Welcome back to Branded: your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

In this episode, your hosts Larry Roberts and Sara Lohse cover the importance of brand values and the guiding principles that underpin them. Brand values are more than just words on a page; they're the ethical foundation and the essence of what your brand stands for. They help shape your company's behavior, guide decision-making processes, and build trust with your audience. We'll explore what brand values are, how they relate to personal values, and how they translate into the ethical manner in which your business delivers its products or services. This episode also touches on the process of rebranding, establishing guiding principles, and setting goals that align with your brand's core values. Larry shares his experience with rebranding from "readily random" to "red hat" and discusses the importance of innovation as a core value. We also emphasize the significance of consistency and the role of mission and vision statements in conveying brand values. Sara explains how her commitment to kindness and positivity shapes her collaboration choices and goals, while offering practical tips for creating your own brand values and statements. Key takeaways: 1. Understanding Brand Values: Brand values are akin to personal values; they signify what your brand stands for and guide the behavior and actions of your business. They are essential in crafting mission and vision statements that reflect your brand's objectives and desired impact. 2. Importance of Ethical Conduct: Ethical behavior and consistency are crucial in maintaining a brand's integrity. Entrepreneurs and business owners must ensure that their personal conduct aligns with their brand values across all aspects of their lives to build and sustain trust with their audience. 3. Role of Innovation in Branding: Larry talks about his rebrand experience and highlights innovation as a core value. Staying at the forefront of industry trends and consistently updating your knowledge and skills can establish you as a thought leader and build trust with your community. 4. Creating Mission and Vision Statements: A mission or vision statement should reflect the core values and guiding principles of your brand. These statements are not set in stone and can evolve over time as the brand grows and adapts to new challenges and opportunities. 5. Practical Tips for Defining Brand Values: To identify and define your brand values, consider brainstorming with your team, surveying your customers, analyzing testimonials and reviews, and studying your competition. These methods can help you uncover the values that resonate most with your audience and set you apart in your industry. We hope you find these insights valuable as you work on defining and implementing your brand values. Your brand's success hinges on the clarity and consistency of its values and the ethical conduct that brings those values to life. [embed]https://youtu.be/SHC06D1Cp4E[/embed]

Larry Roberts [: 00:00:08

What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts. And I'm Sara Lohse, and this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding. And on this episode of the podcast, I'm gonna dial things back a little bit. On one of our previous episodes, we were talking about the various components that go into brand, and this is a bit of a follow-up to that discussion. And we're going to focus in on brand values and the guiding principles behind our brand values. And there's so much to cover here, but I think we could just jump in by trying to understand maybe, Sara, if you can help us get there, understand what are the values per se of a brand. So your brand values are

Sara Lohse [: 00:00:51

kind of similar to a personal values. These are the things that you stand for. These are ideas or or concepts that you are very feel very committed to. And when we establish our brand values, it helps us to guide the way we wanna act. and guide the way that we want our company to work and to act as we've go into the future. And when you sit down and really figure out your brand values. It's really helpful when you create your mission and your vision statements because what is it that you're trying to do and what impact are you trying to have? Those brand values are going to show that to you. Well, it sounds like a lot of that is revolves around the ethical foundations

Larry Roberts [: 00:01:33

of the brand, the way that we conduct our business. And a lot of people look at their brand, and they think it's just that logo or it's just that graphical representation. But the values that are in our brand is displayed just as prominently as our color schemes, as our font, as our logo in the way that we deliver that brand value or that brand message. So if we have a product or a service that we go through, part of our brand is the ethical

Sara Lohse [: 00:02:01

manner in which we deliver that product. With brand values, it's so important, especially when we're talking about personal branding because Your brand is a representation of who you are. What is it that you as a person's stand for? And how can we incorporate those values

Larry Roberts [: 00:02:19

into the products that we're trying to deliver to our customers. Well, I think that falls back on to that responsibility that we, as the business owners, have to demonstrate that on a consistent basis. It's funny when you see entrepreneurs that are out there, and they have a certain brand that revolves around their business. But Then if you start to follow their social media, you start to see some of the ways they conduct themselves in a different environment. Some of the messaging that seems, well, directly counterintuitive to the brand message they have for their business. So we kinda have and we don't kinda. We definitely have that responsibility, especially as entrepreneurs, to carry that that brand message the ethics that we have behind the value in our brand. across all aspects of our lives. Yeah. And then once we get into those

Sara Lohse [: 00:03:06

values, we need to establish our guiding principles. What that means is the value is what we're what means something to us and what we stand for, but those guiding principles are the ways that we wanna conduct ourselves, the ways that we want to act in order to uphold those values. When we determine what our brand is and how we want to be seen and how we wanna act, those values are really important. Now I know, Larry, you actually just did a little bit of a rebrand in the last couple of months when you went from readily random to red hat. What is one of your values? Well, I think one of the biggest values that

Larry Roberts [: 00:03:45

I try to demonstrate on an ongoing basis is innovation. You know, everything that I try to do revolves around being at the forefront of the evolution of whatever niche it is that I'm working in, whether it's content creation, to stay on top of things as far as what are the latest and greatest tools and techniques that we can leverage in our content creation. That's one of the reasons or one of the things that actually led me to the to even start talking about AI and then in a very short period of time going from an unknown in that space to a thought leader in a variety of different industries in the AI space. So that innovation, that value that I established in my brand, allowed and and when you tie these these things together, that's what establishes the trust with your potential customer or client. the trust with your community or your group or others that are in your niche. But you have to have that consistency across the board, and you have to lead with those values and lead with those ethics and lead by demonstrating by taking the personal responsibility to live each aspect of your life and grow your business and work with your community in a very, very consistent fashion. And I

Sara Lohse [: 00:04:57

know that is something that you actually take seriously because the amount of times you've made fun of me for not knowing what's going on because I consider you my my little go to. People ask me, like, oh, so what's new in -- That doesn't sound condescending at all. It's it was meant to be a compliment. You'll have to dig for it. Thank you. Thank you. But I've had people ask me, like, I wanna get into YouTube and how do I make sure my videos are getting viewed. I'm like, give me a second. Let me call Larry and get him to explain it to me, and then I'll explain it to you because you are so set on making sure you know exactly what's happening and how things are changing. And I wait until you figure it out. And then I ask for basically the Spark Notes version. So I can attest first -- -- come on this now that

Larry Roberts [: 00:05:49

What are Spark notes? Am I just too old to know what those are? I mean, we used to call them cliff notes back in my day. Or is it -- It's the same thing. Okay. Okay. There was an

Sara Lohse [: 00:05:58

we were in high school. There was a website called Spark Notes. And if you looked up the book you had to read for school, they'd give you, like, a bulleted summary. Yeah. Well, that was that was Cliff Jones. I think that I think Jen Z calls it, like, too long didn't read.

Larry Roberts [: 00:06:11

Oh, t l d l d. t l d r. Yeah. The TLDR. I actually I subscribed to a newsletter. And for anybody listening, if you wanna look for the TLDR newsletter, it is an amazing newsletter that brings you up to speed on some of the late technology and and opportunities to leverage innovations in your own content creation, in your own business. TLDR, I highly recommend it. Check it out. not sponsored. No affiliate link, but look it up. You'll you'll appreciate it. Each and every Clearly not sponsored because I've never heard of it. No. Not sponsored at all. But, man, I get both the the regular TLDR newsletter and the TLDR AI newsletter as well. Check them both out. They're good. Interesting.

Sara Lohse [: 00:06:45

See?

Larry Roberts [: 00:06:46

more more proof. Well and that's how I stay on top of things. Just it's just like that. I I watch a ton of YouTube videos. I engross myself in all aspects of content creation and AI. I mean, there's a couple of amazing YouTube channels out there that can bring you up to speed as as well. Now Granted, you probably don't wanna fall asleep to YouTube each night watching AI videos like I do or wake up in the morning. And the first thing you consume is a is another AI video on YouTube. like I do after Andy Griffith, of course. But -- Quite -- my point is is that I I do this on a consistent basis that I can stay on top of things so that I can be seen as an expert or a thought leader in the innovation space within content creation and AI. I mean, that's where my clients are. That's what my brand represents. That's what people expect from the red hat. When you go under the brim of the red what are you going to get? What are those values? What are those ethics? What is that responsibility that I demonstrate each and every day to each and every one of my clients? And those are the types of questions that everybody out there that's trying to establish a brand has to be able to answer for themselves. So TLDR,

Sara Lohse [: 00:07:52

Red Hat Media values innovation. So Larry spends his time watching YouTube videos and reading new newsletters to learn about

Larry Roberts [: 00:08:01

stuff. Do we do we need one of those alarms? because I think we just had a nerd alert It was just gonna be going off right there. Just a big loud siren that's going off. Nurdlehorn. Nurdlehorn. I thought I thought the red hat was just that siren. Oh, gosh. Just that's just the the nerd beacon. This isn't going well for me. No.

Sara Lohse [: 00:08:17

When does it?

Larry Roberts [: 00:08:20

So once we have all that established, we can start looking at some other things that have to do with our our brand values as well, like goals. People need to understand that we, as manurers and business owners. We have goals as well, and those goals should be defined and revolve around the

Sara Lohse [: 00:08:36

views behind our brand. One of the values for my brand is kindness and positivity. I guess that's 2, but they go hand in hand. But I am very dedicated to spreading kindness spreading positivity. So one of my guiding principles is I will only work with brands or entrepreneurs or individuals who have some kind of message of positivity or have some goal or vision or mission to have a positive impact, whether it's on one person or on the world or on a community, whatever it is. So when we talk about goals, that means that one my goals is I want to help others have positive impacts.

Larry Roberts [: 00:09:17

So I want to work with people so that I can help them do that. Well and I think one of the things that we need to make sure we do is convey that message that you're delivering here in our mission and our vision statements. You've helped me a lot as far as developing the Red Hat brand goes. I didn't necessarily okay. I just didn't flat out. Okay? There's no excusing it. There's no beating around the bush. I did not have a mission statement or a vision for my company. There was nowhere on the website that talked about mission, nothing nothing on the website that talked about vision. But now I have both, and It was definitely through your help every step of the way. What is your mission statement for favorite daughter media? My mission

Sara Lohse [: 00:09:59

is and I'm just gonna read this off my website verbatim. Favorite daughter media was created to help mission driven brands and creators amplify their social reach and impact. field by creativity and a constant desire to do more, favorite daughter combines content creation with business strategy, introducing a fresh perspective, and emerging media trends to new or established friends. Okay. So you read that very, very fast, but it it let's let's dial it back a little bit and maybe step through it. Okay. What does that mean to you? And what does that mean to somebody that reads it? I don't know. I did it through chatty PT.

Larry Roberts [: 00:10:30

Okay. Well, that worked. I did not know. It sounds good. I mean,

Sara Lohse [: 00:10:34

No. I absolutely did not. Basically, I wrote my mission because I was trying to get across some of those values. One of the things I value is creativity, and that was a really important one to me when I was a establishing my brand because I came from an industry that kind of lacked creativity. I was in finance for years. And I was able to be creative, but not to the point that I wanted to. So I felt like I was kind of always raining it back. So I incorporated creativity and fueled by creativity into my mission statement because it was something that I felt so strongly out. I really wanted to be able to create as much as I could and not limit the ideas that I had and not limit anything that might seem crazier out of the box. I wanted to run with that. I didn't want to hide it away like I felt like I had been. So that was one of them. And I had talked about fresh perspective, and that's something that I also consider kinda one of my values is always kind of thinking of something new. And not to the innovation point that you have it, but more of there are so many things that we haven't tried before. And as a marketing person, we get kind of stuck in our ways a lot, especially when we're working with a big company when things have layers of approval they have to go through. It's kind of one of those, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. ideas, and I don't like that. because if it ain't broke, yeah, it's working, but it could be working better. What are we missing? What are we forgetting? Are we losing sight of kind of what could be happening. And even what I mean, that was something that even in when I worked in finance, I brought with me because I joined an industry that was very set in stone. It was very it it is what it is. Financial planning. We work with wealthy individuals and help them plan for their retirements, but that wasn't enough for me. I wanted to do something different, and I wanted to have a positive impact. So I started changing the way things were happening. So I started creating free resources when free wasn't really a word in the vocabulary before. And I started Being creative and using my creativity to have an impact, and it worked, and it actually ended up making a lot of changes at the company which was amazing, but I wanted to take that into my own company as well. So when I speak to established brands especially and they tell me, like, yeah. No. I've been pretty steady, but I feel like I could do more. I wanna look at what they've been doing and find

Larry Roberts [: 00:13:13

all of those different opportunities that they've overlooked. Well, I think that's a testament to the fact that our our brand our mission our vision and really just the entire foundation of our brand has that opportunity to evolve. And not only do they have the opportunity, it's just something that's going to happen. it's going to change over the years. It's going to evolve, and it's going to grow. Ironically enough, I you know, before we started re recording this this episode, I was looking at my website, and there is not a damn thing about innovation in my mission statement or my vision statement. Neither their innovation is still working in there. It's in my brand story. It is. But it's not -- I know because I wrote it. Right. But it's not in the mission of the vision. So

Sara Lohse [: 00:13:55

But it is on I made sure it was on your website.

Larry Roberts [: 00:13:58

We'll we'll edit it. -- branded. We Lohse Larry in all of his calls. This is great. But, again, my point there is that things are gonna be evolve, and they're gonna transform over time. you know, when I when I first got into this whole game back in 14, I had no idea what any of this was or or or what it was all about. But, you know, coming out of the gate, everything was about comedy and being silly and being really just as offensive as possible. because everything was revolving around eighties style comedy, and that's what comedy was back in the eighties. It evolved to the point where that ran its course, we'll leave it at that. And I had to move into a a different arena, and I was completely lost. And then I ended up in in in transitional phase called readily random, which I found out quickly that that didn't do anything because nobody knew what the heck it meant. And then that evolved today into the Red Hat. course, there were a couple of offshoots. I say a couple. There were many offshoots. There were many 1 in 2 episode podcasts that came during that time because I was consistently looking for that mission. I was looking for that vision statement. I was looking for the establishment of a brand that I could rely on, that I could build values on, and that people could put confidence in and have trust in what I'm bringing to the table. And that's such a key component to everything that we're doing is having that trust. And while it may take time to get there, I mean, we're coming up on my 10 years of podcasting here. And we're about a year out from that. So good solid 9 years in right now to find me where I'm at today, and I finally, over the last 18 to 24 months, started gaining the public's trust in this regard. They started under standing who I was and what my personal brand was and not just from a physical representation, but, again, what is in side that brand, what the values are behind that brand, what the ethical considerations are behind that brand, and they found that they could put trust in the fact that I am going to go to sleep and wake up studying, learning, innovating along the way, and I can help them do the same thing. But that's the the message that I wanna convey here is that don't get too caught up in where you're at. It it's a journey. And while we need these components, we're not locked in to that specific mission. We're not locked in to that specific vision. It's great to have it in our brand story, which I obviously have innovation in my brand story. Obviously.

Sara Lohse [: 00:16:27

It'll continue to evolve into my mission and vision statement as well. Yeah. When I looked at your website because you came to me and asked if I could help you with your mission vision and your brand story. Your brand story was more of your personal story. And that's I mean, that's okay. It's a personal brand, but I felt like they were it was missing that why should we trust you piece of it that you were just talking about. And it was more of get to know me and who I am, but less of get to know why you should trust me, why you should work with me. So yours was the easiest rewrite I've probably ever done because I already felt like I knew you so well. I may have spent 20 minutes rewriting your brand story and your mission and vision because you despite not having it on your website, it was things that you already living by and already using to shape your brand, you just didn't know it yet. So that's kind of one of the takeaways I want people to get from this. When we talk about how we define our brands, how we establish those values, how we establish the mission and vision, so many times, it's something you already say all the time. I have branding summits and branding meetings with different companies. and I'll tell them from the start, I'm not gonna come up with your mission statement. You're gonna tell it to me. It's just something that you say so often -- that you don't think about it anymore. So it doesn't stand out to you as this is my mission statement or this is my vision statement. It's just kind of part of, like, your elevator pitch. So so many times when I have these conversations, I'm just writing down exactly what they're saying presenting it back to them. And they're like, oh, that's genius. That's exactly what we were trying to say. I was like, I know because you've been saying it. So if you wanna sit down and try to come up with these for yourself, think of all the things you already say. I can almost guarantee you will find your mission statement there. some of the ways that you can really expand on that would be potentially,

Larry Roberts [: 00:18:31

if you have a team, sit down and brainstorm with your team. You know, ask them what does our brand stand for? What do you, as team members, feel our brand represents? That's one of the ways you could go about it. Have those conversations with the people that work with you on a consistent daily basis. Another way you could do it is potentially survey your customers. Odds are, you already have an extensive client base or a customer base, put together a survey. Send it out as part of your email marketing campaigns. Ask your clients. What do you see as the value that you got from working with me and my company? And one more way that you could do that potentially is to analyze your your your competition. You know, look at the people around you that are in the same industry or the same niche that you're in and see what they're doing. take a look at what their values are. See if those values align with you or if they can help expose some of the values that you potentially have that maybe your competition doesn't, and that's something that we're always looking for is how do we stand out above and beyond our competition and having an idea or really knowing exactly what the values are for your competition can help you isolate and focus on your own core values and leverage those to stand out. Can I add a fourth one? Please.

Sara Lohse [: 00:19:46

Look at your testimonials or the reviews that your clients have sent you. which kind of goes hand in hand with the survey. But if you're like me, I don't like to ask for feedback. I don't like to ask people for things because, a, I'm scared it'll be mean. And b, I just don't want to kind of put anyone out. But when I was coming up with mine, I looked at the testimonials and the reviews that already gotten, and -- checked if there was anything that was consistent among them, and one of them was creativity, and that was my reminder to I need to incorporate this into my branding. So you can look at the things that people have already said about you, and that might give you some ideas as well. Love it. Love it. So there's 4 easy ways to start identifying

Larry Roberts [: 00:20:30

the values for your brand and your business. And if you got some value out of this So do us a favor. Smash that subscribe button so we can bring you these amazing episodes of branded each and every week. Thank you so much for listening.

Sara Lohse [: 00:20:44

I'm Larry Roberts. I'm Sara Lohse. We'll see you next week.