Discover how Q Branch adapts to change and promotes growth.
Spring means new growth
Spring is a time of change, each season has its own special narrative but spring is the one of new growth. As the sun makes an appearance (occasionally), we start to notice the new leaves on the trees, the cherry blossom, spring flowers and lambs in the fields.
Only a few weeks ago, it felt like winter was going to last forever. But here’s the beauty of life, nothing lasts forever. Whether they are good times or bad, change is inevitable. It’s amazing as humans that we find change so hard, because each day there is potential for the weather to change, for the economy to throw us a curve ball and for a big event to knock us off our feet. Yet we still cling to the comfort of certainty.
Dealing with change is one of the things we do best at Q Branch. Both from a personal and business level, we have managed change over the years to create a resilience to embrace the good and withstand the challenging.
And this is why we think it’s important to assist our clients with change, alongside an amazing brand strategy. We realised we didn’t want to just give our clients a strategy that we believed in, then leave them to it, because we understand that everything to do with brand involves embracing change. Whether this is visually, emotionally or within the culture of the business, a new brand ethos warrants a deeper level of support.
As a business owner, you may be reading this and shrugging it off saying, “it’s just a new logo and some different marketing”. That’s where we have seen it fall down because it’s more than just the visuals. Brand is identity. It’s your business voice, how you connect with your audience and how you show up to the world.
I liken it to when you lose or put on weight or decide you want to shake up your style, or heaven forbid, start working on yourself with a therapist or even listening to personal development podcasts. Everyone around will notice that you have changed. They may not even realise what it is that’s different, but they will respond to you differently.
If you have lost weight, it may be positive, “oh, you look so well” or it could be negative “don’t lose any more, you are starting to look ill”. It’s no different to changing how your business shows up in the world.
“Well, you used to eat cake, so why aren’t you now?” could be, “you used to provide this service, so why have you stopped when it’s inconvenient to me?”. The service you are no longer providing could be costing you money, it could be out of alignment with your values and mission, but people will feel irked because it’s a change.
This is when you start to doubt yourself and your strategy. You may decide that the work we have done is all wrong and you want to go back to what you were doing (which also wasn’t working, but it’s comfortable because it’s familiar).
Tools for Change
We use our tools to help you navigate these times in both your business and your personal life.
One of the structures we follow is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It’s hard to pick a favourite but when it comes to change management, here are 2 that are worth looking at further.
Habit 2 – Begin with the end in mind.
This is fairly self-explanatory but how do we apply this to our clients? We start by looking at where we are now (which is opposite to what this rule says) but we don’t linger there. We want to know what you want from your business and your life. What is your end goal? We then put in the steps to enable you to get there, while following a plan that is right for you. There is no point in us setting up a brand strategy that has you tied to a factory for the next 20 years if you want a laptop on a beach lifestyle. Similarly, there is little point in creating a brand that focuses on working by the beach jumping from one place to another when you have kids at home and schooling and stability is important.
So, what is your end goal? That may seem big and scary, but our Clarity Roadmap can help you work it out.
Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then be understood.
This one is for us but it’s a great lesson in life. We often start with wanting to be understood by others, but if we begin with trying to understand first, it will get us a lot further. So, at Q Branch we seek to understand what you want from your business, what’s important to you, what skills you have and what you may need to invest in. It’s the Clarity Roadmap that gets us this understanding. It’s also why we won’t take on any brand strategy work without it. Because if we don’t understand your business, you are going to struggle to understand what we provide for you.
We’ve noticed a lot of “brand experts” jumping in with logos and colours and moving from graphic design to brand strategy because it’s the new kid on the block, but do they come with the skills of how to dig into the real work your business needs? Do they have the level of understanding to ask the big questions to get to the right answers?
That’s what we offer.
If you are looking at the new buds, the baby animals and the promise of spring changes, wishing you could get that fresh sense of renewal in your life and business, what are you waiting for?
Book a first date with us to see what blossoming relationship we can create. Because right from the start we are passionate about understanding you and your business. It's why we don't work with anyone without this first date. We want to make sure we all want to progress to the next date to have a positive end in mind that brings us all new growth.
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Jenny Jarvis
Founding Partner of Q Branch, Jenny is a highly trained and experienced Human Transformation Specialist, Coach and NLP Practitioner who is passionate about positive relationships and giving founders and leaders the BOLD Confidence and tools it takes to build BOLD Brands and Cultures. She is also an inspiring keynote speaker and lover of french wine and cheese.
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