You have a quality product or service to sell.

So does everybody else in your category.

What’s your strategy to stand apart from all the other accountants, attorneys, consultants, contractors, dentists, manufacturers, tattoo or country music artists, home renovators, retailers, realtors, financial planners, wedding planners and software developers in your space?

It’s simple.

Simple, but not easy. Lean in and lean in hard for the straight answer from a shot glass filled with Tennessee moonshine.

You've got to have a highly distinctive, instantly recognizable Brand Identity. Once the Identity has been clearly defined and established, you will:

Leverage that core message to amplify your marketing efforts.
Build culture and community.
Create meaning and legacy.

When people resonate with your Identity, they purchase your products, buy into your culture and join your community. Brands such as Apple, NIKE, Patagonia, Ferrari, Lulu Lemon, Metallica, NIKE, Disney, Jack Daniel’s and countless others have applied this Identity-first formula for decades. This is how you create long-term, sustainable growth. Real money, real payoff, is in the long term.

This contradicts the short-term, instant R.O.I.-focused, gumball machine mindset so painfully common, with many of today’s marketers and their myopic focus on data and analytics. Few possess the inner resolve and plant enough commitment seeds to wait patiently and reap the rewards of knowing their true Brand Identity. However, one extraordinary leader from one otherwise ordinary company out of Mechanicsburg, PA, is demonstrating the value of that patience.

Kick the sand off your boots and find out why It’s Not About Your Country A$$ Product, on this segment of Leaders & Legends.

Back in the MTV era, monstrous success came to those with pretty faces and catchy videos. Classic rockers were outraged. They thought the focus should be on the music. In other words, their PRODUCT. Ultimately many product-focused musicians were left behind by the Bon Jovi’s, Van Halen’s and Whitney Houston’s who were dead serious about high end production and Brand Identity. There was a lot more involved than just creating a hip, fashionable image.

Image is fleeting. Identity is not.

Image is the Kardashians. Trendy, cheap and famous.

Identity is Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and now filling iconic venues like Fenway Park, a raspy-voiced former landscaper named Morgan Wallen.

They all have wicked chops. They all write, record and perform great music.

But they all possess something more than just the PRODUCT. Not saying the music is unimportant. Still a priority. However, the 20th century showed you could have hit records and a lucrative career when everybody dialled into the same TV and radio stations. Those days are never coming back. No more gatekeepers like MTV. Today, it’s the wild west. Every man and woman. Every act and every company – including yours – can leverage social media with unlimited opportunity for any business, brand or performer eager to earn audience attention.

Since attention itself is a form of currency, it’s refreshing to see it being earned the old-fashioned way by forward-thinking companies like West Shore Home. One of the rare few that have made significant investments in their Identity.

To be sure their products and services are exceptional. But, in a crowded, mature category like home renovation, plenty of other providers are also extolling high quality work wrapped in marketing speak promising fast, friendly and reliable service. But, unless you have something meaningful to say, marketing platitudes work against you. Similar to gritty, edgy and honest lyrics, the more a company can express their true inner self, there is more of a chance people take notice. The more confident you are with your own story and Identity - beyond the product – and share that on video, the more people will be intrigued to learn more.

Starting in 2006 with a toolbelt and a landline telephone, B.J. Werzyn has built a robust business and brand now has 37 locations in 17 states. Generating $5.5 million in daily sales revenue and upwards of 13,000 job applications a month, West Shore Home has become a flywheel of long-term prosperity resting confidently on a rock-solid foundation of Brand Identity.

All the traditional, quick-fix, marketing rules are wrong. Because the strategic conversation never begins with the two most important questions of all:

#1. Who ARE We …. Beyond our products and services?

#2. Why in the name of all things sacred like ice cold beer, The Bible, neon rainbows and charcoal-mellowed whiskey should anyone BELIEVE us?

Your unique Identity - now communicated through social media - won’t send your business or brand into the stratosphere by itself. But whether you are into Cajun cookin’, banjo pickin’ mountain, climbin’, fly fishin’, or flannel wearin’ those parts of your Identity is what moves people to bond with you. Separates you from typical and predictable sales-driven, cliché-ridden language emphasizing “features, advantages and benefits.” Anyone can pitch and promote “cleaner, white, brighter”. Few can take a public stand with their own Identity and Beliefs. To be perceived as truly different from all the rest, you will have to supply the digital proof. What stops you from producing your own equivalent, your own version of “Deliver Greatness?”

It’s ridiculously easy to delegate the creation of another conventional marketing turd for mass consumption. No matter how much polish and finesse you apply, it’s still crap. People won’t buy it.

They want a rough edge, a genuine voice and real stories that make a human connection like the above video with a 95-year old World War Two veteran.

Discovering your true Identity … far beyond your Country A$$ Products and Services, will draw like-minded people towards you. Take a page from the B.J. Werzyn, West Shore Home and Morgan Wallen playbook. Discover you true Identity. Speak in your own voice. Step into your true greatness.

Or not.

“Cutoff flannel and a mullet. That's what I'm rolling with. If you see me onstage, that's what it's gonna be”.
MORGAN WALLEN

p.s… The Economist reports that in the first half of 2023, country streams in the U.S. have risen 20% overall and Morgan Wallen is responsible for 40% of that growth. The native of Knoxville, Tennessee is the rising tide lifting all country music boats with a recent poll conducted by YouGov indicating the genre has become more popular in America than hip-hop and R&B. And you can trace the beginning of this phenomenal journey with the first single as Morgan explains it’s just the way he talks.

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