Vibes Have Value

Technical companies struggle with brand & marketing for so many reasons.  Marketing is typically a downstream capability, ‘catching’ the mismatched strategy and political in-fighting that came well before a brief landing on their desk.  Many technical teams struggle with the nuance of making subjective decisions in outward facing comms with copywriting and visuals, where there isn’t a single right answer.  There is also a constant struggle to “math” away the marketing, when so many reasons that inform a buying decision are emotional, irrational and can’t be captured on a spreadsheet.

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The uncomfortable truth is that most buying decisions don’t start with a click, they start with a feeling.

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My favorite analogy: brand like asking someone on a date. 

• Someone can say no even if you’re ‘good on paper,’ polite, and nice to look at.  Maybe even their mother thinks they’re a catch!
• Someone can say yes because something unexplainable just felt… right.  Their mother’s opinion suddenly flies out the window.

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Brand is that something unexplainable.  An amalgamation of signals that give you a sense of what a company values, how it treats people and what it can offer long before money is on the table. No amount of math can give you the exact dollar value of your “goodwill” at this early stage, but its importance can’t be overstated.

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Kanan and I talk at length on the importance of vibes.  In our clients’ businesses and our own

• When the vibe is off, no amount of feature depth or pricing gymnastics fixes it. 
• When the vibe is right, friction drops everywhere and growth explodes.

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The mistake many teams make is sanding off their edges in pursuit of broad appeal. Everything becomes safe, neutral, and forgettable. Ironically, that’s what makes trust harder to earn. 

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Let’s go back to the dating analogy.  This time, we’re at a cocktail party:

• Someone introduces themselves with their name and what they do for a living and you fall asleep almost instantly.
• Someone introduces themselves, and eagerly shares that they have watched The Sopranos seven times. Suddenly you’re intrigued by this maniac because you have too.

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Authenticity is letting your real point of view show up consistently, even when it narrows the audience.  The work of a brand is helping the right people recognize, early on, why saying yes feels like the obvious move.

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