The Secret Sauce Behind Memorable Brands

Two months ago, I helped organise a client's event called Room Full of Referrals. Like I said in my original email about it, I'm not entirely convinced the name gets across what the event was actually about.

It sounds like the kind of event you walk into ready to SELL and be SOLD TO. Someone asks you what you do and you either over-explain or dodge the question. You meet precisely seven mortgage brokers. Someone hands you a business card with a headshot on it from at least 15 years ago. You wonder why no one is eating the hors d'oeuvres and mournfully turn the server away lest you unwittingly perform a faux pas. As you leave, you visibly relax your shoulders, before you wonder whether you’re supposed to follow up with the three people who suggested you grab a coffee sometime.

Yeaaah, so that's not what this event was lol.

It wasn't about collecting as many business cards as possible. It wasn't about honing your elevator pitch. It wasn't even really about selling AT ALL.

It was about understanding how people behave, communicate, and make decisions in order to build stronger relationships.

The framework the event used was DISC, aka corporate Hogwarts Houses:

• Dominance: Direct, decisive, results-driven (Slytherin 🐍)
• Influence: Outgoing, enthusiastic, persuasive (Gryffindor 🦁)
• Steadiness: Dependable, collaborative, relationship-focused (Hufflepuff 🦡)
• Conscientious: Analytical, precise, detail-oriented (Ravenclaw 🦅)

My own result was pretty unsurprising. I was sorted into Gryffindor rated highest in Influence, with Dominance and Steadiness equal second by a point... and only three points for Conscientious lol.

For anyone who knows me, it probably explains a lot.

But that wasn't even the interesting part—nor was it the most relevant part to this Brief. That came later, when we were doing the campaign post-mortem.

Now, this might not sound all that eye-opening, but different people experienced the event in completely different ways.

A Mr. Dominance questioned the value of the whole event because it lacked tangible results and hard metrics (all of the case studies were largely anecdotal). Meanwhile, a Mr. Steadiness bloody LOVED IT as it allowed him to recognise the unique skills he brought to his business, and helped him better understand his business partner.

This made perfect sense to me. Steadies are relationship-focused, so of course they were the most likely to have found meaning in an event about building better relationships. Contrast with the results-driven Dominants, or even the outgoing Influencers, and of course there would be a bell curve towards less positive feedback... because the D/I groups believe they "already know" how to network.

And THAT RIGHT THERE is how so many of us fuck up our marketing.

To rip off the most ripped-off copywriter in history, John Carlton:

"Business owners often assume their own preferences reflect their customer's preferences."

Essentially: Your default style—how you like to communicate, what you find meaning in, what you value, what you think counts as "proof"—is not universal. And it's not always what your audience actually needs from you.

...Which brings me to the subject of Brief #2. It's time to reveal the "secret sauce".

DISC is a framework that helps you understand people's behaviours. But the framework I'm sharing in this Brief helps you better understand the motivations behind those behaviours.

This is important because while behaviours are useful to understand and recognise in direct interactions—the whole point of the event—if you want to build a memorable brand, you also need to understand the driving forces behind people's actions. It's a step further back in the chain.

The framework has actually gone out of vogue in recent years amongst the brand strategists I speak to. They claim it's fluffy. Which is why I usually keep it as a surprise when I write about it these days, rather than just running with it publicly.

(Plus it makes for a bit of intrigue when selling a paid newsletter. 😉)

Depending how you found your way to reading this, you may have already come across the framework I'm about to share. It may have been referenced in the post, email or ad you clicked to get here. For a while, it formed the core of my welcome email series, and it's still a component of my current welcome email—although neither cover it in the level of detail I'm about to in this Brief.

So this may not seem like a surprise to you. You may believe the reveal is already spoiled. I guess you'll have to read and see. (I've got a few tricks up my sleeve yet!)

For the rest of you who have NFI what I'm talking about, I'd like to introduce you to a brand framework I use when I help clients with their brand positioning.

Of course, I'm talking about...

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...Oh.

Um.

Sorry.

This is the free-to-read part of this Brief.

If you're a subscriber, just scroll on down to keep reading—and make sure you're logged in!

For the rest of you... if you wanna know the secret sauce, sign up here.