November 15, 2021 • 32 mins
In episode 105, host Eric Dickmann interviews Chris West. Chris leads the world's leading strategic brand consultancy focusing on brand language. Verbal Identity has created distinctive and engaging brand voices for global and national brands, relaunches, and startups, from B2B, B2C, and everything in between.
Chris founded Verbal Identity in 2010 to advise clients on the power of brand language. His 30 years' experience allowed him to help brands and companies use their language to engage customers, deepen loyalty, and de-position rivals.
Chris’ book all about his practice is titled “Strong Language” – the fastest, smartest, cheapest marketing tool you’re not using. It is a practical, how-to guide for creating a distinctive brand language, as well as winning support for change and defining the budget and ROI for doing it.
For more information and access to the resources mentioned in this episode, visit:
https://fiveechelon.com/power-language-build-brand-identity-s7ep5/
A fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy and execute targeted campaigns designed to increase awareness and generate demand for your business...without the expense of a full-time hire.
The Five Echelon Group - Fractional CMO and strategic marketing advisory services designed for SMBs looking to grow. Learn more at:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Dickmann (00:02):
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.
I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
In this podcast, we haveconversations with marketing
professionals who share thestrategies, tactics, and mindset
you can use to improve theeffectiveness of your marketing
activities and grow yourbusiness.
Chris welcome to The Virtual CMOpodcast.
I'm so glad you could join us.
Chris West (00:23):
Hey, Eric, it's lovely to see you and
congratulations on the show.
Eric Dickmann (00:27):
Oh, hey, thank you so much, I really appreciate
that.
You know, we have so much fundoing this show and it's great
to have guests on like yourselfthat can truly add value to our
audience.
You know, we're always trying tohelp businesses figure out ways
to improve their marketingstrategy, to get more
effectiveness from the marketingtactics that they're running.
And I know today we're going toget a chance to talk with you
(00:49):
all about you know, brand voiceand really creating that voice
for your company.
And I was wondering, you knowfirst of all, if we could just
start with a little bit ofbackground on yourself, tell us
how you got into this brandingand how you've been helping
companies develop that brandvoice.
Chris West (01:05):
Sure.
So I suppose the origins of whatI'm doing as a business with
Verbal Identity, I suppose yougo back 30 years.
So 30 years is a long time inwhat's happened in the marketing
world.
In those days, I was acopywriter in an ad agency in
London, working on big accounts,like British Airways.
And if you are writer, then itwas a really wonderful world
(01:29):
because I was considered a highproducer because I produced
maybe five ads in a year, right?
Crazy.
Like you know, a hundred words.
That's, that's what made myliving in a year.
I set up a boutique agency in2000, right?
Working with lots of wonderfulB2B, B2C clients, different
sizes.
(01:50):
And over time as the number ofbrand channels exploded.
What I found was each time Ileft a meeting, a client would
kind of grab me by the sleeveand say, Hey Chris, you're a
good writer.
We've now got 4,000 words towrite before breakfast tomorrow.
Help us.
And that was their CRM, that wastheir website, that was social
(02:11):
media.
That was you know the high rateof turnover in packaging, the
high rate of communications andcustomer service, all of that.
So about 10 years ago, Irealized that if I was being
asked this all the time, Ishould really look at how brands
can position themselves withlanguage.
I reckon everyone that listensto you has got a great visual
identity.
They would know what their logois and they would know when it's
(02:34):
wrong.
They would know what their fontis, their color palette is.
But if you said to them, howwell defined is your verbal
brand, is your verbal identityas strong as your visual
identity?
I'm not sure how many peoplewould say hand on heart.
Yes, it is.
So that's how the businessstarted.
Eric Dickmann (02:50):
That's really interesting because I would
agree.
I don't think a lot of peoplethink about that.
You know, you're right.
There are style guides thatcreated the talk all about how
the logo needs to be presentedand what colors to use and the
fonts and whatever, but notnecessarily what to say other
than maybe a tagline or, youknow, a brand marker, or
something like that.
So how would you describe verbalidentity or the voice of a
(03:13):
brand?
How do you sort of get to aplace where you can start to
solidify what that really means?
Chris West (03:20):
I think the first stop is understanding where
language is working for yourbusiness, and the short answer
is everywhere all the time, butyou need to be able to define
the voice because often it's inthe founder, in the founder's
head or the marketingdepartment.
Someone in their department is areally great writer.
(03:41):
And if you want somethingwritten, go and ask Eric.
Eric's got the voice.
Eric knows, Eric will do it.
Dah, dah, dah.
And of course, Eric needs totake a hold of it.
Eric, may occasionally get sick,get married, or have other
personal commitments.
So Eric can't do it all thetime.
So often what you're doing isyou're extracting it from the
head of the people in thebusiness to know what the voice
(04:03):
is intuitively, even if theyhaven't defined it rigorously.
Eric Dickmann (04:08):
So this is more than brand values, what our
brand stands for.
This is really how they'recommunicating those values, how
they're presenting themselves tothe marketplace.
Chris West (04:21):
Yeah.
And I think many brands do itinadvertently, which is often
you know, a route to disasterbecause you're just kind of
saying, well, we'll just putsome stuff out on social media
and we're just kind of, let'sjust write the customer service
letter as quickly as we can andlet's do this with the CRM.
But you would never do that withyour visual identity.
You would be really careful,just as you said, to have this
(04:44):
comprehensive deck that says,this is what we do on this
occasion, this is how we vary itby this moment or by this
channel.
And so once you have the voicedefined and once you learn how
to flex it for differentchannels, then I think what you
see is that you have a voicethat suddenly becomes as strong
as the other elements in yourbrand.
Eric Dickmann (05:04):
Can you maybe walk us through that a little
bit?
Maybe with a current client or apast client in how you sort of
defined what that voice wasgoing to be.
And some examples of what youput in that verbal style guide
to help guide other people inhow they would write in that
voice?
Chris West (05:21):
Sure, sure..
I think the heart of what we dois a really simple framework
that.
we've used and reused, andproven over the last 10 years.
Do you mind if I talk aboutthat?
Couple of minutes and then, oh,thanks.
So a lot of people think thatbrand voice is just tone of
voice and often if that's thedef.
(05:43):
If that's what you think thebrand voice is, then you come up
with four adjectives, humanfriendly, warm and approachable,
which doesn't really help thewriter.
I always say, think about thewriter, ten past seven at night.
She or he, they've got to writesomething.
Everyone else has gone home.
Needs to be on the boss's desktomorrow morning.
What are they going to do inthat situation?
They're going to kind of revertback to how they've always
(06:05):
written or they're going to lookat those four adjectives- human
friendly, warm, andapproachable.
And they're going to say, Hey,that doesn't mean anything.
Eric Dickmann (06:13):
Yeah.
Chris West (06:13):
So actually when you look at brand language, we see
that it always works on threelevels.
If you look at a great piece ofcopy from a brand that you
really like, you can often justput your hand over the logo at
the bottom, show it to someone,hide all the other elements.
Show someone and say, oh yeah, Iknow who that is.
(06:34):
That's such and such a brand.
So what's happening there?
When we look at it, that kind of10,000 foot level, there's an
overarching narrative.
What's coming out is notexplicit, but what's coming out
of the copy, the brandlanguages.
This is the world we believe in.
This is how we want the world tobe.
(06:55):
And that's as strong in B2Bbusinesses as it is in B2C
businesses.
We want to do this, we want tomake the world like this.
So therefore we stand for thisand we stand against that.
Now in a really strong voice,that sense of their world view
comes out really clearly.
That's a 10,000 foot and at athousand feet.
(07:17):
Then you have the personality.
So you almost imagine what kindof people wrote this.
So if I walked into theirbuilding, what kind of people
would they be?
Would they be really formal?
You and I wearing white shirtstoday.
Would they be really formalwhite shirt kind of, but not too
tightly done up kind of peopleor would they be more relaxed
t-shirt jeans kind of whateverkind of attitude to life, and
(07:40):
what's in between all of thosespaces.
So a thousand foot you've you'vegot the total values, the
personality defined.
And at the ground level, areally good brand voice, you'll
have what we call the groundlevel details.
So they're the things like, whatare the phrase, words, and
phrases you use and don't use inthis business on a regular
(08:00):
basis?
I give you an example from theconsumer world.
You know the mini.
Eric?
Yeah.
So it's a great brand, hugelysuccessful brand.
All the time when they'rewriting, and I think it's
probably on their social mediachannels, in CRM, everywhere
I've seen it, there's thisphrase that comes up again and
again, which is go-karthandling.
Yeah.
(08:20):
So minis picked this phrasecause it perfectly captures
their personality, that thousandfoot level and their overarching
view of the world.
But as a phrase in itself ispretty good for representing who
they are.
And so they'll use it again andagain.
And so the words and phrases youuse at ground level are
important along with things likesentence length and grammar.
(08:43):
So you know, I was taughtgrammar in a really formalized
way.
But that's not how I speak andthat's not how I write.
And if you listen to people onthe street, their grammar is
totally different.
It's not wrong.
It's different.
So I think what we're trying toget people to understand is even
things like grammar choicesreally matter.
So you've got these three levelsand in a really great brand
(09:06):
voice, they all work togetherand they'll all reinforce each
other.
And once you've defined themlike that, what you find is that
it's a lot easier to talk toyour team, talk to writers and
non-writers about what they'redoing with the language.
And don't forget, you knowthat's not just what, you know,
brand language or commslanguage, it can be investor
(09:27):
relations, It can be as I say,customer service, can be even
signage in a building.
It's a lot easier to talk tothem about that.
Once you've got those threelevels agreed and defined.
And it helps shape things.
So you asked me a question aboutfive minutes ago and I didn't
answer it, Eric.
I'm really sorry.
Eric Dickmann (09:44):
No, no you did.
And I appreciate you setting upthat framework because I think
it helps give some context towhat we're talking about because
sometimes, you know, in my mind,what comes to mind is you know,
when you listen to a CEO speak,maybe at an investor conference
in and you know, all of a suddenthe word synergy pops into the
conversation, you're like thisguy is going to be saying a
(10:05):
whole lot of nothing for thenext half an hour because
they're trying to avoidspecifics and talk in
generalities and things likethat.
But it doesn't reallycommunicate much of anything.
And then I think of politiciansas well, who oftentimes, you
know, walk around at questionwith a lot of verbose language,
but never actually answer thequestion that was asked.
(10:26):
And what you're really talkingabout is not that you're really
talking about trying to createsomething that communicates what
a brand stands for in thetonality, in the language that
uses, not what they don't standfor, what they don't want to
talk
Chris West (10:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you are.
Yeah, exactly, exactly right.
And of course the otherexpression we have, everyone is
talking about.
at the moment is pivot.
know Eric, have you pivoted thisweek?
Because you know it's been 72hours since I pivoted, so I feel
like I'm behind,
Eric Dickmann (10:55):
You are behind, yeah, I've done it twice today,
already.
Yeah.
Chris West (10:58):
So, yeah.
And a good example of a companyusing this kind of language is
Alphabet has this wonderfulplace over in mountain view,
Silicon Valley called X, whichis their moonshot factory.
Eric Dickmann (11:11):
Okay.
Chris West (11:12):
And their moonshot factory is doing all of these
things, which I would say, you'dbe crazy to think you can do
that in technology, whichthey're proving you can.
So they're hosting these ideas.
technology-based ways ofchanging the world, changing
significant problems.
So Waymo that driver's car iscoming out of there.
So people will know that.
(11:32):
But there's other projects thatthey've nurtured quietly,
secretly for years and years andyears, until they're ready, like
a contact lens which willconstantly monitor your blood
glucose level.
So what a wonderful place.
And their challenge when theytalked to us was look, these are
top-secret projects.
We're not hiding anything, butjust because the nature of the
(11:55):
project, what it is, we don'ttalk about it until we're
actually successful with it.
Eric Dickmann (12:00):
Hmm.
Chris West (12:01):
So their communication challenge was
really we need to be able toexpress exactly who we are,
communicate all of our values,but in a really narrow
bandwidth.
Because really the only timesthat we'll communicate to the
outside world are throughrecruitment.
Eric Dickmann (12:18):
Okay.
Chris West (12:19):
Because.
Eric comes to X, he's got thisgreat idea for this piece of
technology that will solve theworld's problem, one of the
world's problems.
And you're going to be in therefor eight years and slowly,
you're going to be acquiring theworld's best minds onto your
team.
And that's the only thing youcan communicate.
So it's almost like the ultimatetest in a B2B environment
(12:39):
because it's so narrow, but youhave to be so precise.
And what they said to us, whatthey were X, the leaders X said
to us once.
What we're trying to do isattract the best minds in the
world to come and work with us,literally with such a narrow
bandwidth of communication.
And we're trying to persuadethose people that they don't go
(13:00):
to NASA, they don't go to MIT,that they don't go to these big,
cash rich VC-backed places, butthey come and work for us.
So really when we understood alot more about X and their view
of the world, we were able tocreate a voice.
We were able to say, you know,this is the world they want to
(13:20):
create, so these are the thingsthey stand for.
What they stand against, oftenyou can make it explicit.
You didn't need to make itexplicit for X.
But you know, they, weren'tinterested in kind of a quick
investment, quick return.
You know, they're interested inchanging the world for the
better.
In terms of then what theirpersonality is, that kind of
(13:41):
patience and intelligence thatcomes down from that worldview
that became the values for theirbrand voice.
So without going into the kindof confidential details of how
their brand voice was defined,what we saw at the 10,000 foot
level, we could bring down intoa personality at a thousand
foot, and then we could say-Okay, what are the words and
(14:02):
phrases you want to use on aregular basis?
How do you want to be with yourgrammar?
How much jargon do you want touse?
Things like that.
So we were able to find a voiceand suddenly what we find is it
unleashes creativity.
So even in a narrow bandwidthlike that, where you're really
talking mostly in communication,mostly recruitment.
(14:24):
But of course, you know, socialmedia as well.
Eric Dickmann (14:26):
Sure
Chris West (14:27):
But what you find is that suddenly writers go, oh,
okay, right.
So if we stand for this, if thisis our worldview, we can talk a
little bit about this.
Yeah, absolutely we can.
Everyone is talking aboutclimate change, but knowing what
we stand for, what we standagainst, we can take this angle
on climate change, which is ourinformed angle and suddenly
(14:50):
knowing what to talk about, whatangle to take on it, what
personality to convey throughit.
And also getting away from someof the things that slow you
down.
Like what word or phrase do youuse?
Having all of that unleashes ahuge amount of creativity.
And I think we were able, Imean, they're a super team.
I mean like the best thing youever want to work with and they
(15:11):
were able, once we'd help themdefine their brand voice to
suddenly step change the amountof communication and how fast
things can be turned aroundinside the business.
Eric Dickmann (15:21):
You know as you gave that example, something
comes to mind.
You know, we're recording thisepisode in mid September, and I
just got done watching earlierthis week, an Apple event where
they launched their new iPhone.
And you know, we always tend touse Apple as marketing examples
because they're just so good atwhat they do.
And this was another killerpresentation that they put
(15:42):
together.
But what's interesting in thecontext of brand voice is that
there was a time when Steve Jobsgot up on stage and he was kind
of the brand, right?
He was the voice of that brand.
But now over the years, they'vemade a very conscious effort to
have lots of different peoplestanding up and explaining the
new products and services, butyet they all have to communicate
(16:04):
with that same brand voice.
And of course, there's a veryheavy hand in that I'm sure.
They're not just winging thisoff cuff, but as they go from
product to product or, or newannouncement to new
announcement, there's a veryconsistent theme.
You know, they talk aboutprivacy, they talk about the
environment, they talk about therecycled materials that they use
(16:25):
and how they're reducingpackaging and all this.
But it's consistent from oneannouncement to the next.
And that to me is another greatexample of how that brand voice,
that brand identity is filteringthrough everything that they do.
What's your thought on that
Chris West (16:42):
I think you're absolutely right.
And of course the joy that, thegreat thing about having your
brand voice defined properly isyou've got it defined
everywhere.
So if you go into an Applestore, well, you know, guess
what, if you go into an Applestore near you or an Apple store
near me, they kind of sound likethe same business and that's
immensely reassuring.
(17:03):
You know if my phone is bustedand I'm near you and I go into
an Apple store, Wow, they soundthe same.
So they probably know as much asmy local store do.
All of that sounds great.
And that's one of the mostamazing things about Apple.
They have a really clear sensein their voice.
But from that, then, that voiceflows out through all of their
(17:24):
business.
It's the same kind of clearvoice on their website, same
kind of clear voice on social.
It's pretty impressive.
Eric Dickmann (17:32):
I know sometimess when listeners, especially if
there are smaller businesses,they listen to discussions like
this and they say, okay, you'retalking about Google.
You're talking about Apple,you're talking aboutMini.
These are big companies with bigmarketing departments, a lot of
resource to be able to throw ata problem like this.
I'm a smaller company, I've gota three or four person marketing
(17:52):
team.
How should I define my brandvoice?
Does it even matter?
Am I big enough for that even tomatter for me?
Or should I be worried aboutother problems?
How do you look at this when itcomes to businesses of all sizes
and shapes and flavors?
Chris West (18:10):
Well, yeah, I mean I think once the brand voice is
defined, you're good with thebrand voice for five years,
three years, five years, tenyears is one.
Same really with your visualidentity.
I mean I don't know manybusinesses that would say, we're
too small to make our logoconsistent or we're too small,
ready to produce our brochure inthe same way, or it doesn't
(18:32):
really matter What our websitelooks like from day one to day
five.
All of this stuff matters andit's the consistency of
communication, not just whatyou're saying, but how you're
saying it.
That consistency buildsconfidence.
So I think whatever size youare, it should be on your
agenda.
And then how do you go about it?
(18:53):
Well you know, scale yourambition, if you gonna scale
your resources, but I would saywhat you know, thank you for
kind of giving me a lead to talkabout a bit more about the
book's strong language.
What I would say is you can readstrong language in a weekend.
And you can take something intothe office on Monday morning and
say, look, we're not going tochange everything.
(19:14):
But look, can we just look atthis, look at that, and look at
that.
And there are some exercises inthe book.
It's a really practical how tobook.
And I reckon within if you didthat on Monday, if you read it
over the weekend, and you camein on Monday by Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, your brandvoice would have changed a lot
and everyone would be aligningwith that one voice.
Eric Dickmann (19:37):
Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to
the podcast.
But first, are you ready togrow, scale, and take your
marketing to the next level?
If so, The Five Echelon Group'sVirtual CMO consulting service
may be a great fit for you.
We can help build a strategicmarketing plan for your business
and manage its execution,step-by-step.
(19:57):
We'll focus on areas like how toattract more leads.
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your ideal customers.
How to strategically package andposition your products and
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How to increase lead conversion,improve your margins, and scale
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To find out more about ourconsulting offerings and
schedule a consultation, go tofiveechelon.com and click on
(20:20):
Services.
Now back to the podcast.
What is so helpful about that Ithink, and I speak from personal
experience here is, you know,the economy has changed, right?
These big marketing agenciesthat you use to hire to do work.
A lot of that has changed.
And we're now in this freelancereconomy where you may hire one
(20:42):
person to do a website revision,maybe somebody to help you out
with social media or do somegraphics, or whatnot.
And so being able to communicatethat voice is so important
because as you're outsourcingwork, they don't really know
your company, they don't reallyknow kind of what you stand for.
You've got to some way, givethem a template, give them some
rules to follow.
(21:02):
And that's not an easy thing todo, especially when it comes to
writing, right?
Getting people to capture yourvoice is a challenge especially
if you go off shore.
That can be a real challengebecause language is just
different.
You talked about the languagepeople use on the street, it's
not wrong, it's just different.
But it might not be what youwant in a business.
Chris West (21:20):
Yeah, that's absolutely right.
And you're trying to move fastas a business and you've got a
freelancer that's trying to movefast with you.
So just taking a moment to say,look, what kind of world do we
believe in?
We stand for it.
We want to create this kind ofworld so we're going to stand
for this, we're going to standagainst that.
Okay, so what kind ofpersonality do we have as a
(21:40):
business?
Okay.
So let's just quickly talk aboutthat and that might exist
already in the business.
And then if you can agree someof the kind of key words and
phrases that you love and somethat you hate, suddenly your
freelancer goes, right, I knowwhat we can talk about, I know
how we're going to talk aboutit.
And I know actually what we'regoing to put in the copy in
different places.
We're really good to go.
So I think you're right.
(22:00):
It's something I hadn't thoughtabout in that way, but we are
increasingly dependent onpeople, what we might not see on
a regular basis.
So actually, a business skill isbeing able to communicate who
you are to your partnersinstantly and having some kind
of definition about who you are,what you stand for, how you
(22:21):
communicate that in language isprobably more and more
important.
Eric Dickmann (22:25):
We spend so much time talking about things like
buyer personas, reallyidentifying who are your buyer
personas.
But what this sort of reminds meof is this is sort of a company
persona, this is your corporatepersona that you're really
identifying with many of thesame kind of traits and
attributes that you might assignto a buyer persona.
Chris West (22:46):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And buyer personas worked reallywell when you take the time to
scratch below the surface andactually get into the nuance.
And if you don't do that withyour company's brand language,
then you just kind of sound likeeveryone else.
But when you do scratch, I wouldsay, well, actually, no, we
really do believe in this.
(23:06):
And I know everyone in our kindof category says We've all got
it.
Yeah, sure.
But actually our take on this isthis, when you've got those
kinds of things really clear,then you're you, everyone in the
department, everyone that'swriting for you suddenly feels a
voice, much easier to access.
It flows much better.
And you actually, then if youdon't mind me saying, I reckon
(23:30):
you then start saving a lot ofmoney on your communications
budgets, those kinds of mediabudgets and everything else.
There's a great example from theconsumer world.
I don't know Eric, if you are aDairy Dodger like me, but I
don't have milk anymore.
I don't know if you.
I mean, I don't have anythingagainst milk.
(23:50):
It's just, it doesn't work forme anymore.
Eric Dickmann (23:52):
I was born in Wisconsin, the cheese state.
So I'm legally obligated to likedairy.
Chris West (23:58):
Yeah.
I like it, but it just doesn't.
I mean I love cheese, right.
It just doesn't work for me.
So I now have oatmeal in mycoffee and my tea.
And what is oat milk?
Oat milk.
It shouldn't even be calledmilk.
You know, it's oats in water andthere's a couple of brands that
sell oat milk and I've never metanyone that can taste the
(24:18):
difference and one is roothealth, oat milk, and the other
is root health
Eric Dickmann (24:23):
hmmm
Chris West (24:25):
And they're both sold, it tastes the same.
They're both sold in one literpacks.
The packs are exactly the same,they're from tetra pak.
They're sold in the chillercabinet.
They're sold in the chillercabinet in the same shops in the
same cheddar cabinet on the sameshelf next to each other.
And the only difference you canreally tell is the language that
(24:46):
root health uses to describeitself., which is kind of like
everyone in our sector talksabout being a bit healthier.
So we'll just talk about being abit healthier.
you read what it says on theback of Oakley's pack,
particularly if you come fromWisconsin, you're going to be
shocked, right?
That they're taking the battleto the dairy industry.
They're saying that whetherthey're right or not, that's not
(25:08):
what I'm not what we're intohere, but they're saying the
dairy industry shows you numbersfor your impact on the climate.
Dairy industry.
shows you whether you're goodfor people or not as you know,
things like this.
They taste the same, they'resold in the same place.
The only difference is theirlanguage.
Root health is valued at 70million UK, 70 million pounds.
(25:32):
And Oatley was floated this yearfor 12 billion, it's now worth
13 billion.
And the difference is thelanguage and the language is
leading the attitude, and theattitude is reinforcing the
language.
That's what language does.
That's what language is amazingfor.
Eric Dickmann (25:48):
We often talk about this when we talk about
things like corporateenvironments, corporate culture,
and is corporate culture, justthat poster that's on the
conference room wall that saysour values or are those values,
really something that people areliving?
Is the company actually doingthat?
I've had a number of guests onthis show where we talk about
(26:09):
environmental things and thiswhole movement of greenwashing,
you know?
Where you just simply say thatyou are support this
environmental initiative orthat, but actually the company
is not really involved inanything and could be a toxic
polluter, but they're trying toembrace something and it's
inauthentic.
That just sort of gets to thepoint, it's authenticity, right?
(26:29):
You're trying to speak from anauthentic standpoint, and if you
can, that's where that languagereally has power.
Chris West (26:36):
Yeah.
And it's the same for people,it's same for businesses and why
wouldn't it be?
Because businesses are people.
But you know, it's sometimesdifficult to be really clear.
Who am I as Chris West?
What do I?
What's the world I'm trying tocreate?
What do I stand for?
Therefore you know, how do Icome across in my personality
and things like that?
What are my choices?
(26:58):
It's difficult for me, right?
So it's no surprise that it'sdifficult for businesses.
But you're a great communicatorand you are very clear.
Your personality comes acrossand that's why people listen to
you, you know?
Because it's really clear.
When you can make those leaps,when you do spend a bit of time
looking at your brand voice, itdoesn't have to be a lot, it's
(27:20):
not a forever project.
When you do that, what you findis you focus in on what is
authentic.
The kind of the half secretabout us is a lot of people come
to us and say, Hey, Chris, we'vegot to order our brand values
sorted out.
But, it's just a language, isn;tthat right?
And we say, sure, sure.
(27:41):
But you're happy with your brandvalues and they go, yeah, yeah.
And then we start working withthem on the brand language and
about halfway through they go,you know what, Chris, this is
really helping us focus moretightly on our brand values.
I go, yeah, yeah.
And so it should, right?
You know, that's the joy ofthat, the language becomes as
you say, an authenticrepresentation.
Eric Dickmann (28:03):
And Chris, you mentioned it earlier.
You've written a book by thetime this podcast is live, the
book will be live and availablefor purchase.
I'd love it if you could justtell us a little bit more about
that book, what sort of inspiredyou to write it and where are
people going to find it?
Chris West (28:18):
Thanks Eric.
It was clients that inspired meto write it because they were
saying, well, you're talkingabout this stuff, Chris.
Where can I read anything aboutit?
And I was thinking, well, Ican't find a book about it.
And then we'd go through aproject and they'd say, Chris, I
want to tell people what we did.
You know, you've written a booksurely, right?
You've written a book, where'sthe book?
(28:39):
And I was like, I haven't read abook, I haven't read a book.
So for the last five years,clients have been saying,
where's the book?
Where's the book?
And I took time last year.
You know, there are variousthings going on as we know.
Eric Dickmann (28:50):
As we yeah.
Chris West (28:52):
I took time and wrote the book and yeah.
I'm delighted with it.
For me personally, what it'sdone is all these bits that were
in my head about, yeah, we cando this in this situation.
This is how you work with this.
This is how you achieve thequick wins, this is how you
build you know, this to lastforever, this is how you get
(29:12):
senior support.
know, can you prove ROI on doingthis yet?
Let's do it.
What are the human?
Yeah, all of these were in myhead and they come up at
different times in differentprojects and I was able to bring
them all down into the book andgo, yep.
Okay.
So now they're not in my headanymore.
That's great.
What they are in my head, butyou know, they're in the book as
well.
So that's a relief.
Eric Dickmann (29:32):
No, that's good.
And it sounds like a usefulresource.
You know, we get lots of authorson the show here, and this is
honestly something that is aunique topic I think coming at
it from a very unique angle.
So clearly there was a need inthe marketplace for somebody to
articulate this.
I'm excited that you got a bookout and what a great time to
write a book.
So for our listeners here, wherecan they find out more about
(29:53):
you, your company, and wherethey could go ahead and order
the book?
Chris West (29:58):
Well thanks, Eric.
I mean I don't expect everyoneto rush out as much as I'd love
everyone to rush out and buy thebook straight away.
They can find me on LinkedIn,Chris West.
I've got one of those names hasprobably a few thousand Chris
West's out there.
So on LinkedIn is where Ipublish some of our recent
research, some of our recenttips.
So if you go onto LinkedIn, lookfor Chris West Verbal Identity.
(30:21):
You should find a man that lookslike me.
Eric Dickmann (30:23):
Yeah.
Chris West (30:24):
If you go across to oss to Amazon then from
September the 28th, which Ithink would have happened by the
day we go out with this podcast,if you put in Strong Language,
Chris West, then I should thinkyou should find my book.
If for some reason you don'twant to buy through Amazon, then
(30:44):
you can buy, you'll be able tobuy through Barnes and Noble,
few other sites.
If you get stuck wherever youare in the world, then you know,
connect with me on LinkedIn andI am now going to use Kanzi
technology to show a picture ofthe book.
You were very kindly setting meup
Eric Dickmann (31:02):
Yeah, perfect.
Let's see it.
Chris West (31:04):
There we go.
Can you see that?
Eric Dickmann (31:07):
No, we can't.
Chris West (31:09):
No, you can't see that.
Okay, well, there we go.
Hold on.
Y a T Y cause there's a bigbutton there.
March share.
Eric, you know what?
No one wants to see a picture ofa book.
It says strong language
Eric Dickmann (31:22):
We will make sure to put it on the blog so that
people can see it.
Yeah.
It says Strong Language on thefront.
And then I wonder, does it havea subheading?
Chris West (31:30):
Yeah.
The fastest, smartest, cheapestmarketing tool you're not using.
Eric Dickmann (31:37):
That's excellent.
Chris West (31:39):
It could also have been a great tactic by us to
talk about the book, the bookcover, and then not show it.
So everyone the show notes.
Eric Dickmann (31:47):
It builds some suspense.
I think that's great.
I give so much credit to anybodywho can sit down and take the
time to write a book becausethey're valuable assets, a great
way to share your knowledge withothers.
And that's what we really try todo on this podcast is share
knowledge so that people canreally up their marketing game.
And so, Chris, I'm justdelighted that you were able to
(32:08):
come on the show today.
Congratulations on the book andI hope it's a big success.
Thanks so much for being here.
Chris West (32:15):
Uh, Thanks, Eric.
Thanks for inviting me as weAndyou know, I love sharing advice
as well.
So if anyone wants to find me onLinkedIn, ask me a question, any
size business, whatever I can todo to help, I'll do it.
Eric Dickmann (32:27):
Perfect.
And we'll make sure to have allthose contact links that you
mentioned in the show notes.
Chris, thanks so much again.
Chris West (32:33):
My pleasure.
Lovely.
See you Eric, take care.
Eric Dickmann (32:38):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
The Virtual CMO podcast.
For more episodes, go tofiveechelon.com/podcast to
subscribe through your podcastplayer of choice.
And if you'd like to developconsistent lead flow and a
highly effective marketingstrategy, visit fiveechelon.com
to learn more about our VirtualCMO consulting services.
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.
I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
In this podcast, we haveconversations with marketing
professionals who share thestrategies, tactics, and mindset
you can use to improve theeffectiveness of your marketing
activities and grow yourbusiness.
Chris welcome to The Virtual CMOpodcast.
I'm so glad you could join us.
Chris West (00:23):
Hey, Eric, it's lovely to see you and
congratulations on the show.
Eric Dickmann (00:27):
Oh, hey, thank you so much, I really appreciate
that.
You know, we have so much fundoing this show and it's great
to have guests on like yourselfthat can truly add value to our
audience.
You know, we're always trying tohelp businesses figure out ways
to improve their marketingstrategy, to get more
effectiveness from the marketingtactics that they're running.
And I know today we're going toget a chance to talk with you
(00:49):
all about you know, brand voiceand really creating that voice
for your company.
And I was wondering, you knowfirst of all, if we could just
start with a little bit ofbackground on yourself, tell us
how you got into this brandingand how you've been helping
companies develop that brandvoice.
Chris West (01:05):
Sure.
So I suppose the origins of whatI'm doing as a business with
Verbal Identity, I suppose yougo back 30 years.
So 30 years is a long time inwhat's happened in the marketing
world.
In those days, I was acopywriter in an ad agency in
London, working on big accounts,like British Airways.
And if you are writer, then itwas a really wonderful world
(01:29):
because I was considered a highproducer because I produced
maybe five ads in a year, right?
Crazy.
Like you know, a hundred words.
That's, that's what made myliving in a year.
I set up a boutique agency in2000, right?
Working with lots of wonderfulB2B, B2C clients, different
sizes.
(01:50):
And over time as the number ofbrand channels exploded.
What I found was each time Ileft a meeting, a client would
kind of grab me by the sleeveand say, Hey Chris, you're a
good writer.
We've now got 4,000 words towrite before breakfast tomorrow.
Help us.
And that was their CRM, that wastheir website, that was social
(02:11):
media.
That was you know the high rateof turnover in packaging, the
high rate of communications andcustomer service, all of that.
So about 10 years ago, Irealized that if I was being
asked this all the time, Ishould really look at how brands
can position themselves withlanguage.
I reckon everyone that listensto you has got a great visual
identity.
They would know what their logois and they would know when it's
(02:34):
wrong.
They would know what their fontis, their color palette is.
But if you said to them, howwell defined is your verbal
brand, is your verbal identityas strong as your visual
identity?
I'm not sure how many peoplewould say hand on heart.
Yes, it is.
So that's how the businessstarted.
Eric Dickmann (02:50):
That's really interesting because I would
agree.
I don't think a lot of peoplethink about that.
You know, you're right.
There are style guides thatcreated the talk all about how
the logo needs to be presentedand what colors to use and the
fonts and whatever, but notnecessarily what to say other
than maybe a tagline or, youknow, a brand marker, or
something like that.
So how would you describe verbalidentity or the voice of a
(03:13):
brand?
How do you sort of get to aplace where you can start to
solidify what that really means?
Chris West (03:20):
I think the first stop is understanding where
language is working for yourbusiness, and the short answer
is everywhere all the time, butyou need to be able to define
the voice because often it's inthe founder, in the founder's
head or the marketingdepartment.
Someone in their department is areally great writer.
(03:41):
And if you want somethingwritten, go and ask Eric.
Eric's got the voice.
Eric knows, Eric will do it.
Dah, dah, dah.
And of course, Eric needs totake a hold of it.
Eric, may occasionally get sick,get married, or have other
personal commitments.
So Eric can't do it all thetime.
So often what you're doing isyou're extracting it from the
head of the people in thebusiness to know what the voice
(04:03):
is intuitively, even if theyhaven't defined it rigorously.
Eric Dickmann (04:08):
So this is more than brand values, what our
brand stands for.
This is really how they'recommunicating those values, how
they're presenting themselves tothe marketplace.
Chris West (04:21):
Yeah.
And I think many brands do itinadvertently, which is often
you know, a route to disasterbecause you're just kind of
saying, well, we'll just putsome stuff out on social media
and we're just kind of, let'sjust write the customer service
letter as quickly as we can andlet's do this with the CRM.
But you would never do that withyour visual identity.
You would be really careful,just as you said, to have this
(04:44):
comprehensive deck that says,this is what we do on this
occasion, this is how we vary itby this moment or by this
channel.
And so once you have the voicedefined and once you learn how
to flex it for differentchannels, then I think what you
see is that you have a voicethat suddenly becomes as strong
as the other elements in yourbrand.
Eric Dickmann (05:04):
Can you maybe walk us through that a little
bit?
Maybe with a current client or apast client in how you sort of
defined what that voice wasgoing to be.
And some examples of what youput in that verbal style guide
to help guide other people inhow they would write in that
voice?
Chris West (05:21):
Sure, sure..
I think the heart of what we dois a really simple framework
that.
we've used and reused, andproven over the last 10 years.
Do you mind if I talk aboutthat?
Couple of minutes and then, oh,thanks.
So a lot of people think thatbrand voice is just tone of
voice and often if that's thedef.
(05:43):
If that's what you think thebrand voice is, then you come up
with four adjectives, humanfriendly, warm and approachable,
which doesn't really help thewriter.
I always say, think about thewriter, ten past seven at night.
She or he, they've got to writesomething.
Everyone else has gone home.
Needs to be on the boss's desktomorrow morning.
What are they going to do inthat situation?
They're going to kind of revertback to how they've always
(06:05):
written or they're going to lookat those four adjectives- human
friendly, warm, andapproachable.
And they're going to say, Hey,that doesn't mean anything.
Eric Dickmann (06:13):
Yeah.
Chris West (06:13):
So actually when you look at brand language, we see
that it always works on threelevels.
If you look at a great piece ofcopy from a brand that you
really like, you can often justput your hand over the logo at
the bottom, show it to someone,hide all the other elements.
Show someone and say, oh yeah, Iknow who that is.
(06:34):
That's such and such a brand.
So what's happening there?
When we look at it, that kind of10,000 foot level, there's an
overarching narrative.
What's coming out is notexplicit, but what's coming out
of the copy, the brandlanguages.
This is the world we believe in.
This is how we want the world tobe.
(06:55):
And that's as strong in B2Bbusinesses as it is in B2C
businesses.
We want to do this, we want tomake the world like this.
So therefore we stand for thisand we stand against that.
Now in a really strong voice,that sense of their world view
comes out really clearly.
That's a 10,000 foot and at athousand feet.
(07:17):
Then you have the personality.
So you almost imagine what kindof people wrote this.
So if I walked into theirbuilding, what kind of people
would they be?
Would they be really formal?
You and I wearing white shirtstoday.
Would they be really formalwhite shirt kind of, but not too
tightly done up kind of peopleor would they be more relaxed
t-shirt jeans kind of whateverkind of attitude to life, and
(07:40):
what's in between all of thosespaces.
So a thousand foot you've you'vegot the total values, the
personality defined.
And at the ground level, areally good brand voice, you'll
have what we call the groundlevel details.
So they're the things like, whatare the phrase, words, and
phrases you use and don't use inthis business on a regular
(08:00):
basis?
I give you an example from theconsumer world.
You know the mini.
Eric?
Yeah.
So it's a great brand, hugelysuccessful brand.
All the time when they'rewriting, and I think it's
probably on their social mediachannels, in CRM, everywhere
I've seen it, there's thisphrase that comes up again and
again, which is go-karthandling.
Yeah.
(08:20):
So minis picked this phrasecause it perfectly captures
their personality, that thousandfoot level and their overarching
view of the world.
But as a phrase in itself ispretty good for representing who
they are.
And so they'll use it again andagain.
And so the words and phrases youuse at ground level are
important along with things likesentence length and grammar.
(08:43):
So you know, I was taughtgrammar in a really formalized
way.
But that's not how I speak andthat's not how I write.
And if you listen to people onthe street, their grammar is
totally different.
It's not wrong.
It's different.
So I think what we're trying toget people to understand is even
things like grammar choicesreally matter.
So you've got these three levelsand in a really great brand
(09:06):
voice, they all work togetherand they'll all reinforce each
other.
And once you've defined themlike that, what you find is that
it's a lot easier to talk toyour team, talk to writers and
non-writers about what they'redoing with the language.
And don't forget, you knowthat's not just what, you know,
brand language or commslanguage, it can be investor
(09:27):
relations, It can be as I say,customer service, can be even
signage in a building.
It's a lot easier to talk tothem about that.
Once you've got those threelevels agreed and defined.
And it helps shape things.
So you asked me a question aboutfive minutes ago and I didn't
answer it, Eric.
I'm really sorry.
Eric Dickmann (09:44):
No, no you did.
And I appreciate you setting upthat framework because I think
it helps give some context towhat we're talking about because
sometimes, you know, in my mind,what comes to mind is you know,
when you listen to a CEO speak,maybe at an investor conference
in and you know, all of a suddenthe word synergy pops into the
conversation, you're like thisguy is going to be saying a
(10:05):
whole lot of nothing for thenext half an hour because
they're trying to avoidspecifics and talk in
generalities and things likethat.
But it doesn't reallycommunicate much of anything.
And then I think of politiciansas well, who oftentimes, you
know, walk around at questionwith a lot of verbose language,
but never actually answer thequestion that was asked.
(10:26):
And what you're really talkingabout is not that you're really
talking about trying to createsomething that communicates what
a brand stands for in thetonality, in the language that
uses, not what they don't standfor, what they don't want to
talk
Chris West (10:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you are.
Yeah, exactly, exactly right.
And of course the otherexpression we have, everyone is
talking about.
at the moment is pivot.
know Eric, have you pivoted thisweek?
Because you know it's been 72hours since I pivoted, so I feel
like I'm behind,
Eric Dickmann (10:55):
You are behind, yeah, I've done it twice today,
already.
Yeah.
Chris West (10:58):
So, yeah.
And a good example of a companyusing this kind of language is
Alphabet has this wonderfulplace over in mountain view,
Silicon Valley called X, whichis their moonshot factory.
Eric Dickmann (11:11):
Okay.
Chris West (11:12):
And their moonshot factory is doing all of these
things, which I would say, you'dbe crazy to think you can do
that in technology, whichthey're proving you can.
So they're hosting these ideas.
technology-based ways ofchanging the world, changing
significant problems.
So Waymo that driver's car iscoming out of there.
So people will know that.
(11:32):
But there's other projects thatthey've nurtured quietly,
secretly for years and years andyears, until they're ready, like
a contact lens which willconstantly monitor your blood
glucose level.
So what a wonderful place.
And their challenge when theytalked to us was look, these are
top-secret projects.
We're not hiding anything, butjust because the nature of the
(11:55):
project, what it is, we don'ttalk about it until we're
actually successful with it.
Eric Dickmann (12:00):
Hmm.
Chris West (12:01):
So their communication challenge was
really we need to be able toexpress exactly who we are,
communicate all of our values,but in a really narrow
bandwidth.
Because really the only timesthat we'll communicate to the
outside world are throughrecruitment.
Eric Dickmann (12:18):
Okay.
Chris West (12:19):
Because.
Eric comes to X, he's got thisgreat idea for this piece of
technology that will solve theworld's problem, one of the
world's problems.
And you're going to be in therefor eight years and slowly,
you're going to be acquiring theworld's best minds onto your
team.
And that's the only thing youcan communicate.
So it's almost like the ultimatetest in a B2B environment
(12:39):
because it's so narrow, but youhave to be so precise.
And what they said to us, whatthey were X, the leaders X said
to us once.
What we're trying to do isattract the best minds in the
world to come and work with us,literally with such a narrow
bandwidth of communication.
And we're trying to persuadethose people that they don't go
(13:00):
to NASA, they don't go to MIT,that they don't go to these big,
cash rich VC-backed places, butthey come and work for us.
So really when we understood alot more about X and their view
of the world, we were able tocreate a voice.
We were able to say, you know,this is the world they want to
(13:20):
create, so these are the thingsthey stand for.
What they stand against, oftenyou can make it explicit.
You didn't need to make itexplicit for X.
But you know, they, weren'tinterested in kind of a quick
investment, quick return.
You know, they're interested inchanging the world for the
better.
In terms of then what theirpersonality is, that kind of
(13:41):
patience and intelligence thatcomes down from that worldview
that became the values for theirbrand voice.
So without going into the kindof confidential details of how
their brand voice was defined,what we saw at the 10,000 foot
level, we could bring down intoa personality at a thousand
foot, and then we could say-Okay, what are the words and
(14:02):
phrases you want to use on aregular basis?
How do you want to be with yourgrammar?
How much jargon do you want touse?
Things like that.
So we were able to find a voiceand suddenly what we find is it
unleashes creativity.
So even in a narrow bandwidthlike that, where you're really
talking mostly in communication,mostly recruitment.
(14:24):
But of course, you know, socialmedia as well.
Eric Dickmann (14:26):
Sure
Chris West (14:27):
But what you find is that suddenly writers go, oh,
okay, right.
So if we stand for this, if thisis our worldview, we can talk a
little bit about this.
Yeah, absolutely we can.
Everyone is talking aboutclimate change, but knowing what
we stand for, what we standagainst, we can take this angle
on climate change, which is ourinformed angle and suddenly
(14:50):
knowing what to talk about, whatangle to take on it, what
personality to convey throughit.
And also getting away from someof the things that slow you
down.
Like what word or phrase do youuse?
Having all of that unleashes ahuge amount of creativity.
And I think we were able, Imean, they're a super team.
I mean like the best thing youever want to work with and they
(15:11):
were able, once we'd help themdefine their brand voice to
suddenly step change the amountof communication and how fast
things can be turned aroundinside the business.
Eric Dickmann (15:21):
You know as you gave that example, something
comes to mind.
You know, we're recording thisepisode in mid September, and I
just got done watching earlierthis week, an Apple event where
they launched their new iPhone.
And you know, we always tend touse Apple as marketing examples
because they're just so good atwhat they do.
And this was another killerpresentation that they put
(15:42):
together.
But what's interesting in thecontext of brand voice is that
there was a time when Steve Jobsgot up on stage and he was kind
of the brand, right?
He was the voice of that brand.
But now over the years, they'vemade a very conscious effort to
have lots of different peoplestanding up and explaining the
new products and services, butyet they all have to communicate
(16:04):
with that same brand voice.
And of course, there's a veryheavy hand in that I'm sure.
They're not just winging thisoff cuff, but as they go from
product to product or, or newannouncement to new
announcement, there's a veryconsistent theme.
You know, they talk aboutprivacy, they talk about the
environment, they talk about therecycled materials that they use
(16:25):
and how they're reducingpackaging and all this.
But it's consistent from oneannouncement to the next.
And that to me is another greatexample of how that brand voice,
that brand identity is filteringthrough everything that they do.
What's your thought on that
Chris West (16:42):
I think you're absolutely right.
And of course the joy that, thegreat thing about having your
brand voice defined properly isyou've got it defined
everywhere.
So if you go into an Applestore, well, you know, guess
what, if you go into an Applestore near you or an Apple store
near me, they kind of sound likethe same business and that's
immensely reassuring.
(17:03):
You know if my phone is bustedand I'm near you and I go into
an Apple store, Wow, they soundthe same.
So they probably know as much asmy local store do.
All of that sounds great.
And that's one of the mostamazing things about Apple.
They have a really clear sensein their voice.
But from that, then, that voiceflows out through all of their
(17:24):
business.
It's the same kind of clearvoice on their website, same
kind of clear voice on social.
It's pretty impressive.
Eric Dickmann (17:32):
I know sometimess when listeners, especially if
there are smaller businesses,they listen to discussions like
this and they say, okay, you'retalking about Google.
You're talking about Apple,you're talking aboutMini.
These are big companies with bigmarketing departments, a lot of
resource to be able to throw ata problem like this.
I'm a smaller company, I've gota three or four person marketing
(17:52):
team.
How should I define my brandvoice?
Does it even matter?
Am I big enough for that even tomatter for me?
Or should I be worried aboutother problems?
How do you look at this when itcomes to businesses of all sizes
and shapes and flavors?
Chris West (18:10):
Well, yeah, I mean I think once the brand voice is
defined, you're good with thebrand voice for five years,
three years, five years, tenyears is one.
Same really with your visualidentity.
I mean I don't know manybusinesses that would say, we're
too small to make our logoconsistent or we're too small,
ready to produce our brochure inthe same way, or it doesn't
(18:32):
really matter What our websitelooks like from day one to day
five.
All of this stuff matters andit's the consistency of
communication, not just whatyou're saying, but how you're
saying it.
That consistency buildsconfidence.
So I think whatever size youare, it should be on your
agenda.
And then how do you go about it?
(18:53):
Well you know, scale yourambition, if you gonna scale
your resources, but I would saywhat you know, thank you for
kind of giving me a lead to talkabout a bit more about the
book's strong language.
What I would say is you can readstrong language in a weekend.
And you can take something intothe office on Monday morning and
say, look, we're not going tochange everything.
(19:14):
But look, can we just look atthis, look at that, and look at
that.
And there are some exercises inthe book.
It's a really practical how tobook.
And I reckon within if you didthat on Monday, if you read it
over the weekend, and you camein on Monday by Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, your brandvoice would have changed a lot
and everyone would be aligningwith that one voice.
Eric Dickmann (19:37):
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Services.
Now back to the podcast.
What is so helpful about that Ithink, and I speak from personal
experience here is, you know,the economy has changed, right?
These big marketing agenciesthat you use to hire to do work.
A lot of that has changed.
And we're now in this freelancereconomy where you may hire one
(20:42):
person to do a website revision,maybe somebody to help you out
with social media or do somegraphics, or whatnot.
And so being able to communicatethat voice is so important
because as you're outsourcingwork, they don't really know
your company, they don't reallyknow kind of what you stand for.
You've got to some way, givethem a template, give them some
rules to follow.
(21:02):
And that's not an easy thing todo, especially when it comes to
writing, right?
Getting people to capture yourvoice is a challenge especially
if you go off shore.
That can be a real challengebecause language is just
different.
You talked about the languagepeople use on the street, it's
not wrong, it's just different.
But it might not be what youwant in a business.
Chris West (21:20):
Yeah, that's absolutely right.
And you're trying to move fastas a business and you've got a
freelancer that's trying to movefast with you.
So just taking a moment to say,look, what kind of world do we
believe in?
We stand for it.
We want to create this kind ofworld so we're going to stand
for this, we're going to standagainst that.
Okay, so what kind ofpersonality do we have as a
(21:40):
business?
Okay.
So let's just quickly talk aboutthat and that might exist
already in the business.
And then if you can agree someof the kind of key words and
phrases that you love and somethat you hate, suddenly your
freelancer goes, right, I knowwhat we can talk about, I know
how we're going to talk aboutit.
And I know actually what we'regoing to put in the copy in
different places.
We're really good to go.
So I think you're right.
(22:00):
It's something I hadn't thoughtabout in that way, but we are
increasingly dependent onpeople, what we might not see on
a regular basis.
So actually, a business skill isbeing able to communicate who
you are to your partnersinstantly and having some kind
of definition about who you are,what you stand for, how you
(22:21):
communicate that in language isprobably more and more
important.
Eric Dickmann (22:25):
We spend so much time talking about things like
buyer personas, reallyidentifying who are your buyer
personas.
But what this sort of reminds meof is this is sort of a company
persona, this is your corporatepersona that you're really
identifying with many of thesame kind of traits and
attributes that you might assignto a buyer persona.
Chris West (22:46):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And buyer personas worked reallywell when you take the time to
scratch below the surface andactually get into the nuance.
And if you don't do that withyour company's brand language,
then you just kind of sound likeeveryone else.
But when you do scratch, I wouldsay, well, actually, no, we
really do believe in this.
(23:06):
And I know everyone in our kindof category says We've all got
it.
Yeah, sure.
But actually our take on this isthis, when you've got those
kinds of things really clear,then you're you, everyone in the
department, everyone that'swriting for you suddenly feels a
voice, much easier to access.
It flows much better.
And you actually, then if youdon't mind me saying, I reckon
(23:30):
you then start saving a lot ofmoney on your communications
budgets, those kinds of mediabudgets and everything else.
There's a great example from theconsumer world.
I don't know Eric, if you are aDairy Dodger like me, but I
don't have milk anymore.
I don't know if you.
I mean, I don't have anythingagainst milk.
(23:50):
It's just, it doesn't work forme anymore.
Eric Dickmann (23:52):
I was born in Wisconsin, the cheese state.
So I'm legally obligated to likedairy.
Chris West (23:58):
Yeah.
I like it, but it just doesn't.
I mean I love cheese, right.
It just doesn't work for me.
So I now have oatmeal in mycoffee and my tea.
And what is oat milk?
Oat milk.
It shouldn't even be calledmilk.
You know, it's oats in water andthere's a couple of brands that
sell oat milk and I've never metanyone that can taste the
(24:18):
difference and one is roothealth, oat milk, and the other
is root health
Eric Dickmann (24:23):
hmmm
Chris West (24:25):
And they're both sold, it tastes the same.
They're both sold in one literpacks.
The packs are exactly the same,they're from tetra pak.
They're sold in the chillercabinet.
They're sold in the chillercabinet in the same shops in the
same cheddar cabinet on the sameshelf next to each other.
And the only difference you canreally tell is the language that
(24:46):
root health uses to describeitself., which is kind of like
everyone in our sector talksabout being a bit healthier.
So we'll just talk about being abit healthier.
you read what it says on theback of Oakley's pack,
particularly if you come fromWisconsin, you're going to be
shocked, right?
That they're taking the battleto the dairy industry.
They're saying that whetherthey're right or not, that's not
(25:08):
what I'm not what we're intohere, but they're saying the
dairy industry shows you numbersfor your impact on the climate.
Dairy industry.
shows you whether you're goodfor people or not as you know,
things like this.
They taste the same, they'resold in the same place.
The only difference is theirlanguage.
Root health is valued at 70million UK, 70 million pounds.
(25:32):
And Oatley was floated this yearfor 12 billion, it's now worth
13 billion.
And the difference is thelanguage and the language is
leading the attitude, and theattitude is reinforcing the
language.
That's what language does.
That's what language is amazingfor.
Eric Dickmann (25:48):
We often talk about this when we talk about
things like corporateenvironments, corporate culture,
and is corporate culture, justthat poster that's on the
conference room wall that saysour values or are those values,
really something that people areliving?
Is the company actually doingthat?
I've had a number of guests onthis show where we talk about
(26:09):
environmental things and thiswhole movement of greenwashing,
you know?
Where you just simply say thatyou are support this
environmental initiative orthat, but actually the company
is not really involved inanything and could be a toxic
polluter, but they're trying toembrace something and it's
inauthentic.
That just sort of gets to thepoint, it's authenticity, right?
(26:29):
You're trying to speak from anauthentic standpoint, and if you
can, that's where that languagereally has power.
Chris West (26:36):
Yeah.
And it's the same for people,it's same for businesses and why
wouldn't it be?
Because businesses are people.
But you know, it's sometimesdifficult to be really clear.
Who am I as Chris West?
What do I?
What's the world I'm trying tocreate?
What do I stand for?
Therefore you know, how do Icome across in my personality
and things like that?
What are my choices?
(26:58):
It's difficult for me, right?
So it's no surprise that it'sdifficult for businesses.
But you're a great communicatorand you are very clear.
Your personality comes acrossand that's why people listen to
you, you know?
Because it's really clear.
When you can make those leaps,when you do spend a bit of time
looking at your brand voice, itdoesn't have to be a lot, it's
(27:20):
not a forever project.
When you do that, what you findis you focus in on what is
authentic.
The kind of the half secretabout us is a lot of people come
to us and say, Hey, Chris, we'vegot to order our brand values
sorted out.
But, it's just a language, isn;tthat right?
And we say, sure, sure.
(27:41):
But you're happy with your brandvalues and they go, yeah, yeah.
And then we start working withthem on the brand language and
about halfway through they go,you know what, Chris, this is
really helping us focus moretightly on our brand values.
I go, yeah, yeah.
And so it should, right?
You know, that's the joy ofthat, the language becomes as
you say, an authenticrepresentation.
Eric Dickmann (28:03):
And Chris, you mentioned it earlier.
You've written a book by thetime this podcast is live, the
book will be live and availablefor purchase.
I'd love it if you could justtell us a little bit more about
that book, what sort of inspiredyou to write it and where are
people going to find it?
Chris West (28:18):
Thanks Eric.
It was clients that inspired meto write it because they were
saying, well, you're talkingabout this stuff, Chris.
Where can I read anything aboutit?
And I was thinking, well, Ican't find a book about it.
And then we'd go through aproject and they'd say, Chris, I
want to tell people what we did.
You know, you've written a booksurely, right?
You've written a book, where'sthe book?
(28:39):
And I was like, I haven't read abook, I haven't read a book.
So for the last five years,clients have been saying,
where's the book?
Where's the book?
And I took time last year.
You know, there are variousthings going on as we know.
Eric Dickmann (28:50):
As we yeah.
Chris West (28:52):
I took time and wrote the book and yeah.
I'm delighted with it.
For me personally, what it'sdone is all these bits that were
in my head about, yeah, we cando this in this situation.
This is how you work with this.
This is how you achieve thequick wins, this is how you
build you know, this to lastforever, this is how you get
(29:12):
senior support.
know, can you prove ROI on doingthis yet?
Let's do it.
What are the human?
Yeah, all of these were in myhead and they come up at
different times in differentprojects and I was able to bring
them all down into the book andgo, yep.
Okay.
So now they're not in my headanymore.
That's great.
What they are in my head, butyou know, they're in the book as
well.
So that's a relief.
Eric Dickmann (29:32):
No, that's good.
And it sounds like a usefulresource.
You know, we get lots of authorson the show here, and this is
honestly something that is aunique topic I think coming at
it from a very unique angle.
So clearly there was a need inthe marketplace for somebody to
articulate this.
I'm excited that you got a bookout and what a great time to
write a book.
So for our listeners here, wherecan they find out more about
(29:53):
you, your company, and wherethey could go ahead and order
the book?
Chris West (29:58):
Well thanks, Eric.
I mean I don't expect everyoneto rush out as much as I'd love
everyone to rush out and buy thebook straight away.
They can find me on LinkedIn,Chris West.
I've got one of those names hasprobably a few thousand Chris
West's out there.
So on LinkedIn is where Ipublish some of our recent
research, some of our recenttips.
So if you go onto LinkedIn, lookfor Chris West Verbal Identity.
(30:21):
You should find a man that lookslike me.
Eric Dickmann (30:23):
Yeah.
Chris West (30:24):
If you go across to oss to Amazon then from
September the 28th, which Ithink would have happened by the
day we go out with this podcast,if you put in Strong Language,
Chris West, then I should thinkyou should find my book.
If for some reason you don'twant to buy through Amazon, then
(30:44):
you can buy, you'll be able tobuy through Barnes and Noble,
few other sites.
If you get stuck wherever youare in the world, then you know,
connect with me on LinkedIn andI am now going to use Kanzi
technology to show a picture ofthe book.
You were very kindly setting meup
Eric Dickmann (31:02):
Yeah, perfect.
Let's see it.
Chris West (31:04):
There we go.
Can you see that?
Eric Dickmann (31:07):
No, we can't.
Chris West (31:09):
No, you can't see that.
Okay, well, there we go.
Hold on.
Y a T Y cause there's a bigbutton there.
March share.
Eric, you know what?
No one wants to see a picture ofa book.
It says strong language
Eric Dickmann (31:22):
We will make sure to put it on the blog so that
people can see it.
Yeah.
It says Strong Language on thefront.
And then I wonder, does it havea subheading?
Chris West (31:30):
Yeah.
The fastest, smartest, cheapestmarketing tool you're not using.
Eric Dickmann (31:37):
That's excellent.
Chris West (31:39):
It could also have been a great tactic by us to
talk about the book, the bookcover, and then not show it.
So everyone the show notes.
Eric Dickmann (31:47):
It builds some suspense.
I think that's great.
I give so much credit to anybodywho can sit down and take the
time to write a book becausethey're valuable assets, a great
way to share your knowledge withothers.
And that's what we really try todo on this podcast is share
knowledge so that people canreally up their marketing game.
And so, Chris, I'm justdelighted that you were able to
(32:08):
come on the show today.
Congratulations on the book andI hope it's a big success.
Thanks so much for being here.
Chris West (32:15):
Uh, Thanks, Eric.
Thanks for inviting me as weAndyou know, I love sharing advice
as well.
So if anyone wants to find me onLinkedIn, ask me a question, any
size business, whatever I can todo to help, I'll do it.
Eric Dickmann (32:27):
Perfect.
And we'll make sure to have allthose contact links that you
mentioned in the show notes.
Chris, thanks so much again.
Chris West (32:33):
My pleasure.
Lovely.
See you Eric, take care.
Eric Dickmann (32:38):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
The Virtual CMO podcast.
For more episodes, go tofiveechelon.com/podcast to
subscribe through your podcastplayer of choice.
And if you'd like to developconsistent lead flow and a
highly effective marketingstrategy, visit fiveechelon.com
to learn more about our VirtualCMO consulting services.
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