For the first time here on my blog, I’m going to dedicate an entire month to one single topic:

Creativity!

Follow my writing here on this blog for the entire month of August to earn a hand up on being more creative.

Here we go!

For the entire day today, you can download my book, To Be or Like to Be completely free on Kindle.

Download free

Usually, people want to receive gifts on their birthday, but apparently I’m not very normal.

Instead, I would rather celebrate by giving my badass readers something very dear to me. Anyways, I received enough of a great gift yesterday from my awesome staff. It’s time to give back.

This type of giving also works in business.

Let me explain why.

In my experience, working with big clients is difficult. There’s red tape and land mines situated all over the place that stop great and bold ideas in their tracks. They want to take.

Working with small clients is easier. They are usually very inspired and passionate, more easily convinced to take leaps of faith, and more eager to infuse personality into their businesses. They want to give.

What if this didn’t have to be the case?

What if all brands were bold and meaningful?

What if all brands were aspirational and dedicated to creating value for customers?

What if everyone believed in what they were selling (as I do with my book)?

What if everyone wanted to give?

What if, what if, what if?

Instead of asking what if’s, let’s take our dreams into our own hands.

There is no arguing with the fact that changing well-established procedures and marketing messages can be difficult. Presenting yourself to the world as something new is scary.

How will the public respond? Will they recognize us anymore? What if they think it’s dumb? What if it doesn’t match up with what we’ve been building for decades?

Honestly, it doesn’t even matter!

Your organization was created to build and deliver value to multiple groups of people — what the jargon-lovers call stakeholders. Once you put personality and meaning into your products and services, the customers you gain and the customers you keep will be more loyal than ever.

Authenticity in marketing is becoming more important every single day. Don’t believe me yet? Read my book on that topic. Like I said, it’s free today. Maybe the book will convince you.

Growth can mean bigger branding — branding as big as your dreams.

Companies like to grow slowly, organically — or they like to grow too fast. Being a small business owner, I can identify with that. Big growth is scary and full of risk. But growth doesn’t always have to mean investing in more resources, bigger office space, or more employees.

Growth in your branding is just as important because it infuses a culture and meaning into your organization that never existed before.

In your dreams, how big and meaningful is your organization? What if you branded as big as that? What if you hung up *those* posters on your wall?

Instead of feeling afraid of being bold and striving for better, ask yourself how great you would feel if you could do the following:

Feels a lot like being a superhero, doesn’t it?

Striving for better isn’t always easy. Matter of fact, it never is. But the stuff that’s easy has already been done a million times.

The hard stuff is the rare stuff — and the rare stuff sells. Like hotcakes.

But striving to build a brand that is as big as your dreams feels like taking a long, deep breath or badassery. It feels like you can take over the world, doesn’t it?

It feels exhilarating, like anything is possible for you and your organization.

What you are doing is important, so why not brand for it? What you are attempting is meaningful, so why not let others know it?

Brand as big as your dreams, and let me know how it goes. I’ll be waiting for the good news.

In the meantime, enjoy my book — for free. Happy birthday to me.

More badassery:

1. Drowning Your Brand in One Fell Swoop.