and why we're here.
It's time we stopped hiding behind a logo.
And it's time we got super clear in all our marketing efforts about what "Beyond Measure Media" really is: Two dependable and passionate people who get out of bed every single day with excitement and passion about telling video stories from the heart.
Should your business or organization do more of that, too?
