Category: customer experience

What does is mean to “help brands be their best inner selves” once the brand positioning is set?

Your Brand Isn’t Just External — It Lives Inside, Too

There’s a powerful overlap between brand strategy, company culture, and team energy. Once a new brand positioning is in place, it’s only as effective as the people and systems that bring it to life.

A successful brand must operate on two fronts:

  • Externally, to attract and engage customers
  • Internally, to align, energize, and empower the team

Here are three slightly unconventional ways to foster creativity, clarity, and stronger internal culture—whether it’s just you, or you + many:

1. Host a “Terrible Ideas” Summit
When you’re up against a tough challenge, make space for the bad ideas first. This helps dismantle internal pressure, invites quieter voices into the room, and often surfaces early-stage sparks that—given time and support—evolve into something remarkable.

2. Throw a Framing Party
Every interaction sends a message. In structured environments, we rely on briefs and check-ins to stay aligned. But in our day-to-day moments, we often operate unconsciously—bringing stress, distraction, or unspoken emotion into the room.

A framing party is a simple reset. Before your next interaction, ask yourself:

  • What mindset am I walking in with?
  • What impact do I want to have?
  • What’s the story I’m telling with my presence?

That brief moment of awareness can dramatically shift how you show up—and how others respond.

3. Pause for Better Ideas
Great ideas don’t usually show up in brainstorms or meetings. They surface later—while driving, folding laundry, walking the dog.

The process looks like this:

  • Define the challenge
  • Get curious
  • Gather input—research, conversations, exploration
  • Then pause

That pause is essential. When your brain is full, rest lets it connect the dots in unexpected ways. It’s not magic—it’s neuroscience. Capture what comes, whether in a notebook, voice memo, napkin, or sticky note.

What practices have helped you or your team stay grounded, energized, and creative? We’d love to hear how you build culture from the inside out.

Yay change! Your DIY Brand Audit Starts Here.

Embracing Change: A Strategic Reset Guide

“Change is the only constant.”
So said Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher. His sandals may not be trending now, but his thinking still is. This guide is designed to help you embrace change and transform insights into a smarter, sharper marketing plan.

How to Use This Guide
We recommend carving out 45–90 minutes per day over 3 to 5 days. Gather your team—or just bring a coffee and your favorite thinking tool—and find a quiet space. Shut the door. Start where you are. Starting is the hardest part.

By the time you’re done, you’ll have a clearer picture of what’s working, what’s next, and how often you’ll want to repeat this kind of check-in.

P.S. When we guide clients through this process, it’s a multi-day experience of discovery, strategy, creative ideation, and planning. The magic comes from giving yourself time to pause, reflect, and rethink. This isn’t busywork—it’s the groundwork for bold ideas. Have fun.

1. Wins & Losses

  • What worked this year? Celebrate it.

  • What didn’t? Be honest. What did you learn?

  • Want to go deeper? Try a quick SWOT by defining:

    • Strengths
    • Weaknesses
    • Opportunities
    • Threats

2. Your Customer

  • How have your customers’ lives or challenges changed recently—this year, this quarter, this month?

  • What new pain points are they facing?

  • What are they asking for without saying it directly?

3. Your Value Proposition & Purpose

  • Which of the above problems do you solve—and how effectively?

  • Has anything shifted in your data, feedback, or offering that makes your value proposition stronger (or weaker)?

  • Where does your purpose intersect with your customer’s needs? That overlap is your sweet spot. Make sure it’s clear, concise, and integrated into your messaging.

4. Brand Landscape

  • Where do you stand now in the industry?

  • Have your competitors changed—added, merged, evolved?

  • How is your offering differentiated? Think beyond product—what’s your experience like? Your tone? Your ethos? Your metaphorical (or real) bouncy castle?

5. Messaging Plan

  • Have your competitors shifted their positioning? If so, how does it affect your space?

  • Build a list of messaging themes based on the customer problems you solve.

  • Assign each theme to the platforms you use (email, social, site, print, etc.).

  • Avoid copy-pasting the same message everywhere—tailor it per platform, even if the core theme remains consistent.

  • For each main theme, define 3–5 subpoints or stories. Use these to create platform-specific variations that all support the same narrative arc.

6. Voice & Storytelling

  • Is the way you speak to your customer still resonating?

  • Have shifts in culture, economics, or politics created new nuances in how you should communicate?

  • Are there opportunities to be more inclusive, empathetic, or imaginative in your language or imagery?

Last Thought
Yes, this is a lot. And yes, we love it.

This guide is just the start—each section can be a launchpad into deeper dives tailored to your team, your goals, and your growth. So suit up, dive in, and most of all: enjoy the process. This is where the next great version of your brand begins.

Maintaining an on-brand message during a crisis.

Due to unavoidable built-in wiring that comes installed free in all humans, we will each at some point during a time of crisis, be overcome by the part of our nervous system that in an effort to protect us, shuts down everything we don’t need in an emergency. Despite how much we might wish to use them, while in “fight or flight” mode, triggered by stress, panic, or surprise, our brains will be momentarily closed for decision making.

With a few slow, deep breaths, your brain will kick back into gear. And with it your ability to think wisely about how to proceed with creating the necessary messaging to communicate with your teams, partners, vendors, and most importantly, customers.

Four things to keep in mind while you navigate communication during a pandemic, that will serve you always:

 

Empathy: We are all experiencing a loss of some sort. Keep this in mind while you frame your intended message.

Information: There are so many rumors and so many rules, it is hard to keep the facts from the assumptions right now. Stick to what you know, keep it as brief as possible, share the most crucial information each type of audience needs from you, in the simplest form.

Optimism: We are bombarded by bad news on a normal day, let alone during a pandemic. Unfortunately, this causes more stress on the nervous system and consequently more stress on the immune system. Incorporating positivity and forward-looking optimism into your message is one way to support the health and wellness of your tribes, at no cost to you.

Consistency: When you know someone well and have a sense of comfort and fondness in your established relationship it is shocking when one day that person shows up with a totally different hairstyle or accent, or tone of voice. The same is true for your brand. In any message you are sharing, stay true to your aesthetic – the visual side of your brand, your color palette (or lack of one), and the language you use to communicate. The more you look and sound like yourself while sharing information, the more normalcy, comfort, and possibility for connection you bring.

For more information about how to create compelling and on-brand messages during a crisis or anytime, send us an email at hello@seedagency.com We’d love to help.

Our approach to creating relatable brands for our clients.

Q:

Does our logo look tired? Can you tell us how we should update it? Is the orange still relevant? Is the typeface dated? Is the icon working?

A:

If we answered these questions before asking many more first, we would be referencing our ideas of what is valuable, relevant, and interesting. Those answers would be about us, not about you, your customer or the true value you represent and therefore, they would be wrong.

If that was our process, we recommend you fire us.

Your questions need answers that come from looking more deeply at who you want to have a conversation with. Who do you serve? How do you serve them? What is the most important way that your service improves their life? How are you serving them vs. the competition? What insights and additional questions come from asking these questions? And so on.

The answers can reveal which services your customers need and value, and which may need to change, a little or a lot, to better meet customer’s true needs and practices as well as revealing clues as to the best way to speak to your customer so that they can hear you.

The world changes with ever-increasing speed. Thus, the way you talk to people, the reasons you think they work with you or buy from you and the narratives and media channels you use all benefit from consistent, periodic evaluations.

Pop Quiz

Who is using your product? What are their 3 biggest stressors daily? 

Why and how do your customers choose and use you?

What are you doing now that positively impacts your customers lives that your competitors are not?

And how is that message reaching your customer? 

If you haven’t considered these questions in a while, we can help you through the process.

And from there, we can talk about the color of your logo.

At Seed Agency, we help clients navigate their brands through an ever-changing landscape of customers, behaviors, media platforms and data. If you need a partner in better navigating toward your own north star, we are here to help.