99. Strategy Does Not Have to Come at the Expense of Action

For a food and beverage business, it can be a big benefit to choose to go slow to go fast. While that may sound counterintuitive, taking a little time to plan can increase efficiency and help you accelerate more rapidly because you’ve got the clarity and confidence to know what to do next.

Today on episode 99 of the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva explains why starting with strategy can help your tactics come together.

1. Clarity

Start with a clear understanding of who you are serving: their motivations and pain points, and how you can meet those needs in a way your competitors can’t or won’t. In Brand Strategy Streamlined™, we focus on your consumer needs, how the competition is positioning their product line, and what makes your brand unique – all to identify how to craft a brand story to set your brand apart. Being clear on these things using Katie’s frameworks and tools to outline the key points can help you relay this to others who are helping you bring your brand to life. With clarity you can then leverage the expertise of your partners, like a marketing or PR team, copywriters, and designers, to bring the brand to life and tell the story you know is thoughtfully positioned.

2. Cohesiveness

Document your brand strategy to make it easier to delegate tasks and align your team. The goal here is consistency—that everything you and/or your team does across the front and back end of your business is in line with your brand strategy, including your Vision, Purpose, Values, Pillars, Positioning, Personality, etc. The result is a cumulative effect, where you allocate your resources more efficiently and effectively with all parts of the business working together to bring your vision to life and deliver the experience your stakeholders expect from your brand. Remember that cohesive and consistent does not have to mean boring…1+1=3 in brand strategy when all the pieces are working together to deliver delight to your stakeholders.

3. Confidence

As Katie puts it, “With clarity and consistency comes confidence.” With a fresh understanding of your position in the market, you can make confident decisions—and empower your team to do the same. You won’t feel like you’re reinventing the wheel every time you’re talking to a new team member, consumer, buyer, supplier, influencer or investor. You have your North Star you’re working towards clearly defined and, until you gain data points that point you in a new direction, that’s what is guiding you and your team. You have a plan and you’re sticking to it

Now, let’s go shake up shopping carts!

Quotes:

“It can be a huge benefit to choose to go slow to go fast…and slow doesn’t really even need to be that slow, just intentional based on your North Star so you can bring your brand story to life.” – Katie Mleziva

“The reason I love this work is because I see the difference it makes when everything is working together towards your Vision” – Katie Mleziva

“Being consistent in everything you do, when done correctly, is not boring—it’s brand-building because it creates a cumulative effect as you allocate your resources more efficiently and effectively, with all parts of the business working together to bring your vision to life and deliver the experience your stakeholders expect from your brand. ” – Katie Mleziva

“With clarity and consistency comes confidence.” – Katie Mleziva

In This Episode:

The 3 main benefits of taking time to set your North Star (aka brand strategy)
Past Real Food Brands episodes to help you shape your brand strategy.
How brand strategy can help provide clarity on unanswered questions related to your consumers, competitors, and your company’s unique brand story.
How to align the front and back end of your business to build a cohesive brand.
Why having a strategy and a plan brings confidence to food business owners.
Resources to help you develop your brand strategy.
What we’re planning for our 100th episode (hint: there will be giveaways!)

Resources: