Find Your One Word

In the early days of crafting brand strategies, I always tried to define the strategy itself first. I'd stare at the notes from the workshop looking for trends, feel a tremendous amount of pressure for the lightning bolt moment, and wait for clarity to hit me. It always came. But it was brutal, like staring into The Matrix waiting for a secret code to appear.

Work backwards

There's a better way. Work backwards. Start by finding the one word, or three, that best captures the brand's DNA.

Some one words from recent brand strategies I've run include nurturing, consistent, empowerment, ambition, fast and community. All very different, aren't they? That's because no two businesses are the same, even in the same industry.

Here's how you find yours.

How to find yours

Sit down with whoever runs the business with you and talk honestly about the past, the present and the future. We've always behaved like. Our values are. Our current customer base is. We see excellent revenue in this segment. The vision we aspire to is. The impact we want to have is. Document the answers as you go, disregarding spelling and grammar. Capture the premise of everything discussed.

Then re-read your notes and look for trends. Even if the specific word doesn't repeat, certain ideas will. You'll most likely find a maximum of four or five words or ideas that keep popping up. Highlight them.

Alive. Together.

When I was looking for the one word for a professional conference organiser, the words that came up included alive, living, together, bringing the magic, and emotionally involved. The same word wasn't repeated, but there was a noticeable trend, wasn't there? We landed on "Alive. Together."

It was clear they had an incredible competency to deliver events like no other. They noticed the details and worked hard to do things differently. When they do both, attendees get an event that feels amazing. And when something feels amazing, how do you feel? Alive.

Your one word doesn't have to be romantic or sound like sexy marketing copy. It's internal language chosen to describe the DNA of the business.

While writing a strategy for a holiday park, "consistent" kept coming up. They talked about the consistency of service, cleaning, reinvesting in the facilities. Every time guests returned, the experience would be consistently better than the last. It was clear that consistent was their word. Is it a problem that it isn't as romantic as Alive. Together? Not at all. Implemented through the brand and the customer experience, it will be decisive for them.

The word has to be true

Now the warning, because this is where it goes wrong.

The word has to be true. It must be consistent with your past, with where you want to go, and with what you're actually capable of. If you're not above the industry benchmark for speed, there's no sense using fast. If you're pragmatic and unemotional, nurturing shouldn't be one of your words.

I was once in a workshop with an accommodation operator when we hit questions about culture. On the surface I was told there was a strong, positive culture. The air got tense as I kept asking about hiring, training and management. Start digging and it was clear there were staff retention problems, training gaps and a lot of knowledge sitting only with the owner. The staff didn't seem empowered or motivated.

Had I taken the facade at face value, something like "high quality service" might have ended up as a leading word. What a catastrophe that would have been. The strategy would have been delivered, hung on the wall, and irrelevant out of the gate. Any team member who saw it wouldn't have believed it, because they knew it wasn't the truth.

Every business has a unique DNA. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Identify each, be brutally honest about them, and find the word that leans into what's genuinely yours.

Then, the test. Could your competitor adopt it? If they could, you haven't articulated your strengths and differences quite enough yet.

Your job from this post: find your one word, or three.