Nadat we ons verhaal voor de MOO award hadden opgesteld kwamen we tot de conclusie dat deze vragen precies de vragen zijn die wij in onze strategische sessies aan onze klanten stellen! In ons eat your own dogfood principe vinden we het goed om onze antwoorden met onze fans te delen.
We zijn benieuwd hoe onze lezers deze vragen zouden beantwoorden. We vinden het leuk als je onderaan reageert met wat je van ons verhaal vindt.
Hieronder de vragen die door MOO werden gesteld en ons antwoord erop (het is allemaal in het Engels voor MOO Engeland):
Question 1 – Tell us about your business
How you came up with your amazing business idea; Where you see it going in the future; Why you’re totally in love with what you do
Both partners of brandfabric found each other through twitter. Danielle tweeted about the need for personality in b2b branding and Bas couldn’t agree more and replied with an invitation for coffee. It was the end of the summer in 2010 and brandfabric was born.
The main idea was to bring personality back to b2b. Ending faceless b2b communications and rethinking brand strategies using personality types and brand values that really stand out! It took us a year to develop our methodology and in the summer of 2011 we acquired our first client. Our methodology was put in practice and success followed immediately after this first engagement. Since then we have made our sales quotas every quarter and are experiencing wonderful growth.
In the future we would love to hire young graduates who we can mold and educate on the power of using personality in branding. We want to start a revolution in b2b marketing strategy and we need an army!
The best part of our work is when we see the “aha-moments” land in the heads of our clients. We completely shift their thinking on who they are as an organization, what is great marketing and how to go about it. We unleash their creativity by using visuals and other methods such as play-doh exercises. We use these to answer questions such as “who are you (as a company) in the essence of your existence?” It’s a beautiful thing when people in the organization are inspired by their own special characteristics. This in turn inspires us to take our clients from good to great, from business to brand!
Question 2 – Tell us about overcoming obstacles
Overcoming anything from teething problems to huge disasters; How you demonstrated resourcefulness in the face of setbacks; What you’ve learned about business from your difficult times
In the beginning all we had were ideas. We were starting from scratch. We knew why we wanted to start brandfabric but we didn’t know how we were going to do it and what we needed to get there. Using simple questions such as “Okay a client wants our services, what are we going to do first, what do we need and how do we do it?”
The first year we didn’t make any money. We had to keep the faith in our idea and that success would come to us. That was hard especially if you are used to things coming easily to you. We gave away free workshops to test our products and we talked to anyone who would listen. We read lots of books on branding and invested in our own development.
Our most important lesson the first year was that the belief in a vision will pay off. We also learned that the first client is the hardest; once other people see that someone has entrusted you with their company strategy others follow. It’s the law of sheep!
The last thing we learned was “eat your own dog food”; everything we want our clients to do we have to have done it ourselves and experience the value of our own beliefs and products.
Question 3 – Tell us about your remarkability
What you think makes you special; Where you see potential for growth; Why your customers love what you do
Our growth lies in expanding nationally and internationally. Also the depth, length and complexity of our engagements have wonderful potential for growth.
When we were looking for tools to make our very abstract brand strategy workshops visually appealing we turned to moo.com. We created archetype moodboard cards, mini brand value cards and an array of cool brandfabric stickers. We wanted the world to see we could be just as creative as we were strategic. And it works every time!
We make our workshops remarkable with moo-stickers and other visuals; we also have big jars of M&M’s on the tables, lots of sharpies and colorful post-its. We even select a special song for each of our clients that we always start each of the series of workshops with! Strategic branding is fun and we make an experience of it. Clients love that about us.
Here in Holland people are taught that laying low is good, don’t rock the boat. When we come in we do the exact opposite. It helps them to shift their thinking. How else are you going to have your prospects pick you if you are afraid to stand out!
We use moo during our presentations as an example of great b2b branding. Clients love to see real life examples and the way you guys communicate through e-mail and website show how personality works in the real world of b2b*. It’s still hard to find great b2b personality examples.
The combination of strategy meets creative is one of the most important aspects our clients are excited about. We approach the strategic questions in a creative way and we always want a good strategy in order to develop the creative work for our clients. They love our easy and flowing shift between these two extremes. Using the materials we developed through moo.com we can show and tell how we work. We have actual products to get prospects excited to work with us.
Giving them a taste of who we are and expressing our own brandfabric personality visually. (please see attached pictures of our materials and workshops)
*Not that we are trying to suck up to you or anything, but we do wanna win that award 😉