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You gotta stay ready, so you don't have to get ready.
After completely failing a rep on bench press one morning during a training session, my powerlifting coach crouches down in front me. She knows I'm pissed and beating myself up about that rep (yeah it's just one rep but I'm dramatic).
The first thing she says: "Did you eat before you came today?"
Simple question, which should have an obvious answer: YES you should eat something before heavy weightlifting (we were trying to PR aka personal record that day). But in true Ashleigh fashion, I didn't eat that day. I was in the habit of not eating at all before training.
So I told her no with a sad face and she said "you already know what I'm gonna say".
She smiled but I know she wanted to strangle me (she told me so a few weeks later over sushi). I did know what she was gonna say. We had talked about it before. Our bodies need energy to get through workouts and pre-workout isn't enough. I need carbs and a bit of fat and just something in my stomach to help my body push through.
Some people might not, but she and I both knew that I did.
By not eating, I wasn't creating the right environment for my body to be at it's best.
"Just like our bodies need the right fuel to perform, our brands need the right ecosystem to thrive."
The Brand Ecosystem Analogy
Why am I telling you this story about something as obvious as "when you do a strenuous activity your body will need energy to do it"? Because when I replayed that morning over in my mind a few weeks later, I realized that I was being a hypocrite. I wasn't setting myself up for success in something that means more to me every day.
I was working against myself.
I was doing something that I see business owners and creatives doing every day that I talk about how wrong it is:
- Focusing on a single tree and not the entire forest
- Hyperfocusing on outputs, not the quality of those outputs
- Not considering how all outputs contribute to the overall ecosystem of their brand
- Trying to hit a PR without giving your body the correct level of fuel it needs
We as entrepreneurs need to better understand our brands as living and breathing ecosystems. A collection of items living, breathing, interacting, and influencing each other.
What is an Ecosystem?
An ecosystem is defined as "a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment".
Ecosystems that we typically think of, like the ones in the rainforest or in the Amazon, have two main parts:
- The plants and animals/living organisms: Every ecosystem has common types of plants and animals that live, breathe, eat, grow, die, and interact with each other.
- The physical environment: The temperature, types of terrain, etc. that influence how the living organisms behave, live, and interact with each other and their environment.
Brands are exactly like an ecosystem. They are composed of living organisms that interact with each other and are influenced by the environment they're in. The environment of your brand dictates how those living organisms need to live, breathe, and behave to survive.
Ok so what is a brand ecosystem?
Brands are made up of two parts: Elements and Organisms.
Elements
Elements make up the environment that your brand creates for the organisms inside of it to survive (or to die). These elements are broken up into two categories: essential elements and adaptive elements.
Essential Elements
Essential Elements are core components of your brand that generally stay the same over time. A major shift in these elements can cause the entire ecosystem to become inhabitable over time.
These elements are:
- Purpose
- Mission
- Values
- Voice*
- Personality*
- Target Audience
*Voice and Personality are usually the first ones to change if change is needed.
Adaptive Elements
Adaptive elements change more freely over time as the brand grows, new trends arrive in the industry/society, and as the company and its culture changes.
These elements include:
- Target Audience
- Offerings
- Positioning
- Messaging
Changes to the adaptive elements don't necessarily mean that the entire ecosystem of the brand needs to change. However, if a fundamental change to an essential element occurs, a change has to happen to the adaptive ones as well.
Organisms
The organisms, or outputs, of your brand ecosystem are things that can be "touched" either digitally or physically. Those include:
- Brand identity or brand expression
- Website
- Brand social media platforms
- Physical brand collateral and marketing
Think of these organisms or brand touchpoints as expressions of a brand. Things that the audience can consume with their senses. These things are created internally by the brand and then expressed to the audience in specific ways on various platforms.
Why is having an aligned ecosystem important?
When the organisms of a brand are created in opposition to the elements or in complete disregard for them, your brand gives off this feeling that it has no idea who it is and who it wants to talk to. It's like if the beauty brand Maybelline decided to start selling home furniture.
Sure that furniture could be directed towards its target audience - but why would a beauty brand want to build sofas?
The Entrepreneur's Challenge
With the continued integration of social media and AI into every single second of our lives, entrepreneurs are being bombarded every day with shiny objects to help them cut corners in their business or become overnight successes based on the "strategies" and actions of what someone else thinks we should do.
This results in inefficient experimentation, such as:
- Constantly rebranding or redesigning websites because of some new course
- Following advice from "gurus" in YouTube videos
- Dumping hours into creating resources and marketing based on topics everyone else is doing
What you're really doing during these days of productivity and busy work are creating misalignments in your brand.
The Target Audience: Every Brand's Pivot Point
A key piece to the success of any brand is its target audience. Your brand's target audience is a pivot point: a central element of your brand around which other things revolve, but which can also initiate change within the brand's messaging, positioning, and offerings.
What makes your target audience also an adaptive element is that the way you speak to this audience and address their growing needs can shift over time due to factors such as:
- Aging
- Economic changes
- Societal changes
As your brand grows, it may make sense to start adapting or absorbing adjacent audiences or different subsets of your target audience to better align with that growth.
The True Essence of Your Brand
Your brand is much more than the tangible components or the outputs. A new website or a new logo will not save your business from a lack of understanding of the inner workings of your brand and what makes it different from your competitors.
That website or that logo is simply a component of a much larger ecosystem that is influenced by how strongly you understand the inner workings of your brand.
Put your focus on brand strategy first, then optimize your outputs second.
Key Takeaways
- Your brand is an ecosystem of interacting elements and organisms.
- Essential elements (like purpose and values) should remain relatively stable.
- Adaptive elements (like offerings and messaging) can change more freely.
- Alignment between all parts of your brand ecosystem is crucial for authenticity and success.
- Focus on understanding your brand strategy before obsessing over individual outputs.
- Your target audience is a pivotal element that can influence other parts of your brand ecosystem.
- Avoid inefficient experimentation by staying true to your brand's core elements.
Ready to Optimize Your Brand Ecosystem?
Understanding and maintaining a healthy brand ecosystem is crucial for sustainable business growth. But it's not always easy to do on your own. That's where we come in. Together, we can create a strategy that truly reflects your brand's essence and resonates with your target audience.
Don't let your potential go untapped – get in touch today and let's bring your vision to life!
