In recent days we have been asked to share more and more about our past work in branding, and brand identity design. Concept design is our specialty, but it is an abstract thing to talk about: ‘concepting.’
‘What work do you do, DK?’
A lot. Of things. But, at the center, the one thing I do well is help people discover, through conversations, who it is that they really are.
That.
That is what I do.
I say this and then people might ask further questions. Most of the time, most of the people will ask the kinds of boring questions like:
‘But how do you make money?’
or
‘Where are you from?’
or worse
‘But really, where are you from?’
Yeesh. [For a primer on why that’s a bad idea, check out Taiye Selasi‘s TED talk, ‘Don’t ask me where I’m from, ask me where I’m local’]
When I see these questions coming out of people’s mouths, I basically just end the conversations and go back to typing my blogs.
(Like now).
More broad-minded people might put it like this:
‘What is your specialty?’
Fair enough. And I will be direct. I don’t have to be wishy-washy about it. I know what I do. So I say it. I say, ‘Concepting.’ I really really don’t have to ‘sell’ this. It’s kind of like, if you don’t see the value, right away, then you’re probably not a fit, anyway, because… [deleted]… but honestly, I don’t think you will.
What’s interesting is inside you: go find that. Find it out for yourself. (HT Jiddu Krishnamurthi). In short, if someone is smart and has been in business more than five years, then they will know the value of working with someone who knows what they are doing instead of investing money and time into the relationship only to wind up with something underwhelming, at the end.
My mentor, JM, taught me this. (Thank you for hiring DK more than once, J. I appreciate that. As, I know and understand, you do, too. We have a good awareness of the qualities of each other. Cool.) Speaking of mentors, there was another one who had also been a client, too. He helped me see that you don’t want to promise something cool and then turn out crappy results. You want to deliver. He said: I like to underpromise, and overdeliver. (HT DE. I still remember when you told me that.)
So yeah. The first filter for me in assessing if I want to share more about DK is, ‘Is this person serious about their work?’ If they are keen, and curious, genuine, and probably number one for me is if they are sincere, then sure. I’ll share the link. I always used to send it to prospective customers, because, even if they don’t want to work with me or I don’t want to work with them, perhaps they will learn something on their own.
The link is this one, a Slideshare called ‘The Brand Gap.’ I have referred more than 100 people to this link because I think they might find out something. Sometimes helping people figure things out for themselves is the best way to be of use in doing what I said I do, at the start of this post. Namely, I help people figure out who it is they really are.
A big gig.
Confused about your brand story? This might help..
Disclosure: No one is paying me to share this link.