There's a moment in Dollar Shave Club's launch video where the founder walks through a warehouse, completely deadpan, pulls out a machete to cut the tape on a box of razors, and then throws the box at a bear. The bear doesn't catch it. Nobody acknowledges any of this. The video moves on. That video came out in 2012. People still talk about it. What made it work wasn't the machete or the bear. It was that the whole thing felt like a genuine point of view, like someone looked a

A couple of weeks ago, I was leading an in-person women’s networking group, and toward the end of the meeting one of the more experienced businesswomen in the room started coaching another member on how to close a sale. She walked through a role play. The scenario: a potential customer makes an appointment five days out, shows up, gets the full pitch, gets all her questions answered, and then says, “I need to think about it. Give me a few days.” Not in the mood to read all th

If you’re starting a business or even just thinking about it, branding can feel overwhelming. The term itself can mean different things to different people. At its core, your brand is the perception people have of your business. It's the feelings, emotions, and experiences they associate with you over time. It’s what lingers after an interaction. It’s how your business feels to someone, not just what it says about itself. Branding, on the other hand, is the work of shaping th