How NOT To Let Blind Spots Break Your Brand

Every organisation – regardless of size – lives and breathes its own culture.

Your culture defines how your team interacts with each other and the outside world. This includes your customers, partners, collaborators, and suppliers. These interactions are made through all your marketing and communications. Every touch point. And that creates your brand.  

culture is brand

Brand = your audiences’ expectations of you. 

These expectations are influenced by their experiences with every aspect of your business. And these experiences are driven by your culture. Every decision, action, or behaviour of your people, is driven by values.

See how culture and brand are one and the same? 

It is necessary to understand what your existing culture is, what it ought to be, and deliberately shape it to that. Because it has the potential to be an electromagnet culture, one that is positively energized and pulls awesome people to it. Customers and top talent alike.

 

Creating an electromagnetic culture

At The Sponge, we want to make sure that everyone in our team feels that their voices are being heard. We all work towards a common goal. We are purpose-driven, so much so that we keep our team health in check to ensure we don’t digress from our core purpose.

As a purposeful branding agency that is led by values, we regularly take stock of our values so we can identify gaps. By doing so, we unlock the energy we desire from the people we interact with on a daily basis. 

Each year, we conduct our team values assessment. This is where we reflect on our current values. And this helps us diagnose blind spots for our organisation.

The year’s assessment brought two values to our attention: profitability and financial stability. After workshopping as a team, this showed us that our giving was proportionally too high.

We shaped the definition of the value together. Our values are a consensus, not a direction to conform to. Everyone has a voice. Everyone’s contribution is acknowledged and considered.

The Sponge Culture

Our newest Value is:

Profitably Abundant

Our financial vitality enables us to comfortably work in our geniuses and be the greatest possible benefit for our families, clients, communities and the world.

It is now part of our daily considerations for decisions and directs our behavior.

Here are snippets from some of our team about our new value.

 

Jess

What appeals to me in this new value is the two parts it contains. One is working “in our geniuses”. Because we can be profitable, but if it doesn’t inspire us and let us work in a way that we love and are good at, then profitability becomes meaningless. The other part is the “benefit for our families, clients, communities and the world”. I feel this is the real purpose of profits and abundance. The reason we strive for this is to be the better versions of ourselves and thus positively impact the people around us. In the end, it’s not really about the money. 

 

Eden

I think this value is essential in the sense that it enhances our ability to give. One of our key missions is to help other businesses to create more impact on the community. This will only be possible if we have enough financial resources to keep the cycle. I think it’s about keeping the balance to set things constantly in motion. 

 

Sol

Abundantly Profitability is very important because it unifies two special concepts – one can’t exist without the other. When we live in abundancy (spiritual, mental, creative) we instantly create the profit we want to see in our endeavours. It’s about putting the right energy in our creations and being open and grateful for the income, whatever it is.

 

Muzammil

Abundant Profitability is appealing because it signals stability for my family to continue to live life without worry. Our financial stability as workers come from great profit, and great profit comes from good projects. We have to be positive and look for clients in the right places. The right way to make profit is looking for the right relationships with the right people.  

 

Abundant profitability helps us shape our behaviour as a team, the decisions we make, and the way we move forward to fulfill our purpose. The full set of our values can be seen on our website.

 

Aligning Your Culture

We encourage you to do a values assessment periodically. Invite your team members to contribute their thoughts about your existing and desired values. Facilitate a soulful discussion out of these. 

It is crucial that your leadership team are fully invested in the values and live and breathe them. Otherwise, it will fail. Your values are modeled by your leaders. Not what you display on your wall.

An aligned and electrified culture creates exceptional experiences for the team, customers, and prospects. It is how rave-worthy expectations are created for your brand.

If you want a brand worth raving about, you need a culture worth raving about.

Thoughts?

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Humbling Words From Awesome People

  • The Sponge is enabling small business to focus on essential elements of marketing/strategy. I used to go in circles and best guess engagement with customers; I didn’t understand my target market. The Sponge gave me a real wake-up call: To realise how much time and money I was throwing away for no return. The learning was interesting and interactive. Now, I feel in control and focused.

    Sue Lea Timely Business Solutions
  • We were in the middle of re-branding and wanted to know how better to market our product including how better to tell our story. This webinar provided practical marketing techniques, and rationale to explain the benefit of this strategy. The 'light bulb' moment for me was making the connection between the power of storytelling and marketing our brand.

    Susan Perry CEO CommunityGro
  • Branding is a familiar concept to comms & marketing professionals like myself. But it’s often a mystery to other staff, and for brand to be authentic, unique and indispensable they all need to be on board. This training helped me clarify branding to everyone in our organisation. Now they’re all part of the brand redevelopment crew, identifying and sharing stories that resonate with our values and purpose. Thanks, Luke, for launching our journey to uncover the brand that ‘comes from within’.

    Avril Janks Communications and Marketing Coordinator
  • The Sponge’s perceptive sensibility guarantees a perfect match between your business and its presentation to the world. They makes your values, ethics, goals, and the 'feel' of your business shine through every aspect of your brand.

    Geoff Walker Sydney Massage Time Pty Ltd
  • I recommend The Sponge’s services to new and established organizations who are looking to differentiate themselves from the “ordinary” and stand out from the crowd.

    Annette Wright InfoGenesis Pty Limited
  • One of Luke’s talents is his ability to move people and organizations from the creative to the innovative, commercializing ideas and inventions.

    Rodney Marks Hoax Speaker
  • I have had The Sponge involved in several IT based projects over my years working as a Software Developer. Each project has seen results that have exceeded expectations and I highly recommend them.

    Shane Wisniewski Wesfarmers Industrial and Safety
  • I usually don’t believe in one stop shops, because of the inability to be great across many areas, but The Sponge truly are the one stop shop for brand creation, innovation and lead generation.

    Mark Capelin Tribe Social Fitness
  • Luke and the crew at the Sponge helped set up our Corporate image as it stands today. They were extremely helpful and patient. They took the time to understand our business and brainstormed with us some of the essential elements and came up with various images until we were happy with the final one. Can't recommend Luke and his team enough. Thanks again Luke.

    Kim Lie Jom Complete Health Chiropractic
  • The Sponge team are great to work with. They translate your ideas and vision into something real and tangible and they truly want to make an impact to your business strategy with their valuable insights. We have been using them for over 10 years and would highly recommend their expertise.

    M Levonian William, Thyme & Prophet / Report Factory
  • A great vibe and energy brought to every project that The Sponge have led for me. Easy to work with, quick on the uptake of direction and prompt service. Will definitely be using The Sponge again and highly recommend.

    Lucette King NSW Department of Education
  • High level strategic thinking and their creativity makes them stand out. Quick turn around time and reasonable price make them the winner every single time.

    Syed Mujtuba Crescent Wealth
  • Awesome company with awesome creativity. After working with them over 2 years, The Sponge has successfully turned me from a happy customer into a raving fan!

    Jeremy Chen Claytan Australia
  • Great creative proactive company. Could not be happier with the works they both provided and suggested. Now our go to company for branding.

    Ross Thompson JHA Engineers
  • Awesome design. Easy to work with. Jobs are completed quickly. Highly recommended.

    Alexander Bont BONT
  • Luke and the team at the Sponge are truly artisans of their craft. They're AWARE, they DARE and DELIVER.

    Claude Di Ciano Richardson & Wrench Willoughby
  • Love their vision, love their work and mostly love the team!

    C. S. Chen Claytan Australia
  • The Sponge truly immersed themselves into our business, our team and our culture to develop a brand that not only captured our essence but more importantly; expressed it to the world.

    Mende Seljanovski Enth° Projects
  • The Sponge have been outstanding to work with. Their expertise, dedication and outstanding quality of work is second to none. I am grateful for their input into the design of our brand and website.

    Matt Malouf The Fortune Institute
  • Our brand looks better than we could have dreamed and The Sponge team managed to squeeze so much meaning into it that our prospects really get a sense of how we can help them.

    Darren Vardy Insolvency Options

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