#017 Building Brands People Love with Cheryl Farr

What is a restaurant, or product, or a hospitality experience that you love and would highly recommend to a good friend? What was it about that brand that really hooked you, and what would you say about it to somebody else? 

My guest and branding strategist and storyteller, Cheryl Farr, points out that a brand is not so much about what we say about ourselves, but what other people say about you. Or to echo the words of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, a brand is what people say when you are not in the room. 

In this conversation Cheryl and I talk about how she helps teams create brands people trust and love, and her path to learn and get really good at her craft. Her journey reminds and teaches us how we can connect the dots among our different passions and experiences to create a work life we love while helping others put their best foot forward. Cheryl brings a rare and refreshing depth of care, commitment, insight and wisdom to her approach to brand creation and strategy. This conversation is peppered with insights and tips, and I hope you come away with as much inspiration and takeaways as I did. 

 

ABOUT OUR GUEST 

Cheryl Farr is the Founder and Chief Strategist for SIGNAL Brand Innovation, a brand consultancy and strategic design agency dedicated to creating and activating brands people love. She founded the firm in 2009 to help organizations and leaders align their brands with their business strategies and take great leaps forward. Her success stories include Fairmont Hotels and Resorts where she helped position the brand for expansive worldwide growth, the Polti Group where she led the creation of an innovative new consumer trending methodology to guide product and marketing innovations for the nation’s largest homebuilder, and Cornell Hotel Society where she crafted the ultimate rallying cry for the world’s largest and most influential hospitality alumni network. 

Cheryl has led multiple brand development and repositioning initiatives as part of mergers and acquisitions, most notably in the technology space. She is a former travel writer and editor for recognized guidebooks like “Frommer’s,” “for Dummies” and Travel + Leisure. 

Cheryl holds master’s degrees in business and history from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and Columbia University. She is a writer and a public speaker on topics related to branding and creating winning experiences for customers and employees. She is also passionate about mid-century architecture and design and lives in the mid-century modern mecca of Palm Springs, California with her husband, Tony, and their talkative Shih Tzu, Harry Carson, who incidentally has his own Instagram handle, “@HarryCarsonSpeaks.”

ABOUT MAKING BUSINESS ART 

Making Business Art is a podcast for curious people where we explore how to make our work more meaningful and enchanting for ourselves and the people we serve. We draw lessons and inspiration from entrepreneurs, designers, scientists, creative leaders and artists about creating remarkable experiences that light up our customers and our teams.

This podcast is the creation of and hosted by me, Ezequiel Williams. I am an entrepreneur, innovation strategist, facilitator, and business designer. I help leaders and teams see their challenges differently and find ways to deliver value that are more desirable and satisfying for the people they serve. I am very curious and love to learn about how things work, what makes people tick, and how to create more joy in the world. 

Instagram: @MakingBusinessArt