Branding for Economic Odds, Part 1: The Fear Economy
Let’s start with this: I am not an economist. I’m a branding expert and a storyteller.
And here’s what I know: it doesn’t take a degree in finance to see the writing on the wall. Even a quick glance at the Apple News highlights reel (or Facebook, or Buzzfeed, or wherever you get your intel) will tell us that the economy is either unstable, or weak, or on the verge of collapse, depending on the day.
The numbers change by the day but the reality doesn’t: it ain’t pretty right now folks.
Our days are classified by our fight for racial justice in this country. A looming vote that could cost us more than we could ever dream of. A global pandemic. And that’s all before the bulging unemployment rates, struggling business operations, and exponential small business closures.
The state we’re in is unresolved. We don’t have closure. We don’t have answers. And we don’t have the energy to spend on processing it all. We must make all our choices against commodity. We’re spending our time, we’re spending our bandwidth. We’re reacting to problems, we’re solving them, we’re nimble. We’re all just doing the best we can, but we’re not getting a lot of value out of our investments right now.
We are tired. We are afraid for our very lives.
I call that The Fear Economy.
Add to that, the rates of small business closure.
Truth #1. We can all see it (and Yelp backs it up): businesses are closing their doors. Temporarily. Then permanently.
Truth #2. As of 2019, small businesses drove 44% of economic growth in this country. That’s huge. Small business drives job growth, innovation and cultural change. Also huge. The world needs the grit of small business, now more than ever.
So the question is: how do we survive? How do we balance the fear of failure with the fierce will to overcome the odds and come out the other side triumphant?
This is where branding comes in. Branding, storytelling and creativity are our secrets weapons in the fight against finance. And it doesn’t have to cost a lot. Here’s how it works:
First, we commit. We commit to our ideas and we apply some faith.
Second, we speak truth to our clients. We honor their needs and their problems.
Third, we continue to show up. And we do it in a way that doesn’t burn us out.
I’m not saying it’s easy. But we don’t have to make it harder, either.
In this four-part series, I’ll unpack each of these topics with some real, actionable steps you can take to strengthen your business as we stare a recession in the face.
C’mon small biz. We got this.
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This series is excerpted from the interactive speech I gave at The Quorum 2020 National Coming Out Day Conference titled “Overcoming Economic Odds: The Importance of Branding, Diversity and Showing Up”. If you’re interested in hosting a talk like this, shoot over a note!
