Podcast appearances and mentions of lindsay pedersen

Is being the smartest person in the room holding you — and your business — back? What if the biggest leadership flex isn't personal brilliance, but building a team that outshines you? In this episode of North Star Leaders, Lindsay Pedersen sits down with Joe Davy, CEO of Banzai — a high-growth SaaS company giving marketers AI-powered “superpowers” through tools like Demio, OpenReel, and Create Studio. Joe opens up about his evolution from an ambitious solo founder to a leader who believes the smartest move is surrounding yourself with people who are better than you. From organizational behavior to AI-driven marketing, Joe shares candid insights on how he learned to let go of ego, embrace complexity, and scale both his company and his mindset. You'll hear them discuss: People-first leadership  - Why building a team you enjoy and trust is more powerful than being the hero with all the answers. Letting go of ego - How Joe stopped trying to outsmart people problems and started hiring people who outsmarted him. Soft skills supremacy - Why emotional intelligence, motivation, and communication aren't “nice to have” — they're mission-critical. The education gap - How traditional schooling trains us to win alone - and why that's a dangerous setup for future leaders. Learning through fire - Joe's belief that the best way to grow is to get thrown into the rapids — and sometimes fall in. Athletics and leadership - The surprising ways team sports prepare you better for leadership than most MBA programs. AI in marketing - How Banzai is creating seamless, scalable tools that give marketers an edge in an attention-fractured world. Resources: Joe Davy on the Banzai | LinkedIn | X (Twitter) Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

Could a unicorn pillow or a spinning toy change the face of the tech industry? In this episode, Lindsay Pedersen talks with Debbie Sterling, founder and CEO of GoldieBlox, about how a simple idea to get more girls into engineering turned into a multimedia movement. Debbie shares the story behind building a brand that challenges gender stereotypes in toys, the decision to grow as a for-profit business, and what it takes to stay playful and purposeful as a leader. This is a conversation full of insight, honesty, and practical inspiration for anyone building something with heart. You'll hear them discuss: Representation - the moment Debbie realized how few women were in her engineering classes and how that sparked a mission to change the narrative. Stereotypes - why toys still fall into “pink” and “blue” aisles, and how GoldieBlox is working to redefine what's seen as “for girls.” Evolution - how GoldieBlox has grown from building toys to creating videos, apps, and games that make STEM fun and accessible. Business model - what influenced the choice to go for-profit and how that decision has shaped the company's impact and reach. Partnerships - how working with organizations like Black Girls Code is helping to expand access to high-quality, free STEM content. Culture - how the company has matured over time and what it looks like to stay focused without losing its creative spirit. Wellbeing - the simple but powerful habits Debbie relies on to stay energized, present, and effective as a leader. Resources: Debbie Sterling on the GoldieBlox | GoldieBlox Instagram | GoldieBlox YouTube | LinkedIn Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

How much do you really listen to those around you, and how much could you be missing? In this episode of North Star Leadership Podcast, Joe Levy joins Lindsay Pedersen and shares deep insights on leadership, the challenges of leading in a tech-driven world, and the underestimated power of simply listening. With years of experience navigating complex organizations and projects, Joe offers practical advice on how we can improve our leadership approach by embracing empathy and curiosity. You'll hear them discuss: The value of listening more than speaking: Joe highlights the importance of using the ratio of "two ears, one mouth" in leadership, explaining that great leaders often learn more from listening than from speaking. The complexities of the software development world: Joe talks about how software projects often go unnoticed, despite the amount of emotional and intellectual investment behind them. The misunderstood discipline of software development: Many projects in tech never see the light of day, leading to frustration and a lack of appreciation for the work that goes into it. Leadership is about empathy: Joe shares how genuinely caring about the people you work with can help you uncover their real needs and challenges. The power of curiosity in leadership: Effective leaders aren't just there to give answers but to ask the right questions that allow their team members to express themselves and feel heard. The importance of rest: Joe discusses the science behind rest and why it is essential for better performance, referring to a book called "Rest" that challenges the culture of overwork. The challenge of breaking habits: As a former caffeine addict, Joe shares his journey of quitting caffeine and how making that shift led to more balance and well-being. Resources: Joe Levy on the Uplevel | LinkedIn Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

Are you wasting the power of your own laptop? For years, we've been conditioned to think that serious computing happens in the cloud while our local machines sit idle. But what if that's outdated thinking? In this episode of the North Star Leadership Podcast, Jordan Tigani, CEO and co-founder of MotherDuck, joins Lindsay Pedersen and challenges conventional wisdom on cloud computing, marketing, and leadership. He shares hard-won lessons from his time at Google, the reality check he got in the startup world, and why scaling a company is as much about people as it is about technology. You'll hear them discuss: The Cloud vs. Your Laptop: Why modern hardware is more powerful than we give it credit for—and how MotherDuck is changing the game. The assumption that computation must happen in the cloud is outdated, and Jordan explains how leveraging local machines can lead to more efficient and cost-effective workflows. Marketing as War: The hard truth Jordan learned after leaving Google—great tech alone doesn't win, visibility does. At Google, marketing seemed almost irrelevant, but in the startup world, he realized that fighting for attention is just as important as building great products. From Executive to Founder: The biggest mindset shifts when moving from a massive company to running your own. Jordan shares how the safety nets of big corporations make you blind to the realities of fundraising, brand-building, and assembling a team from scratch. The Art of Scaling: How leadership evolves as a company grows from a small, tight-knit team to a structured organization. As MotherDuck has expanded to 55 people, Jordan talks about the need for clear communication, hiring the right leaders, and maintaining company values while growing. Raising the Stakes: The thrilling (and terrifying) reality of building a company where people truly care about the outcome. Unlike in a large corporation where the stakes feel more abstract, leading a startup means every decision directly impacts the team, the vision, and the future of the business. Resources: Jordan Tigani on the MotherDuck Web | LinkedIn Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

What if the biggest obstacle to innovation isn't competition—but slow decision-making? Is slow decision making holding you back? In this episode of North Star Leadership, Lindsay Pedersen sits down with Jennifer Nuckles, Chairperson & CEO of R-Zero, to explore what it takes to lead across industries—from CPG to gaming, fintech, and health tech. Jennifer shares hard-won lessons on risk-taking, moving fast, and why leading with influence beats leading with authority. Whether you're a brand strategist, executive, or aspiring CEO, this conversation is packed with insights on navigating leadership at every level. Key Takeaways: Leadership Beyond Titles: The best leaders don't rely on authority—they influence, inspire, and align people toward a common goal. Making the Leap to CEO: The shift from CMO to CEO means owning every decision, from office space to product launches. The stakes are higher, but so is the impact. Lessons from CPG to Tech: Traditional industries can be slow-moving, while tech embraces speed and risk. Jennifer explains why she left CPG to scale businesses at hyper-growth speeds. Risk & Reward: Why moving fast—even if it means breaking things—is essential for companies aiming for exponential, rather than incremental, growth. The Power of Cross-Industry Experience: Jennifer's career spans CPG, fintech, gaming, and health tech. She shares why great leadership transcends industries. The Hidden Challenge of Decision-Making: The biggest bottleneck in large organizations? Layers of approval. Jennifer contrasts CPG's cautious approach with tech's real-time agility. Why Every CEO Needs Experts: Great leaders know their strengths—and surround themselves with the best minds to fill the gaps. Resources: Jennifer Nuckles on LinkedIn I R-Zero Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

What if the key to long-term business success isn't just about strategy or product—what if it's about the people you choose to surround yourself with? In this episode of the North Star Leaders Podcast, Lindsay Pedersen speaks with Lynn Baranowski, CEO of Avalyn Pharma, about leading a purpose-driven company in the biotech and pharma industry. Lynn shares her journey of navigating a complex industry while prioritizing mission-driven work that impacts patients' lives. She reflects on how making intentional choices about team dynamics and leadership has a profound impact on both the company's trajectory and her own personal leadership journey. They dive into leadership principles, team-building, and balancing economic success with the greater good. You'll hear them discuss: Lynn's career journey in the biotech space and how choosing the right people has been a cornerstone of her success and personal growth. How investing in a team that aligns with your mission isn't just about short-term results, but long-term sustainability for both the business and individual well-being. The challenges of maintaining alignment between team culture, business goals, and values, and why it's worth the effort. Lynn's approach to decision-making, especially when it comes to keeping the right people on board for the long haul. How she navigates the pressures of leadership while maintaining a focus on her own wellness and creating space for others to thrive. Practical advice for leaders on how to build a supportive and high-performing team that will sustain business growth and personal well-being over time. Resources Lyn Baranowski LinkedIn | Avalyn Pharma Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

What happens when marketing stops being just about transactions and becomes a true driver of brand loyalty and business growth? In this episode, Lindsay Pedersen dives into the world of marketing with Jessica Shapiro, CMO at LiveRamp, to uncover how businesses can create meaningful connections with customers while delivering measurable value. You'll hear them discuss: The human side of marketing where understanding people—both customers and team members—and drives Jessica's success as a marketing leader. The similarities and differences between marketing to businesses and consumers, from sales cycles to customer relationships. Learn how LiveRamp enables companies to securely share data to drive better ad targeting, improve ROI, and create relevant customer experiences without compromising privacy. Finding the right leadership fit and why a CEO's belief in the power of brand is essential for successful marketing leadership. Balancing the fine line between delighting customers with relevant ads and avoiding a "creepy" overreach in personalization. Collaboration is the ****critical role of marketing in supporting sales teams and building a unified approach to customer engagement. Resources: Jessica Shapiro on LiveRamp | LinkedIn  Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! | Connect with me on LinkedIn

What's the one thing you do better than anyone else? And how can understanding this unique strength transform the way you work and lead? In this episode of North Star Leadership Podcast, Lindsay Pedersen sits down with Court Lorenzini, past CEO of Docusign, to explore the concept of “superpowers” and their critical role in personal and professional success. Court shares his journey of creating a framework for identifying these innate strengths, offering practical advice for leaders and teams striving to unlock their full potential. Defining your superpower: Discover the unique skill or talent that sets you apart and learn how to leverage it effectively. Team dynamics: Why building teams with complementary strengths is essential for success—and how mismatched roles can lead to failure. Strengths over weaknesses: Focus on amplifying what people are naturally great at rather than fixing weaknesses. The "dark side" of superpowers: How every strength can have a downside—and how awareness can mitigate its impact. Practical application: Aligning individual superpowers with organizational goals for better performance and fulfillment. Whether you're a leader, entrepreneur, or team member, this episode will inspire you to uncover your superpower and harness the power of others to achieve remarkable results. Resources: Court Lorenzini on LinkedIn Founder Nexus on the Web | LinkedIn Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

How do you create a brand that stands the test of time? In this episode of North Star Leaders, Lindsay Pedersen sits down with Cammie Dunaway, CMO of Duolingo and Yahoo, among other Hall of Fame companies, to discuss what it really takes to build a lasting brand. They dive into the key moments of Cammie's career and the lessons she's learned, from navigating career phases to understanding the critical role CEOs play in shaping their company's brand. Plus, they talk about why long-term brand value is crucial for businesses looking to thrive beyond short-term performance metrics. Career Phases: Cammie breaks down the three stages of a career—learning, earning, and returning—and how each phase impacts professional decisions. The CEO's Role in Branding: Cammie discusses why CEOs need to own the brand, ensuring that every decision reflects the company's core values. Building Long-Term Brand Value: The conversation highlights why brands need consistency, not just performance marketing, to build lasting customer loyalty. Changing Investor Priorities: Investors are shifting focus, recognizing that building a strong brand is key to long-term business success, beyond just short-term growth. Balancing Work and Joy: Cammie reflects on how her husband's perspective on her happiness at work influenced her career choices and the importance of finding joy in what you do. Resources: Cammie Dunaway on LinkedIn Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

What's the secret to pitching a compelling business idea? In this episode of North Star Leaders, Lindsay Pedersen talks with Greg Gottesman, co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs (PSL), about the art of storytelling in startups, using AI to scale businesses, and the journey of transforming ideas into thriving companies. They also explore Greg's transition from venture capital to the startup world, sharing insights on building companies and the transformative role of AI in business. Storytelling as Strategy: Greg emphasizes the importance of a clear, engaging narrative to captivate investors, customers, and team members from the start. Crafting a Winning Pitch: He provides tips on how a well-told story can make complex business ideas relatable, laying the foundation for funding and growth. Connecting with Investors: A strong narrative evokes emotion, helping investors envision the future impact of a business. AI's Role in Startups: PSL utilizes AI tools to accelerate development, producing code and reducing costs for early-stage companies. Building Faster with AI: Greg describes AI's potential to handle operational tasks, enabling founders to launch quicker and more efficiently. Future of Human-AI Teams: He sees AI complementing human skills in startup teams, boosting productivity. Resources: Greg Gottesman LinkedIn | X (Twitter) | Pioneer Square Labs | Email Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

What challenges do leaders face in fostering a culture of collaboration and accountability in today's diverse workplace? In this episode, Lindsay Pedersen sits down with Maria Colacurcio, CEO of Syndio, to delve into the evolving dynamics of leadership and workplace culture. They explore Maria's insights on creating equitable workplaces and the vital role of transparency in leadership. They discuss the power of vulnerability in leadership, particularly in the context of admitting failures. Maria encourages us to view mistakes not as failures but as essential opportunities for growth and development.   Equity in the Workplace: Maria shares her passion for promoting equity and inclusion within organizations. She emphasizes that true equity goes beyond mere policy changes; it requires a cultural shift where everyone feels valued and heard. The Role of Data in Leadership: They discuss the significance of using data to inform decisions and drive accountability. Maria highlights how metrics can illuminate gaps in equity and help leaders create more inclusive environments. Building Trust Through Transparency: Maria underscores the importance of transparency in leadership, stating that leaders must be open about their challenges and decision-making processes. This openness fosters trust and encourages employees to engage authentically. Embracing Vulnerability: Maria speaks about the power of vulnerability in leadership. By admitting to failures and conducting postmortems, leaders can demonstrate that setbacks are part of the journey. Leadership as a Journey: Lindsay and Maria reflect on how leadership is not a destination but an ongoing journey of growth and adaptation. They discuss the need for leaders to be lifelong learners who embrace change and seek feedback. Resources: Maria Colacurcio on LinkedIn I Syndio Lindsay Pedersen - Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest! Chuck Klosterman - ‘'But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking about the Present as If It Were the Past'' - Buy Here

What does it take to lead a startup through rapid growth while maintaining innovation and cultural integrity? In this episode of North Star Leaders, Lindsay Pedersen interviews Aviel Ginzburg, Partner at Founders' Co-op and co-founder of Simply Measured, to uncover the unique challenges founders face as they scale their companies. They explore the balance between innovation, leadership, and securing investment, with Aviel sharing his journey from entrepreneur to venture capitalist and offering insights on building impactful companies in a fast-paced tech landscape. Listen as they discuss: Founder's Journey: Aviel reflects on his path from co-founding Simply Measured to transitioning into venture capital, sharing lessons learned from building a business from the ground up. Scaling with Purpose: The conversation delves into the challenges of scaling a company, especially when balancing growth with maintaining a strong, cohesive culture. Fundraising Insights: Aviel offers practical advice on securing funding, emphasizing the importance of aligning with investors who share a company's mission and long-term vision. Cultural Integrity: They explore the role of culture in a startup's success, discussing how intentional leadership and clear values can shape a positive, high-performance environment. Leadership vs. Innovation: The conversation highlights the balance between innovative thinking and effective leadership, with Aviel stressing the need for leaders to empower teams and embrace change. Staying Agile in Tech: Aviel discusses the importance of staying adaptable in a fast-paced tech industry, where rapid shifts require leaders to remain flexible and responsive. Long-Term Vision: They reflect on how maintaining a clear, long-term vision can help navigate short-term challenges and guide decision-making in turbulent times. Resources: Aviel Ginzburg on LinkedIn  Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

What happens when creation meets purposeful leadership in a startup environment? In this engaging episode, Lindsay Pedersen interviews Todd Owens, CEO of Kevala, a healthcare scheduling software. They delve into the duality of leadership and management, discussing how purpose-driven leadership can generate economic value while fostering a positive workplace culture. Todd emphasizes the significance of clear direction and team empowerment, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities within the healthcare industry. Hear Todd and Lindsay discuss: Creating vs. Leading: Todd shares his passion for building teams in startup environments, finding fulfillment in defining company culture and guiding people toward a shared vision. Deliberate Leadership: The importance of clarity in leadership is discussed, likening it to a "true north" that aligns team objectives and guides decision-making. Management vs. Leadership: The conversation contrasts management, which involves hands-on tasks, with leadership, focusing on inspiring and empowering teams to reach their full potential. The Power of Teams: They explore the concept of the "hive mind," emphasizing how diverse perspectives and collaboration can lead to innovative solutions, while stressing the need for psychological safety in brainstorming sessions. Purpose-Driven Business: Todd reflects on his career path and the importance of leading mission-driven companies, particularly in healthcare, where meaningful impact can enhance employee experiences and organizational success. Cultivating a Positive Culture: Creating an environment where employees feel valued and supported leads to better performance and job satisfaction. Work-Life Balance: Todd emphasizes the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance to sustain energy and enthusiasm in leadership roles. Resources: Todd Owens on LinkedIn Kevala Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

What drives entrepreneurs to persist through the toughest challenges? Mike Fridgen, CEO of Madrona Venture Labs, joins Lindsay Pedersen on North Star Leaders Podcast to explore the dynamics of purpose-driven businesses and the importance of deeply connecting to the problem you're solving. They discuss how purpose fuels economic value, how mission-driven founders can navigate market shifts, and the balance between personal passion and the high-growth demands of venture-backed companies. You will hear Lindsay and Mike talk about: Mission-Driven Leadership: Mike emphasizes that successful founders are deeply connected to the problem they aim to solve. This mission-driven focus helps them persevere through challenges. Founder-Problem Fit: Investors at Madrona look for founders who are passionate about solving a specific problem rather than being attached to a particular product. This alignment fuels innovation and long-term success. Economic Value and Impact: Purpose and economic value are intertwined. Great economic outcomes often result from solving problems that have a significant impact on customers. Profit is a byproduct of meaningful problem-solving. Venture-Backed Businesses: Not every company should pursue venture funding. Many successful businesses are purpose-driven but don't need the scale or rapid growth that venture capital demands. Being clear on your business model early on is key. Self-Care and Rituals: Mike shares the importance of maintaining balance through travel, adventure, and outdoor activities. His family tradition of 10 international trips in 10 years helped balance intense careers with personal connection. Struggle Creates Meaning: Mike draws parallels between physical challenges, like hiking the Grand Canyon with his daughter, and the entrepreneurial journey. Struggle and discomfort often lead to more meaningful and rewarding experiences. Resources: Mike Fridgen: Madrona Venture Labs Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

What happens when the mission to empower with facts is paired with the challenge of reaching those who need it most? In this insightful podcast episode, Lindsay Pedersen interviews Poppy MacDonald, CEO of USA Facts, about the power of non-partisan data, navigating uncertainty, and maintaining work-life balance. Poppy highlights the importance of delivering clear, unbiased information to the public, emphasizing that USA Facts is funded to serve people, not generate revenue. The conversation explores how data can shape public understanding, the unpredictability of the future, and the importance of intentional routines to recharge and stay focused. You'll hear Lindsay and Poppy discuss: Empowering with facts: USAFacts focuses on providing nonpartisan, data-driven insights to help Americans make informed decisions, without a revenue-driven agenda. Mission-driven clarity: Staying true to their mission of delivering unbiased information helps avoid distractions and ensures strategic alignment. Reaching the audience: Proactively finding people who need accurate information, rather than waiting for them to come to USAFacts, is key to fulfilling their mission. Navigating uncertainty: In an ever-changing world, using today's language to describe the future can feel daunting, but staying adaptable and humble is essential. Work-life balance: Establishing routines like weekend planning, walks, and family activities helps recharge and stay focused on the challenging work ahead. Intentional weekends: Being deliberate about weekend activities, such as hikes or date nights, ensures rejuvenation and quality time with loved ones. Preparation is crucial: Ending the weekend by planning the upcoming week allows for a smoother, more productive start to Monday. Consistency in routines: Simple habits like clearing emails on Saturday morning provide a sense of accomplishment and help maintain work-life balance. Openness to change: Embracing evolving life stages allows for adjusting rituals and routines as needed, helping maintain focus and energy over time. Valuing connections: Prioritizing time with family, especially teenagers, helps maintain strong relationships amidst a busy professional life. Resources Poppy MacDonald on LinkedIn USA Facts Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

What happens when leaders are too afraid to take bold, polarizing actions? In this episode, Lindsay Pedersen interviews Dan Shapiro, CEO and author of Hot Seat, about the complexities of leadership, decision-making, and strategy in today's business landscape. Dan delves into how leaders can balance decisiveness with inclusivity, why polarizing strategies often lead to better results, and how to empower teams without losing accountability. Drawing on both his business experience and personal life, Dan shares key insights into leadership that parallel the challenges of parenting, highlighting the importance of values-driven inspiration and fast, effective decision-making. The Tension Between Risk and Safety: Many leaders opt for the safer, middle-ground approach, but polarizing strategies can often deliver stronger results. Strategic Decision-Making: Pre-making decisions aligned with long-term goals ensures consistency, but leaders must build team buy-in to avoid resentment or disengagement. Empowering Teams with Clear Strategies: Clear strategies empower teams, but poor communication or lack of alignment can leave them feeling disempowered. Making Good Decisions Fast: Leaders must use strategic frameworks to make quick, informed decisions without getting mired in small details. Accountability and Risk: Balancing team freedom with accountability helps ensure full commitment to risky initiatives and avoid half-hearted efforts. Develop Clear Decision-Making Frameworks: Create strategic principles in advance to streamline decisions and stay focused on long-term goals. Empower Without Relinquishing Accountability: Encourage teams to take risks but ensure they are fully committed to the success of their initiatives. Balance Short and Long-Term Decisions: Prioritize immediate decisions versus those needing strategic thought and allocate time accordingly. Align Teams with Company Strategy: Foster alignment by clearly communicating the strategy and securing buy-in from all team members to avoid internal conflict. Resources: Dan Shapiro on LinkedIn I X (Twitter) Glowforge Contact me to tell me who you'd like to hear as a guest!

Lindsay Pedersen is the Founder and Brand Strategist at Ironclad Brand Strategy, a company that partners with CEOs to create rigorous and focused brand strategies, making the brand a powerful North Star for organizational growth. She is the author of the best-selling book Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader's Guide and an advisor to several companies, from startups to national corporations, including Duolingo, Starbucks, and IMDb. With a background as a P&L owner at Clorox, Lindsay brings a disciplined, growth-oriented approach to brand building, helping businesses increase their value with clarity and intention. In this episode… In a crowded marketplace, what truly sets your business apart? With so many options available to consumers, it's crucial to stand out, but how can you ensure your brand is memorable and distinct? According to Lindsay Pedersen, a seasoned brand strategist and author, differentiation is the cornerstone of building a powerful brand that resonates with customers. She explains that a well-defined brand makes it easier for customers to choose your business over competitors and enhances loyalty and pricing power. Maintaining a clear and consistent brand message over time requires ongoing innovation and commitment, ultimately strengthening your brand's position in the market and driving sustainable growth. In this episode of the Financial Clarity podcast, host Hannah Smolinski sits down with Lindsay Pedersen, Founder and Brand Strategist at Ironclad Brand Strategy, to discuss the significance of differentiation in branding. They explore how businesses can craft and maintain a strong brand, the importance of consistency in messaging, and practical strategies for leveraging brand differentiation to achieve long-term success.

What does it take for a venture capitalist to build a successful brand strategy that resonates with founders and investors alike? In this episode, host Lindsay Pedersen sits down with Kirby Winfield, the founding general partner at Ascend, to explore the importance of defining and embodying a brand identity in the world of venture capital. Kirby shares insights on the value of authenticity, problem-driven processes, and the power of being intentional in shaping a brand that stands out in a competitive market. Define Your Brand Early: It's crucial to define your brand early on to establish consistency and clarity, allowing for a compound effect over time. Focus on Problem-Solving: Prioritize solving the problem over showcasing the product or technology to ensure customer-centricity and value delivery. Humanize Your Approach: Whether in B2B or B2C, marketing to humans requires understanding human drives and emotions to build a strong brand strategy. Be Authentic and Consistent: Being authentic and consistent in your brand messaging builds trust with customers and stakeholders over time. Set Brand Guidelines: Establishing brand guidelines helps in maintaining focus, saving time, and ensuring alignment with your brand values and mission. Choose Your Brand Values: Identifying and standing for specific brand values early on helps in shaping your brand identity and resonating with your target audience. Timing Matters: Timing is crucial in defining your brand, with post-Series A being an ideal stage when you have product-market fit and a better understanding of your audience. Avoid Overthinking: Overthinking brand decisions can lead to wasted resources and potential disillusionment, so it's essential to find the right balance. Stay True to Yourself: Staying true to yourself and your brand values, even in the face of challenges, helps in maintaining authenticity and building long-term relationships. Embrace Personal Boundaries: Setting personal boundaries, both professionally and personally, helps in maintaining focus, energy, and consistency in brand messaging. Resources Kirby Winfield | LinkedIn | Ascend

Leigh McMillan is the CEO of Whitepages. She has a diverse professional background that includes roles in politics and Major League Baseball. As the CEO of Whitepages, she has helped to steer the company into the new era of data and technology. Leigh is not only a seasoned executive but also a winemaker and co-owner at Welcome Road Winery in Seattle. She joins Lindsay Pedersen to explore insights into leadership, building a strong company culture, and the challenges of leading a brand with high awareness and trust.  You'll hear Lindsay and Leigh discuss: Leigh emphasizes the importance of the diverse and passionate team at Whitepages, highlighting how the company has played the long game in nurturing talent and helping individuals grow their careers. With over 20 years of history, Whitepages has transitioned from the traditional phone book to a data-centric company. Leigh discusses the challenges of maintaining trust in a brand with high awareness and the need to evolve the business under a changing technological landscape. Leigh advocates for a non-linear career path, encouraging individuals to explore different roles and take chances to find their strengths and passions. The core of Whitepages' brand promise lies in balancing changing privacy norms with the necessity of contacting people outside the phone book. Leigh underscores the importance of transparency and trust in handling public information for the greater good. Whitepages' commitment to trust and transparency influences day-to-day decisions more than large strategic pursuits. The dual criteria for decision-making at Whitepages are ensuring it aligns with the brand promise of "data for good" and facilitates the growth and expansion of the team. Leigh feels a sense of stewardship towards Whitepages' legacy and a responsibility to the team that has trusted and joined her on this journey. Creating a collaborative environment and taking care of the team fosters a positive work culture. Leigh's advice to her younger self would be to have a more relaxed perspective and not perceive everything as a significant stressor. Resources Leigh McMillan on LinkedIn  Whitepages

On this episode of Communicate for Good, Erica and her guest, Lindsay Pedersen, discuss the difference between brand and brand strategy, and how utilizing brand strategy as an exercise tool can help you achieve clarity about your brand. A few questions posed: Who are you optimizing for?What is it you are really good at bringing that customer? What is our competitive set or your peers are not good at bringing that person?What is your uncommon denominator?  They also discuss the many benefits of creating a clear brand, such as: Nailing the need for your customer as opposed to focusing on multiple needs (not only is it expensive but it can erode trust from the customer)Creating loyalty to your business and in turn being in a better position to serve, innovate and improve based on that mutually good relationshipIt can help govern the decisions that you're making across the business; how you communicate it, how you innovate, how you price for it, and how you go to market Resources Referenced:Forging an Ironclad Brand: https://ironcladbrandstrategy.com/book About Lindsay:Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and author of the best-selling book “Forging an Ironclad Brand.” Known for her methodical, framework-driven approach to brand building, Lindsay has advised companies from burgeoning startups to national corporations, both B2C and B2B, including Zulily, Starbucks, Zulily, IMDb and Duolingo. Her background as a P&L owner at Clorox fostered in Lindsay a deep appreciation for using the brand as the North Star for increasing the company's value. Lindsay arms leaders with an empowering understanding of brand, and an ironclad brand strategy, so they can grow their business with intention, clarity and focus.  Connect with Lindsay: Website: https://ironcladbrandstrategy.com/Email: lindsay@ironcladbrandstrategy.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaypedersen Connect with Erica:Website: https://claxon-communication.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericabarnhart/Email: info@claxon-communication.com  Book Time With Erica: https://bit.ly/ChatWithErica

 “This is a critical thing about a powerful brand: It requires very few cognitive calories from their audience to remember it.”  The idea of “cognitive calories” resonated deeply with the CMOs attending the CMO Huddles Bonus Huddle (re: private Q&A) with Lindsay Pedersen, brand strategist and author of Forging an Ironclad Brand. In this episode, tune in to hear all of Lindsay's illuminating insights into what it takes to create a truly sharp, memorable, and resonant B2B brand. It's not to be missed. Tune in!   For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/ To learn more about CMO Huddles, visit https://cmohuddles.com/

Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and author of the best-selling book "Forging an Ironclad Brand." Known for her methodical, framework-driven approach to brand building, Lindsay has advised companies from burgeoning startups to national corporations, both B2C and B2B, including Zulily, Starbucks, IMDb, and Duolingo. Her background as a P&L owner at Clorox fostered in Lindsay a deep appreciation for using the brand as the North Star for increasing the company's value. Lindsay arms leaders with an empowering understanding of brand, and an ironclad brand strategy, so they can grow their business with intention, clarity, and focus. Visit Lindsay on the Web: https://ironcladbrandstrategy.com Catch all previous episodes of #ThisWeekWithSabir here: https://growthbysabir.com/liveshow on YouTube. Want to skyrocket growth in your business, contact Sabir at https://growthbysabir.com. #ThisWeekWithSabir #Marketing #Entrepreneurship --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sabir-semerkant/support

A Scientific Approach To Developing Your Brand -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Scientific Approach To Developing Your Brand -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Where Brand Building Fits Into Your Marketing Priorities -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Where Brand Building Fits Into Your Marketing Priorities -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

A Scientific Approach To Developing Your Brand -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Scientific Approach To Developing Your Brand -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Where Brand Building Fits Into Your Marketing Priorities -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Where Brand Building Fits Into Your Marketing Priorities -- Lindsay Pedersen // IronClad Brand Strategy. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

This week we welcome Lindsay Pedersen to the podcast. Lindsay spent her early career as a brand manager at Clorox before starting her own brand strategy consulting firm, Ironclad Brand Strategy. Her recent book, “Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader's Guide” provides an accessible overview of what branding is (and isn't) and offers a multitude of real world examples to demonstrate how strong brands help businesses make better decisions—from product design, to customer experience, to talent acquisition.Topics include: the various meanings and incarnations of “brand,” the concept of brand as a relationship between a company and an audience (i.e., customers, candidates), the distinction between “functional” (rational) and higher order (emotional) benefits of a product or service, the connection between strong brands and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, how strong brands serve as “north stars” to guide business decisions, the recent emergence of “employer brand” as a concept and its connection to an organization's consumer brand, the value of having a singular unified brand for both employees and customers, the challenge of rehabilitating a brand with a poor reputation, the four P's of positioning, and the importance of building strong connections between talent acquisition and marketing.

My guest today is Lindsay Pederson, owner and chief strategist of Ironclad Brand Strategy. This is Part 2 of the interview where we dive into how branding actually works to grow a business.As a subscriber-only podcast you will need to subscribe to the a private feed to get it in your podcast player. You only need to do this once. Simple instructions here.Transcript:Edward: This is Marketing BS. This is part two of my interview with Lindsay Pederson. Today, we're going to explore Lindsay's specialty, branding, and how she applied it to grow businesses. Lindsay, let's start with definitions. What is a brand? It's not a logo, right?Lindsay: Yes, that's right. It is not a logo. A brand is the meaning that you stand for, that your company stands for in the mind of your audience. It's that real estate in the brain of your audience, of your customer. That thing that you stand for, it might be something vague, and therefore not a very valuable brand positioning, or it might be something really sharp, and resonant for the customer, which is what makes it a more value creating brand.Edward: Now, the first brands were really just promises that you wouldn't die from bad canning technique. I think deviled ham, Deviled Underwood is the first brand. How much branding today is just consistency and how much of it is more than that?Lindsay: I think the fundamentals are the same. I would go back even farther with brands that before we even had a sophisticated, commercial, industrialized market and people shopped at the baker or the butcher and maybe there is another butcher in town, the butcher had a brand. They were particularly good at X, or they specialized in a certain kind of meat, or whatever, that's brand too. They probably didn't call it that, but ultimately brand is a capsule for trust. Some people will define a brand as a relationship between a business and its customer.If you think of what even is a relationship? It's an accrual of trust where there's good will on both sides. I think that that is really still the same. There's just like differing levels of scale and sophistication today than there was back with that first brand.Edward: You argue that brands are a sustainable competitive advantage. I think you say the only sustainable competitive advantage. Is that another word for mote as Peter would call it?Lindsay: That's right. Yes, so I argue that while other competitive advantages will obsolesce, or erode, or be copied, brands never can be copied. If it's a good brand which is one that has good will and high willingness to pay from the customers, then it's not going to be copyable, in the same way that you can't copy a person credibly. Patents expire, real estate first-mover advantage, that will eventually go away. IP eventually can be used by multiple parties. Monopolies get broken up. If you think of all the competitive advantages of the ages, all of them have an Achilles heel which is time, but brand doesn't. If it's well nurtured, it can be the only truly sustainable competitive advantage that you have.Edward: There are lots of examples, though, of companies that have failed that had powerful brands. Kodak comes to mind immediately, a great powerful brand. I'm not sure what the awareness of Kodak is, but it's probably in the 90s.Lindsay: It was a killer brand but you're right. In some ways, I think of marriages or relationships where it has to be nurtured. It needs to be kept relevant and Kodak lost its relevance with their customers. It's not like an entitlement that once you have a good brand, it will be your mote forever. It's when that spirit and the letter of that brand guides your decision making and helps you to be brave when technology is changing as is what happened with Kodak. It's not necessarily going to be your competitive advantage forever, but it has the best shot at being. If you nurture it and if you continue to care deeply about the customer that you're serving just like with any relationship.Edward: We're recording this in October of 2020 and Coke just announced that it's killing the Tab brand.Lindsay: I know. I'm so nostalgic about this.Edward: Well, that's the question. If a brand is so valuable and Tab is obviously a well-known product and really, all of these things are just sugar water with a brand on top of it, why kill the brand? Is that brand equity not worth anything?Lindsay: I haven't talked to anybody at Coke, but I suspect that—there's a little bit of a special case because Coke is a house of brands. It's a branded house of brands and Tab is just one of their dozens, if not hundreds of brands. The way I know at Clorox we had about 85 brands and several of our brands—the complexity of continuing to offer them outweighed the profit that we made. Especially with a physical item like Tab which is water, saccharine, and coloring mixed together. There's a high carrying cost and then there's also a high psychological cost to continuing to have this item even though it has low velocity in store.I imagine that partly there's an economic reason, that complexity is expensive with high capital goods like that but also just ultimately the most useful thing about a brand is that having a skew like that weakens focus. If you're focused on the thing that only you can do that your customer really wants and that you're really good at providing, that's what your focus should be. If Tab is detracting from that, from the Coca-Cola Company, then ultimately I can understand. Even though I'm nostalgic about it as an 80s kid, seeing Tab go away makes me sad, I can understand why it was time to let it go.Edward: Is building a brand really a matter of spending money? Can SoftBank come in, just pick a company, spend tens of millions of dollars and then magically have a brand?Lindsay: You can buy brand awareness. Again, to define terms here, your brand is what you stand for. The brand is the definition, the heart and soul of why your business deserves to exist. That promise that you deliver. You don't have to be a big company to have a brand. You and I used to have coffee at El Diablo Coffee Company down the street, now rest in peace, because they've had to close because of the pandemic.Edward: That's so sad. It was such a good place.Lindsay: That was a punch in the gut when they closed. They had a brand. They don't have brand awareness. They're a mom and pop, single store business but they have a really clear brand to their customers. Brand awareness is different. Brand awareness is the scale of people who know about your brand. You can have a really vibrant brand with low brand awareness like El Diablo Coffee Company. You can also have a really high awareness of brands, where people don't really know what you stand for. Like AT&T, they might be the largest TV and media buyer still, so they spend hundreds of millions of media dollars a year promoting their brand, very high awareness of the AT&T brand but a really weak brand definition.Those are two things, yes, you can buy brand awareness but the exercise of deliberately defining what you're going to stand for really exists outside of time and money. Even the mom and pop coffee shop El Diablo has a brand, this is our promise, this is our personality, these are the things that are product truths. Those things are true for any business, whether small or huge. If you have deep pockets, sometimes just like with a lot of things with money. Having a lot of money can cover all sorts of sin. If you have a ton of money like AT&T Wireless, you can spend to get really high brand awareness. That doesn't mean that it's a well-loved brand. It doesn't mean that it was money well spent to generate that awareness. They're really two separate things.I argue that when you have a precise conscious definition of your brand, it's going to make any awareness building you do more fruitful. It's going to be higher ROI because building awareness of a clear idea is going to be easier and more effective. It's also going to be easier for the customer to bond with you. It's one thing to be aware of something but to let it in and to let it become part of your consideration set is another step that just generating brand awareness is only going to go so far to achieve.Edward: Can you quantify that then? You're saying, hey, if you have a better brand definition, you should have higher ROI than marketing spend, than your awareness spend.Lindsay: Yeah.Edward: Should you be able to see that you can track things like how much I'm spending or how many impressions I'm getting and whether or not that's translating into awareness, or consideration, or purchases by how strong that brand definition is?Lindsay: Absolutely, you could. We're starting to get a little bit into the territory between these two which is what's your message, what's the copy, what are the words that you used to express your brand promise. I think I'm getting a little bit more into market research than I should, but you can do a 2-cell test of promise A goes in this cell and promise B goes in this cell and they're both around the same idea but one is precise and one is not.Edward: Where did you see that impact? Is it in impressions to awareness? Is it awareness to consideration? Is it a consideration to purchase? When you have a precise brand, do all those metrics improve or do some improve better than others?Lindsay: I love that question. I want to think more about it but—I can think of an example for any part of the funnel where it's beneficial. In fact when I start a brand strategy exercise, I want to learn what part of the funnel is strong right now and what part is weak so that the brand can help where this company really needs it. Oftentimes, especially with a B2B company, the response is we do really well with sales. When I've got a person in front of me and I've got 15 minutes to share a sales deck with them, we do really well. We don't have enough of those people coming to us.We have a really good close rate, a really good conversion rate, but we don't get enough people coming into the pipeline. If awareness is the problem, then the goal of the brand should be taking somebody who's unaware to aware, what's going to heighten our ability to do that singularity, make it very easy cognitively for a person to understand what you are. Really simple is what helps to go from unaware to aware. The reason is the person doesn't have a relationship with you yet. They're not going to give you a lot of their time and energy to try to understand what you are. You're going to do that with three or four words. Singularity is the most important thing with awareness.Consideration, it's usually more, okay I got the big idea that made me aware of it but now I don't believe you. You have to make me believe that you're going to deliver on that promise. The messaging should focus more on the reasons to believe. Let's take Volvo, so the promise is safety. The reason to believe in safety is, okay, we invented the five-point seat belt, we crash test. Those things then become the most salient part of the brand message at the consideration stage. Purchase, if people are leaving at purchase then it's often more like are you making it easy for them to purchase a yes? Is the price value right? All of those are manifestations of the brand.Edward: How much of branding then is the differentiation and just being different than the other competitors in your space?Lindsay: It's everything. It's the whole point. Your brand is to basically distill what is your most potent differentiator. That's what brand is. That's the point of all of this. If you come up with a brand that maybe is a neat idea but it's not differentiated, then it's not going to create economic value for your business. What makes a brand value creating is that it's differentiating. Absolutely, it has to be.Edward: There must be brands that are better in certain categories, like Harley Davidson kind of owns tough guy image for motorcycles. Maybe I've been getting too much Harley Davidson propaganda, but it feels like that is the right brand if you're going to sell motorcycles and anyone else who enters the motorcycle space now to choose something different or just be the lesser version of Harley Davidson.Lindsay: Yeah. I don't know Harley Davidson's share in their category, but I would guess that they dominate.Edward: They're a leader.Lindsay: They're the market leader. Taking a step back here, one of the first decisions that you make when you're defining your brand is if I look at my customers, my sweet spot customers, the people who I really want to be our customers, if they're not buying us, what are they doing instead? I don't just mean direct competitors. In the case of Harley Davidson, it might be walking, it might be riding a bike, it might be driving, it might be owning a car, it might be renting a car. Harley Davidson, as the category leader, what they need to differentiate against is not other direct competitors but substitutes. That's why the Harley Davidson positioning is all about kind of the badass spirit of being a Harley Davidson owner as opposed to the size of their engine versus other motorbikes.They make fun of car owners. In their headquarters, they have parking spots for their employees, most of their employees do ride Harley Davidsons but then in the distant parking lot, like the boonies parking lot, they have spots for cars. They're trying to push off against cars, not other motorbikes. It's still about differentiation. It's just that the frame of reference is larger when you're the category owner.Edward: Why do people hire you, Lindsay? What's the pain point that causes them to bring you on board?Lindsay: Yeah. Usually, the CEO and the CMO, depending on the company, what I often hear at the beginning of an engagement is we are vague about what we stand for and therefore it makes it hard for us to have effective marketing but it also makes it hard for us to do other things. We're a little bit of throwing spaghetti against the wall when it comes to what our new products should be. When we recruit employees, we don't know what to tell them about our values and our culture. There's sort of like a pain of lack of focus. The desire for the brand strategy is to be a north star that solves that pain. The most readily available and probably the most immediately put into place outcomes are marketing.The brand is everything that the customer experiences of your business which is not just marketing. That's why it's so important that it's coming from not merely a marketing activity but really a full business activity.Edward: What are the key things that matter now? If I'm going to try to fix this build or my brand at the beginning, what should I be spending my time on? What matters most? What things can I ignore because there's a million things I could be doing.Lindsay: You mean like different aspects of building a brand?Edward: That's right. I talk to companies all the time, maybe they're not building a brand, they have a brand, at least they have a brand name and they're doing some stuff and they're just trying to figure out like where they spend time when there's a million things on their list. If they're going to spend time doing 2-3 things to improve their brand, what should those two or three things be? A lot of times, just trying to change the names is where they go to first. I'm pretty sure it's not the right answer.Lindsay: I mean naming is really, really difficult for a lot of reasons. Particularly in this mature internet, in the age of the internet where the desired domain is already taken, naming is so difficult. On the other hand, I do think it's worth getting your name right because it's so unforgiving. Once you have a name and you've built equity with your customers in that name, it's painful to change it and sometimes you do have to change it. It's better, I think, to get really clear about, this again goes back to, what do you want to stand for, in a word, like a single idea. A word or two or three, not like a multi clause sentence.What do you want to stand for, and your name, and your logo, and your tagline and all of your visual identity? Let all of those work together, and your product, all of those work together to express your brand. Don't pin it on just one thing. If you have a name and you don't love it but it's otherwise not problematic, consider the fact that you also have other real estate that you can use to convey your brand, so you've got your tagline. I actually think this is probably the most under-utilized part of brand identity. There's a lot of focus on naming and naming is really hard. In a lot of senses, you don't have much control over it because you probably inherited the name or you couldn't get the name that you wanted, but the tagline can make up for a weakness in a name.The problem is in order to define your tagline, you have to do your brand strategy to know what's the thing that you're going to message is. My first recommendation is define your brand. It doesn't mean you have to hire a consultant to do it. You can do this yourself. What it really takes is some humility and empathy, take a step back. What are we really here to do? What's the nature of the pain our customer is in that we're here to solve? What's that like? What is the promise that we want to be known for and that we can deliver again and again to accrue that trust?When you do that kind of heavy lifting of defining your brand strategy, it's actually not that hard to develop your tagline, or to choose a logo, or to choose your colors. Those things are not heavy lifting when you've done the upfront work of defining your north star. I think that probably the biggest mistake here—I get a lot of the angst of I don't like our logo, but step back here. The customer probably doesn't care that much about your logo if they love everything else about your business. Have you defined for your customer? Have you made it really easy for your customer to see what you offer them by sealing a promise.Instead of do I like my logo, instead ask the question: does my logo express the promise that I want it to express? Is it true to who we are? To take out some of the subjectivity here, it doesn't have to be that hard. When there's a massive undertaking to redesign a logo, I often get nervous because I wonder if it's covering up something else. We are too nervous about making a singular brand promise so we're going to have a really pretty logo with a really big agency that's going to do it for us. I'm a fan of a really awesome logo, but just like if you're building a house without a foundation, make sure that the bones are there first before a huge investment in something like visual design or logo.Edward: Lindsay, thank you so much for being here today. Before you go, tell me about your quake book. What books have you read that's really changed the way you think about the world?Lindsay: Yes. It's been such a joy to talk to you, Ed. Thanks for having me on your podcast. The book that really changed the way that I work is called Deep Work by Cal Newport. I alluded to this earlier with my digital minimalism, which is another book that he wrote by the way, but the idea is that we as humans, our most scarce resource is our attention and right now especially when there's so much competing for our attention, you have to really protect your cognitive time. Instead of getting to brass tacks here, what he advocates and what I've really started to do is block out the most quality time of your day for thinking. For me, it's the first two hours of the day, and don't let there be low cognitive tasks creep into that.Instead of going about your day and squeezing the strategic cognitive work into the margins, do the opposite. Plan it so the most midi-important thing happens when you're most on and really push out things like replying to emails, to the less cognitively valuable time of your day. That's Deep Work, and also I think that it allows you—it's a productivity tool in a way, but it also is a joy tool because it helps you to enjoy what you're doing more and not feel so rushed all the time.Edward: Lindsay, that's great. Thank you so much for being here today.Lindsay: Thanks for having me, Ed. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

Apologizes for the double send yesterday. It seems one of my drafts got sent along with the final briefing. In case you are worried you read the non-final version, here it is again.My guest today is Lindsay Pederson, owner and chief strategist of Ironclad Brand Strategy. These podcasts are usually with a leading CMO, so this one is a little different. I have been very selective in having Lindsay on the show. I would love your feedback on whether you feel having people like Lindsay on from time to time is a good idea, or whether I should keep the focus 100% on CMOs. You can comment or just reply to this email. As a subscriber-only podcast you will need to subscribe to the a private feed to get it in your podcast player. You only need to do this once. Simple instructions here.Transcript:Edward: Today's interview is a little different. Usually, these podcasts are with CMOs. My guest today, Lindsay Pedersen, is not a CMO. For the last 13 years, Lindsay has been the owner and chief strategist of her own branding agency. She's done incredible work with companies like Starbucks, IMDb, Avalara and Expedia. Today, we're going to cover Lindsay's career and her path to running her own agency, Georgetown, Advisory Board, Deloitte, Berkeley, Clorox and now Ironclad Brand strategy. We're lucky to have her here today.Lindsay, my guests are usually CMOs and I start with how did you get your first CMO job, but let's talk instead about your choice to leave Clorox and start your own agency. Why did you do that?Lindsay: Yeah. I was at Clorox as a brand manager or in the brand management world for six years, the six years after business school. At that point, we had my son who was then two years old, basically eating us alive, my husband and I, and we decided to move to Seattle because I had family in Seattle that can help us with this child. We moved to Seattle at Clarkson's in Oakland. I was not looking to become an independent consultant. I was looking at roles at Starbucks and a couple other CPG companies. The way that it happened is that I was recruited for a director of marketing role at Starbucks and they had to do it on a contract basis initially while they waited for the hiring freeze to lift. I was technically a consultant as a head of marketing for this group and I loved it. I loved having an outsider perspective. I felt like I could be more candid than if I were an employee because I had a little bit of distance. It was sort of an aha, I would really like to do this for other companies; to be in charge of building the marketing vision for a group or the brand strategy for a group but on a consulting basis. It was not this conscious, well-thought out, I'm going to go start my own consultancy. I kind of stumbled into it. Initially, I definitely wouldn't have called it an agency. I would just say I am a brand strategist. I can build a brand strategy in the way that we do in the classic Procter and Gamble world. Seattle, being a tech town, was actually a pretty rare skill set. That ended up being pretty distinctive that would not have been that distinctive if I were in the Bay area but in Seattle, having the classically trained brand management from Clorox, it was something there's a lot of demand for.Edward: Got it. You'd say that your skill set, at least at the time, was not particularly unique in the package goods world. What was unique is that you're a package goods world person living in a tech town.Lindsay: Exactly and I think it's funny because in hindsight I see that at the time I was really confused. I didn't realize that Seattle was such a tech town and I found it so confusing that every time I said I did brand, people thought I was a logo designer. I was like why did you think that I do logos? That's the strangest response. I'm a brand person. I realize now that just the word brand is really confusing outside of consumer packaged goods. There's a different, more narrow definition of it. Absolutely, I was a dime-a-dozen in consumer packaged goods, but then in the tech world I could bring that discipline of CPG to a town that didn't have a lot of that. At least not in the same kind of schooling that I had.Edward: How did you get your second client after Starbucks?Lindsay: During that time when I was a consultant for Starbucks and I was realizing I really liked to do it on a consulting basis, I just reached out to my network and I knew my former boss from Clorox was running marketing at TMobile. I remember he was actually my second client but in addition to him, I was asking a lot of people like, would you need this? Is this something that you would want? When I got enough yeses to that question, I felt emboldened to leave Starbucks and have other clients so TMobile with my second client.Edward: You wrote a book. When did the book come in?Lindsay: Much later. This was 13 years ago that I made the shift from Clorox brand manager to brand strategy consultant and it has morphed quite a bit. Initially it was I am an independent consultant. I can do anything that a marketing director for hire would do. You probably want me if you want some classic, kind of rigorous look at your brand. I was a generalist, but what I realized as I became more seasoned, is that brand strategy was really unusual in the Seattle area. There was a really significant appetite for it. I started to sharpen down, to narrow more on brand strategy specifically, not brand management in general.Years into it, I developed a methodology. Instead of creating a brand strategy from scratch every time, I developed a method. There was a point, probably four or five years ago, where I really wanted this method to be something that anybody can use, even if they weren't hiring me. I taught a course—LinkedIn Learning will hire authors to create a course for them. LinkedIn Learning hired me to create a course. I think it's called creative brand strategy. If you have a LinkedIn Learning subscription, you have unlimited access to all of their video courses. When I finished that, the producers at LinkedIn Learning said you really need to write a book. This is a book.The idea of writing a book had been germinating for a while because I wanted this methodology not to just live in my head and there's something I had to get off my chest about brand, so I started writing a book. I published it a year-and-a-half ago. All of this took a long time. I didn't go from Clorox, to brand strategist, to author in a year. This took, I guess, that would've been 12 years total.Edward: When you're developing that strategy, it was almost organic because you spent time helping clients. You'd help one client, then another client and another client and sooner or later you started seeing commonalities around solving the problems, rather than solving the problem the same way every time. It's having to reinvent the wheel every time you could go and solve the problem effectively the same way every time.Lindsay: That's right. That's exactly right and some of the framework, some of the steps of the methodology are really similar to things that we did at Clorox for any brand strategy. I was taking things that I had learned and I was weaving them into a more readily rip-and-reapply sequence of steps. I didn't say okay I'm going to develop a methodology and then I'm going to go out and I'm going to use that methodology. I just found over a course of years that I had a methodology. It was silly to pretend that I didn't, to pretend that I was starting from scratch every time.The other thing that I got was market feedback. My clients felt a lot more comfortable knowing that there was a methodology behind this. To them, it felt like it would de-risk the project, that this is based on a tried and true process. It's not just based on a really creative person coming up with a cool ID. That was the other encouragement, the market was saying a methodology makes me feel better. Brands feel so squishy to people, and so that step by step methodology makes it feel less kind of shrouded in mystique. It actually also added value and made the brand strategy better because I can kind of circle the troops. There was more of an I'm going to bring in what I learned from across industries and across all of the types of clients that I worked with. It ensured that all of my learning was boiled into a process.Edward: I'm a big believer in taking structure to qualitative areas. I spent a lot of years doing improv comedy and much of improv comedy has people talking about just getting in touch with your inner feelings. Instead, I tried to figure out what are the story elements you need to tell one by one by one in order to tell an effective story?Lindsay: I did not know this about you, Ed. That's so cool. Some time, you're going to have to tell me more about that.Edward: I feel like more and more soft areas are becoming this way. There are books about screenwriting. Screenwriting used to be very much a qualitative thing of what a good screenplay was, I think it's called Save The Cat! It became a very structured solution for here is how you write a screenplay. I feel like you've done something similar for here's how you build a brand.Lindsay: That is so thought provoking. I think you're right. I think there's also the design thinking, the idea of taking design thinking and applying it to building a brand, that's also what this is. Design thinking, especially now, it's very widely used in product development and innovation. In a way, my methodology is a lot like design thinking for creating your brand, for defining who you want to be.Edward: I want to go back along your path to getting there. I have this theory that the things people do when they're 12 to 14 years old affect their entire lives. What were you passionate about at that age?Lindsay: When I was 12, 13, 14, I loved hanging out with my friends. I was a competitive tennis player. I do think that but I mean I goofed off like, hopefully, most 12 and 13 and 14 year olds are. I was a little bit of a serious kid in some ways. I remember during high school, I was the person that people would come to me to talk about their problems even if I wasn't friends with them. It was almost like I had this reputation for go talk to Lindsay. She can help you if you have problems or she'll listen to you. At least, this is the way that my brain is reconstructing it looking back, that was a long time ago. I do think that I gravitated toward like one-on-one listening and helping people get less confused, get less unmoored.I think that's true. I feel self-conscious right now because I'm not positive that at age 12, 13, and 14 that that was true. I remember that in high school in general that was like part of my reputation.Edward: You considered being a clinical psychologist.Lindsay: I did. Throughout undergraduate, I was planning on becoming a clinical psychologist which requires a PhD. It was built on this idea that I'm, by nature, a helper and I had an affinity for listening. This might be hindsight, biased, but I also think there is an element of just really deeply curious about people. I love to get inside the head of a person and try to understand what their world is like. I loved the clinical psychology work that I did as an undergraduate, scholastic work that I did.I went pretty far with it, but when it came right down to actually going to a program, it really means like giving up six years of your life to live in a random town in the Midwest during your early 20s. I just became disenchanted with the idea of giving up so much of my life for this. I also, at the same time became a bit disenchanted with academia. Just the ivory tower of a university was starting to get on my nerves. It was so impractical. I decided not to do that after all. I went into management consulting instead.Edward: Is there a world where you did do it? How different would your personality or life have been for you to have pulled the trigger and going on that PhD?Lindsay: Oh my god, that's like a mind blowing question. Number one, in a lot of ways what I do now is really taking what I liked about that and just applying it to a different context, applying it to markets instead of to one-on-one people. In a lot of ways, it doesn't feel that different. The nuts and bolts are really different. The lifestyle and the business model is really different, but it doesn't feel like, in spirit, there was that significant of a divergence, although, I'm a poor judge of this. I think somebody else might totally disagree with that and think that it was wildly different, I don't know.Edward: Eventually you go back to business school and then you start at Clorox. Why start at Clorox? Why take that job at a business school?Lindsay: My first week of business school and I went to business school, I was working for Deloitte as a management consultant and it was in one of those associate programs where after the analysts program and you have to go to business school in order to stay with the firm, so I kind didn't know what I wanted to do. I went to business school because I was expected to, and I didn't write that in my essay by the way. I think I had a very cogent direct explanation of what I was going to do with my MBA, but I really was confused at that point in my life. I knew I didn't love the life of the management consultant. I just remember this so clearly, the first week of business school, might have even been orientation, talking to a second year. I was a first year and I was talking to a second year who had just done her summer internship at Clorox. I was like, Clorox like the bleach company? What did you do for them? She explained, well I developed their creative strategy for a new ad campaign and I led some market research to do focus groups to learn about what kind of innovation we should be exploring. I was like, what?  You can do that? That's a job? What I came to learn is that's what marketing is. I didn't really know what marketing was beyond the fact that—maybe I equated it with advertising which a lot of people still do. I thought marketing is advertising, but what I learned from this person who influenced me so much by telling me about Clorox was that it's actually kind of taking psychology and applying it into a business.I loved my marketing courses in business school, just blew my mind, micro economics, and game theory in marketing, it was so juicy for me. I applied to have my summer internship at Clorox. I did my summer internship at Clorox and went back when I graduated from business school. It's funny though because this was in 2001. If you can remember, in 2001 and in the Bay area, because Clorox's in Oakland and I went to Berkeley for business school. During 2000 and 2001, when I was in school, all of the dot-coms, all of these new internet companies were hiring people from business school and among my friends, I had kind of the silliest job. They're like, you're going to go work on liquid plumber or fresh step cat litter and they're going to do some sexy.com. When the bottom dropped out of that, I still had a job. It turned out that though not sexy, it was a really good move.Edward: I had a professor of business school who told me that he always knew where the bubbles were because that's where all of the MBA students were rushing to get jobs.Lindsay: Funny. That is so interesting, I love that hypothesis.Edward: I graduated in 2005 and everyone wanted to go into real estate and he's like, no one was passionate about real estate five years ago. I don't know what's happened.Lindsay: Wow, that would be so cool to chart that on a map, like a bubble—okay here's where the dot-com era happened and here's where the real estate boom happened.Edward: Lindsay, what were the biggest failure points in your career? Where did things not go as expected?Lindsay: I'll start with what I mentioned when I was a management consultant. I took this job with Deloitte because it was a generalist job. It's a great thing to do if you don't know what you're going to do but I was so miserable for that 2 year period. There were 50 weeks in a row that I traveled, usually for three nights, sometimes four nights, and I could barely problem solve. I was so miserable with it and that sucked. That really sucked. At Clorox, we've talked about some of the contents of brand management, P&G style brand management at Clorox. I loved the content of it. I loved learning a systematic approach to marketing. It's kind of like the smartest marketers in the world. That was really cool. Intellectually, awesome, but the culture of Clorox was brutal for me. It was very old boys, very risk-averse.If you think about Clorox bleach, it's kind of a utility so from a market perspective, they really wanted it to be very predictable and no big bumps, so no big bets were placed. That extreme risk-aversion super bummed me out. I knew that I didn't want to stay there forever just based on that. As an independent consultant, when I think about the hard times that I've had in my career, it is usually with some form of either getting a little bit too far away from what I really liked to do. Not being intentional enough and finding myself doing something that was on the tangents of something I really wanted to do. It took me away from my kids too much. Having a job or having a role that would make me work weekends, that's when I kind of hated it. I just want to quit. I don't know if you call it a failure. I mean the thing about having a small business, as small as mine anyway, is you just keep on pivoting until you like it.Edward: Lindsay, what are your productivity tricks? What do you do to be productive that most people don't do?Lindsay: I am a pretty strict digital minimalist. I don't have email on my phone. I don't have social media on my phone. I really use my phone as a dumb phone. I've got maps, I've got a texting calendar, I've got the weather and like two or three other apps. I just keep my phone from being too interesting. That is huge for me because your phone is with you all the time. If I don't have my phone with me, I'm much less likely to expend energy trying to resist something that's on my phone and then I can spend that time on a more cognitively rewarding task, like working on a blog post or working on a project for one of my clients. I think that's the biggest one. The next level of that is like actually just not doing social media at all. I haven't gotten there but I have put my main work computer—I have blocks so that I can't go to Twitter or FaceTime on this computer. It's kind of about creating boundaries. That's my big productivity trick, it's to create a boundary—it's the same reason that I don't keep Haagen Dazs ice cream in my freezer, I will eat it. I don't keep because I will eat it. I still will eat ice cream. I just don't make it quite so easy for myself.Edward: This has been fantastic. We're going to pick it up with some branding work tomorrow. Thank you, Lindsay.Lindsay: Awesome. Thanks for having me, Ed. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

Good brand is just good business. Brand is the intentional leader’s North Star. It helps us engage customers and employees, unleash our competitive advantage, and fuel enduring growth. And yet, despite this power, brand is grossly underused. Lindsay Pedersen joins Justin to break down the nine criteria for an ironclad brand strategy!

Good brand is just good business. Brand is the intentional leader’s North Star. It helps us engage customers and employees, unleash our competitive advantage, and fuel enduring growth. And yet, despite this power, brand is grossly underused. Lindsay Pedersen deconstructs what brand is and why it is indispensable for leaders in this episode of the ContenderCast.

While all of us have been adjusting to self-imposed social distancing and quarantine this week under new global guidelines, Lindsay Pedersen had a head start. She and her family live in the greater Seattle area, which was the site of the first major outbreak in the U.S. In this conversation with Lindsey and Dr. Consuelos, we talk about the emotional rollercoaster of the entire family staying home all day, and creative ways to infuse silliness, sanity, and connection. Quick background on both: Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and author of Forging an Ironclad Brand. Dr. Michael J. Consuelos is the Principal at MJC Solutions, a veteran-owned, small business that provides professional consulting and advisory services to organizations serving the healthcare sector. He has held several leadership roles in emergency preparedness and pandemic response since 1997. What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions for a future COVID-19 conversation at http://pivotmethod.com/ask Background from our kick-off to this series, episode 159: With so much happening daily in the world and global economy around coronavirus, we’re all dealing with massive amounts of uncertainty, pivots at work, and for many—fear and anxiety that comes with not only the health concerns, but questions around how to maintain our livelihoods moving forward. When Momentum member and pandemic expert Dr. Michael J. Consuelos reached out to offer himself as a resource to the JBE team and the MoMo community, I jumped at the chance to record a conversation for all of you as well, which has now turned into a full-blown series: * 159: Pivoting Around a Pandemic * 160: 11 Ways for Solopreneurs to Maintain Momentum * 161: Personal Safety, Contingency Planning, and Crucial Conversations Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at http://PivotMethod.com/161

How do you get your marketing to work better? How do you know when your messaging is working and how do you optimize it for maximum conversions? If you’re worried about whether your message is hitting home for your customers, chances are you have a branding issue.   Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and author. With her growth-oriented approach, she has advised companies like Starbucks, T-Mobile, IMDB, and more on how to hone their brand. Lindsay uses her Ironclad Method to run brands through a rigorous testing process to make sure they stand the tests of time.   When Lindsay worked at Clorox, she had to get really good at developing the brand so that people would buy them over any other competitor. The truth is, brand-name bleach vs. a private label is the same thing product-wise, so what makes consumers buy a well-established version? It’s all in the branding!   People often think that branding is just how your logo looks or how your social media is presented, or your personality. All those things add to the brand but are not the brand itself. Think of branding as your north star that will guide you into different mediums and product/service launches.   In Lindsay’s book, Forging an Ironclad Brand, she wrote it to demystify how to create a compelling brand, how brand can be used as a leadership tool, and she shows you the method of how leaders can build this out and not feel so ‘lost’ in branding. The best part is you don’t have to be a creative type to build out this strategy.   Interview Links: Ironcladbrandstrategy.com Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide, by Lindsay Pedersen Lindsay on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

In this episode, I talk to Lindsay Pedersen, brand strategist from Seattle, about what it takes to build your "North Star", i.e. your ironclad brand strategy.Check out Lindsay at www.ironcladbrandstrategy.comSign up for free Simple Ideas For Growth - daily nuggets for helping you grow your brand, business and life.www.thefutureacademy.com

Lindsay Pedersen: Forging an Iron Clad BrandThe intentional leader’s North Star. How Brand helps us engage customers and employees, unleash our competitive advantage, and fuel enduring growth.Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and leadership coach who views brand as a blend of science, intuition, behavioural economics, and ancient storytelling. She’s worked with Brands like Starbucks, Clorox, Zulily, T-Mobile, IMDb and burgeoning start-ups.More: http://IronCladBrandStrategy.comTo find out more about hiring Dov Baron as a speaker or strategist for your organization: http://fullmontyleadership.com/consulting or http://fullmontyleadership.com/speaking.Find us on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or wherever you tune into podcasts and on traditional radio stations across the US every Monday and Thursday. Look for us on on ROKU TV too. Thank-you to you for making us the #1 podcast globally for Fortune 500 listeners! And with a potential reach of 2.5 to 4 million listeners for every show, we’re honored and grateful to be cited in INC.com as The #1 Podcast To Make You a Better Leader. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist who views brand as a blend of science, intuition, behavioral economics, and ancient storytelling. She developed the Ironclad Method ™ while building brands with companies such as Starbucks, Clorox, Zulily, T-Mobile, IMDb, and burgeoning start-ups. Lindsay is also […] The post Lindsay Pedersen on Brand Strategy appeared first on Becoming Referable.

Shep Hyken interviews Lindsay Pedersen. They discuss strategies for how brands can differentiate themselves by creating authentic, genuine connections with their customers. Top Takeaways: -      A brand is its customer experience, and vice versa. The brand and the experience are built on the relationship between a business and its customers. -      Advertising and marketing may attract new customers, but it’s rarely the real reason why customers like doing business with a brand. Customers like doing business with companies because of how those companies make them feel. -      Many companies focus too much on acquiring new customers rather than retaining the customers they already have. -      Every company should ask itself why it is in business. This question becomes especially important if the company keeps losing customers. Create an experience that reduces customer churn. -      You must differentiate yourself from your competitors. Be wary of doing this through your product alone; that method is too easy to copy. But if find a way to meet a unique need for your customers, you will find success. -      The most important question a company can ask itself is what emotional reward they want the customer to enjoy by choosing to do business with them. There is emotional value in the connection between a company and its customers, and brands must tap into that. Quote: “Businesses don’t make money by impressing people with cool ads. They make money by attracting and retaining customers.” - Lindsay Pedersen Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and owner of Ironclad Brand Strategy who recently authored Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide. She has advised companies from burgeoning startups to national corporations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're going to discuss how brand building fits into your marketing strategy and operations. Joining us is Lindsay Pedersen, a Brand Strategist and the Owner of Ironclad Brand Strategy, which is a consultancy that uses a scientific growth driving approach to brand strategy development to help leaders unlock business growth through brand positioning. In part 2 of our conversation, Lindsay is going to walk us through her scientific approach to brand positioning. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to discuss how brand building fits into your marketing strategy and operations. Joining us is Lindsay Pedersen, a Brand Strategist and the Owner of Ironclad Brand Strategy, which is a consultancy that uses a scientific growth driving approach to brand strategy development to help leaders unlock business growth through brand positioning. In part 2 of our conversation, Lindsay is going to walk us through her scientific approach to brand positioning. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Today we're going to discuss how brand building fits into your marketing strategy and operations. Joining us is Lindsay Pedersen, a Brand Strategist and the Owner of Ironclad Brand Strategy, which is a consultancy that uses a scientific growth driving approach to brand strategy development to help leaders unlock business growth through brand positioning. In part 1 of our conversation, we are going to talk about where brand building should fit into your marketing priorities. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to discuss how brand building fits into your marketing strategy and operations. Joining us is Lindsay Pedersen, a Brand Strategist and the Owner of Ironclad Brand Strategy, which is a consultancy that uses a scientific growth driving approach to brand strategy development to help leaders unlock business growth through brand positioning. In part 1 of our conversation, we are going to talk about where brand building should fit into your marketing priorities. Show NotesConnect With: Lindsay Pedersen: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Our podcast is designed to provide you with top business insights, fresh perspectives from world class guests, and the tools you need to lead better than before. In this episode, Tony Richards talks with Lindsay Pedersen author of "Forging An Ironclad Brand." Lindsay clarifies what brand is and why it is indispensable for leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Lindsay talks about the number one secret of brand building and how can one differentiate their brands.

Lindsay Pedersen is a Brand Strategist and Best-Selling Author of Forging an Ironclad Brand. SHOW DETAILS Running time: 1:43:10 Subscribe on iTunes and leave us a review! …or subscribe on: Overcast | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher CONNECT WITH LINDSAY https://ironcladbrandstrategy.com/ Lindsay on Linkedin Lindsay on Twitter CONNECT WITH JEFF Email Jeff @JGibbard on Twitter Jeff on Linkedin (make sure to introduce yourself) Jeff’s Website

Lindsay Pedersen is a Brand Strategist and Best-Selling Author of Forging an Ironclad Brand. SHOW DETAILS Running time: 1:43:10 Subscribe on iTunes and leave us a review! ...or subscribe on: Overcast | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher CONNECT WITH LINDSAY https://ironcladbrandstrategy.com/ Lindsay on Linkedin Lindsay on Twitter CONNECT WITH JEFF Email Jeff @JGibbard on Twitter Jeff on Linkedin (make sure to introduce yourself) Jeff's Website

Today we're honored to talk with Lindsay Pedersen, Owner at Ironclad Brand Strategy and best selling author of "Forging An Ironclad Brand: A Leader's Guide" "Today the most scarce resource that most of us have is attention. Any tool that can break through or can harness attention, whether it's a song, or a brand name, or an image, is truly a multiplier." According to Lindsay, "There's a distinction that's probably worth making that brand strategy is simply the definition of who you are and what is the promise you bring.  So what's the stake in the ground? Why should your customer part with their hard-earned money, or time, or attention for you? So it's really the definition of the value you bring and brand marketing and the tactics for brand marketing and brand awareness building which belong in the bucket of marketing and those can be kind of in conflict, some might say, with your term "lead generation". Brand strategy is agnostic of tactics, just like your mission is agnostic of tactics, so related but distinct as well, right? So whether it's B2B or B2C being very precise about what is the value you bring your customer is worthwhile, regardless of what kind of company you are and regardless of what stage company you are. If you're a startup and you have a small marketing budget and a small innovation budget, you probably stand to gain even more from focus-- brand strategy is simply a tool for focus. So it's not less useful, it arguably is more useful as long as you're serving human beings who have scarce attention, it's going to be really welcome to have a focus." This and a lot more!  Listen in or read the full transcript on the Heinz Marketing blog starting Mon. 10/21 at 6am PST.    

Brand strategist and author Lindsay Pedersen shares nine criteria for an ironclad brand strategy from her book Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader's Guide.

Lindsay Pedersen, the Founder of Ironclad Brand Strategy and Bestselling Author of Forging an Ironclad Brand, joins the show to share her journey from studying Psychology to advising top brands such as Starbucks, IMDb, and T-Mobile. Hear how Lindsay started working with such iconic brands, what makes an ironclad brand, how to find your uncommon denominator, why she doesn’t have social media on her phone, and her secret talent when it comes to music. Connect with Lindsay at IroncladBrandStrategy.com and her book on Amazon and more

Lindsay Pedersen, brand strategist, leadership coach, and author of Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader's Guide, shares the nine criteria that define a successful brand and some tips for creating one.

Host Amy Guth talks with strategist and author Lindsay Pedersen about how brand clarity relates to company and product value, and how it can help leaders reclaim their time. Plus: Edelman drops a controversial client; Donnelley starts printing the census; why the City Council has no financial analyst as crucial budget cycle approaches; how hospitals will publish negotiated prices under proposed rules, and what happened after Capital One touted the safety of the cloud. Find host @AmyGuth on Twitter and continue the conversation with hashtag #CrainsDailyGist.

“Brand creates focus. It helps you prioritize. Because it’s a North Star in can help the leader allocate resources, determine how he or she should spend his or her time.” This week on the On Brand podcast, I was joined by Lindsay Pedersen, brand strategist and author of the book Forging an Ironclad Brand. About Lindsay Pedersen Lindsay Pedersen is the author of Forging An Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide. She is a brand strategist and leadership coach who views brand as a blend of science, intuition, behavioral economics, and ancient storytelling. She developed the Ironclad Method™ while building brands with companies such as Starbucks, Clorox, Zulily, T-Mobile, IMDb, and burgeoning start-ups. Lindsay lives in Seattle with her husband and two children. Episode Highlights Branding as a leadership tool. “Brand creates focus. It helps you prioritize. Because it’s a North Star in can help the leader allocate resources, determine how he or she should spend his or her time. Who he or she should hire.” The economic impact of brand. “Brand is the only truly sustainable differentiating factor for a business. Eventually, everything else can be copied. But you can’t copy a brand you’ve been reinforcing in peoples’ minds over time. Brand creates focus and a prioritizing mechanism for the leader and it also helps him or her create economic value by creating a competitive moat.” Demystifying storytelling for business. “I think of story as problem-solution or tension-resolution. So brand and business exist to create resolution. To take the audience from struggling with a problem to mastering a problem.” What brand has made Lindsay smile recently? “I love Trader Joe’s. When I shop at Trader Joe’s, I feel uplifted. I feel understood as a busy working mom.” To learn more, go to her book website where you can access a free workbook and follow Lindsay on Twitter. As We Wrap … Did you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you’d like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show. On Brand is sponsored by my book Brand Now. Discover the seven dynamics to help your brand stand out in our crowded, distracted world. Order now and get special digital extras. Learn more. Subscribe to the podcast – You can subscribe to the show via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn, and RSS. Rate and review the show – If you like what you’re hearing, head over to Apple Podcasts and click that 5-star button to rate the show. And, if you have a few extra seconds, write a couple of sentences and submit a review. This helps others find the podcast. OK. How do you rate and review a podcast? Need a quick tutorial on leaving a rating/review in iTunes? Check this out. Until next week, I’ll see you on the Internet!

Every business owner knows that building a company brand is more than choosing a color scheme and logo. Truly effective branding creates distinction among your competition and occupies valuable real estate in the mind of your customer. To learn more about brand building strategies for your business, we spoke to Lindsay Pedersen, brand strategist and best-selling author of “Forging an Ironclad Brand".

Since this is Part 2, there must be a Part 1 and I strongly recommend you listen to Part 1 before moving on to Part 2. Here's the link: http://martywolffbusinesssolutions.com/brand-strategist-lindsay-pedersen/If you are serious about forging your own Ironclad Brand, then of course I suggest you listen to both interviews, buy Lindsays's book and then go to her website ironcladbrandstrategy.com to download a FREE companion guide to the book. Lindsay walks you though her 8-Step Ironclad Method. When you go to the website, hit the book tab and you will see how you can get this terrific guide.Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and leadership coach who views brand as a blend of science, intuition, behavioral economics and ancient storytelling. Lindsay has worked with Starbucks, Clorox, Zulily, T-Mobile and several start-ups.Once again go to ironcladbrandstrategy.com to learn more and to get Lindsay's 8-step Ironclad Method.You can learn more about me, your host, at martywolffbusinesssolutions.com. You can call or text me your comments or questions at 570 815 1626. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What does your brand stand for in the minds of your audience? Does your branding have clarity in message and purpose so that your customers immediately know what you stand for and what your values are? If not, you need to hear from expert brand strategist and leadership coach Lindsay Pedersen.   Author of Forging An Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide, Lindsay developed the Ironclad Method™ while building brands such as Starbucks, Clorox, T-Mobile, and up-and-coming startups. She views ‘brand’ as a blend of science, intuition, behavioral economics, and ancient storytelling, and helps companies develop clarity around their brand, take a stand, and put values into action.   Creating an Ironclad brand is all about being differentiated and defendable. Lindsay explains how companies can figure out what the real need is they are filling and what really sets them apart and makes them different, vs. what they like to think it is. She also dives into the importance of leaders taking the helm when it comes to branding instead of leaving it to the marketing team. Small and mid-sized businesses may struggle with Ironclad branding because they’re afraid of turning customers away, but having a crystal-clear brand is powerful not only in attracting the right kind of customers but it also makes it easier for team members to know what the boundaries are. After all, innovation is impossible without clarity.   If you are ready to: get buy-in from key decision makers on your next big idea be a high-impact, high-value member that ignites change foster a culture of innovation where everyone on your team is bringing innovative ideas that tackle challenges and seize opportunities… Join us on LaunchStreet — gotolaunchstreet.com   Mentioned in This Episode: Sponsor: Brillity Digital — Digital Presence Assessment Offer Lindsay Pedersen Forging An Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide, by Lindsay Pedersen Volvo 4 Ps Framework Southwest Airlines AT&T Comcast Pepsi Coca-Cola CorePower Yoga Gore-Tex GEICO IQE Assessment  

"This brand-strategy-as-North Star was my most essential tool for growing a thriving business." More on thoughts like this and many other insights from my interview with Lindsay Pedersen, author of Forging an Iron Clad Brand: A Leaders's Guide. First question I asked was "Why is this a LEADERS guide?"Lindsay is a brand strategist and leadership coach who views brand as a blend of science, intuition, behavioral economics, and ancient storytelling. Lindsay Pedersen developed the Ironclad Method, while building brands with companies such as Starbucks, Clorox, Zulily, T-Mobile and several start-ups. I learned so much from this interview. I also read the book and I have it all marked up with things highlighted and notes in the margins.Learn more about Lindsay's work at ironcladbrandstrategy.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Linkedin.I have already invited Lindsay back for another interview. Is there something you want us to cover in the next interview? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Your brand tells your story when you're not in the room, and today Lindsay Pedersen shares tips for forging an ironclad brand with sales reps, entrepreneurs, and other business professionals.  Lindsay is a brand strategist who helps professionals identify the single idea that their business stands for. She's passionate about working with leaders to harness the power of brand every day.  Branding Brand is what you stand for in the mind of your audience. If your audience is a group of customers, it's the thing you mean to your customers. If it's future employers, it's what you mean to them. It's a crystallized meaning of what you uniquely bring to your audience.  [Tweet "When you stand for one idea, it's easier for your audience to grasp it than if you stand for multiple ideas. It's easier for a person to let one idea in. #branding"] When you spray a bunch of ideas out, it's harder for your audience to understand. It's in our interest for our audience to be able to understand because they'll be more like to remember us, like us, and talk about us.  It's up to us to make it easy by distilling it for them. Empathy We want to empathize and understand what it's like to be our customer. You and your company are not the center of the universe for that customer. They have many other things going on besides your value proposition.  When you crystallize it into something specific, it uses their worldview rather than their worldview. It makes it easier for them to buy what you're selling. Sometimes as businesses, we forget that we're not selling to a machine or an inanimate object. We're selling to humans with joys, sorrows, scarcities, worries, and pride. When they feel seen they are more likely to bond with you and want to do business with you.  Deconstructing brand One of Lindsay's motives for writing her book was people's widely varying definitions of brand. For some people, it's the name of the business. For others, it's the logo. Others assume it's related to marketing budget or television advertising.  She concluded that the concept was becoming problematic, and she wanted to demystify it.  There's some merit to all of those ideas, but she needed to bust the myths about what brand isn't. Otherwise, we'll keep having puzzling conversations where people aren't speaking the same language.  9 Criteria of ironclad brand Not all brand is created equally. You have a brand whether you deliberately created it or allowed it to be passively created.  If you aren't actively choosing the meaning, you won't have the brand position you want to have. A brand needs to be big enough to matter to your customer. A brand must be narrow enough that you own it.  Your brand must be asymmetrical so it uses your lopsided advantage to position you with your customer.   Your brand must be empathetic enough to address a deeply relevant human need.  It must be optimally distinct so it strikes a balance between being a familiar promise while also being novel.  It's a balance between functional and emotional so that it's rationally meaningful to your customer but also emotionally resonant.  Your brand must be a sharp-edged promise that is simple and singular.  It must have teeth and be demonstrably true.  Your brand must deliver on time, consistently, every time.  Vision When you think of sharp objects as they relate to your vision, those things are easier to see. Your eyes have to do less work.  Ease is good because when you ask less of your audience they are more likely to learn and remember. An example of this is the fact that people around the world associate the Volvo brand with safety. Same thing with Prius, because people think of fuel-efficient cars.  Buick doesn't have this sharp edge in its branding. If you're the CEO of Buick, how do you feel when your audience doesn't know what your brand means? Who even is the audience? The Buick salespeople have to do much more work than the Volvo or Prius salespeople.  Wide net We assume that if we can keep the door open without narrowing our message to a target customer that we'll appeal to everyone. The reality is that it's an illusion of an opportunity.  The more an entity puts a stake in the ground, the more authentic they are perceived to be. Customers won't trust companies who won't take a stand on anything.  People respect you more when you demonstrate what you're optimizing for.  The other thing is that developing a specific message might turn away the people you shouldn't be serving anyway, but that's ok because it's time and money you could devote to the people who are your target customers.  Mystique Remove the mystique of branding. You don't have to have a good handle on branding in order to intentionally craft your own brand.  Choose with crystal clarity who your target customer is, but don't just rely on demographic observations. What are they like? What keeps them up at night? What do they value in life?  This doesn't mean you don't sell to other people. It just means that you optimize with humility on your way to forging an ironclad brand.  "Forging An Ironclad Brand" episode resources Grab a copy of Lindsay's book Forging An Ironclad Brand. She also has a free giveaway on www.ironcladbrandstrategy.com. You can grab the workbook that Lindsay adapted from her book. It's a supplement that provides a step-by-step workbook-style guide to building your own brand strategy.  If you haven't connected with me on LinkedIn already, do that at Donald C. Kelly and watch the things I'm sharing there. You've heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we're offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester. You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it. If you and your team are interested in learning more, we'd love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

Today’s guest, Lindsay Pedersen, is talking about branding with us and no, not just your logo or your business colors—real branding, as she does in her book, Forging an Ironclad Brand. Lindsay’s going ... The post Forging an Ironclad Brand: Lindsay Pedersen appeared first on Author Hour.

Today’s guest, Lindsay Pedersen, is talking about branding with us and no, not just your logo or your business colors—real branding, as she does in her book, Forging an Ironclad Brand. Lindsay’s going ... The post Forging an Ironclad Brand: Lindsay Pedersen appeared first on Author Hour.

Clorox Bleach is 6% sodium hypochlorite and 94% water, the exact formulation of most generic store brands. Yet Clorox consistently commands 65% of U.S. bleach sales. Why? Because, says Lindsay Pedersen, who oversaw the hygienic cleaner for The Clorox Company, Clorox Bleach is an “ironclad” brand, one of many she showcases in her new book, “Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide.” Lindsay, whose Ironclad Brand Strategy consulting firm has also helped build ironclad brands for Starbucks, T-Mobile, Zulily, and other large companies, believes that a business’s brand it too important to be left to marketers alone. As she explains to host Dean Rotbart, brand is such a crucial driver of value creation that it needs to be developed and supported by virtually every employee at a company or organization, starting with the CEO. Good brand, Lindsay notes, really is just good business. You may think you know enough about branding or that your business or practice doesn’t need to have an ironclad brand to succeed. You’d be surprised at how many customers and how much profit you likely are missing out on. Hear for yourself on this week’s edition of Monday Morning Radio. Photo: Lindsay Pedersen, Ironclad Brand StrategyPosted: April 22, 2019Monday Morning Run Time: 45:17

Although Clorox Beach is virtually the same formula as most generic and store brands, it enjoys a consistent 65% market share. Learn its secret in this edition of The Monday Morning Radio Minute Featuring Lindsay Pedersen, author of ‘Forging an Ironclad Brand.’

The Monday Morning Radio Minute Featuring: Dean Rotbart, host, and Lindsay Pedersen, author of ‘Forging an Ironclad Brand.’ “When people buy Clorox, they’re not buying bleach at all.” What are they buying? Listen and Learn in less than 60 seconds. An excerpt from the April 22, 2019 edition of Monday Morning Radio.

The latest episode of The Pipeline Podcast features Owner of Ironclad Brand Strategy, Lindsay Pedersen. Lindsay and Joe share an in depth discussion on why brand strategy needs to be a cornerstone of your business. Lindsay covers: Why you need to be thinking about your brand Where to start with brand strategy How to better define your target audience Check out the latest podcast and let us know how you are approaching brand strategy by using #pipelinepod.

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