Brand Voice Development

It is so important to understand and utilize the voice of your customer (VOC). The VOC is esentially the feedback, opinions, preferences, and expectations of customers about your product, service, or brand. We are taught very early on in #leanmanagement about the importance of understanding and integrating customer feedback, needs, and preferences into the product or service development process. Why? Because VOC helps ensure that products or services align closely with what customers truly want and value, reducing waste, increasing quality and increasing customer satisfaction. Many companies collect data...lots of it...but leave out the crucial step of analyzing this collected data, identifying patterns, and drawing actionable insights. Also, they collect data far too late, often after the work has been done instead of getting input at the start of the creative process. So, here are a few guidelines to help you make the most of your customer voice: 1️⃣ Gather VOC at every critical stage: pre-development, during development, post launch and at critical touchpoints. 2️⃣ Identify Patterns and Prioritize Issues: Group similar content and determine which issues or suggestions are most frequently mentioned or have the most significant impact on customer satisfaction. 3️⃣ Contextualize Feedback: Consider when, where, and how the feedback was provided to better interpret its significance. 4️⃣ Quantify Feedback: Assign metrics or scores where possible to quantify feedback. This helps prioritize improvements based on the magnitude of impact. 5️⃣ Root Cause Analysis: Dig deeper to understand the root causes of recurring issues. Sometimes, the stated problem might not be the actual underlying issue. 6️⃣ Link Feedback to Action: Connect the feedback directly to actionable steps. Develop strategies or changes that directly address the issues raised by customers. 7️⃣ Continual Improvement: Use feedback not just for immediate fixes but as part of an ongoing process for continuous improvement. Regularly revisit feedback to track progress and make further adjustments. What other tips can you add?? #voiceofthecustomer #lean #qualitymanagement #customerfeedback #customersatisfaction Image Source: Lucidchart

Underrated positioning and messaging tactics that work in 2025 and that will still work in 2026 (with examples): 1. Say what you DON’T do right upfront (draw sharper lines than your competitors dare). E.g. “We don’t do branding. We don’t do ads. We only fix B2B homepages—because that’s where deals bleed.” 2. Pick a villain and make it personal. E.g. “Your real enemy isn’t competitors—it’s the corporate mush that makes your homepage sound like everyone else.” 3. Write copy you’d text your friends. 4. Name the uncomfortable truth your industry hides under the rug (e.g. “Everyone’s selling you ‘AI agents.’ What they don’t say: you’ll spend hours babysitting outputs and fixing sloppy drafts. The work doesn’t disappear—it just changes shape.” 5. Make your product sound smaller (specific, exact) instead of “the platform for everything.” 6. Flip aspiration into embarrassment. Mock industry’s cliché dreams and make buyers see the absurdity. E.g. “‘Seamless collaboration’? If Slack threads at 11pm is your dream, keep chasing it.” 7. Expose the industry’s addiction. Point out the dirty little drug competitors sell. E.g. “Everyone’s selling ‘dashboards.’ Because they know you’re addicted to charts, even if they don’t move revenue.” 8. Give your message a scar. Show the wound that created your product. E.g. “We built this after losing a $2M deal to a stupid spreadsheet error. Never again.” 9. Weaponize comparison. Don’t just say you’re different—show the absurdity of the alternative. E.g. “Still sending 20 PDFs to close one deal? That’s not ‘process,’ that’s punishment.” 10. Contrast confidence with vulnerability. Call out where you’re not for everyone, then double down on where you are unbeatable. E.g. “We’ll never be the cheapest. But we’ll always be the fastest.” I’ve been using these exact techniques with my B2B clients—either for homepage messaging engagements or more recently during 1:1 coaching calls—and they work. They'll still work in 2026 because clarity, contrast, and guts are wired in how humans operate. And that will never go out of style.

Two founders. Same niche. Same audience size. Very different results. One struggles to convert leads. The other closes conversations faster without pushing. The difference wasn’t ads. It wasn’t content volume. And it definitely wasn’t talent. It was how clearly their message was positioned. Here’s what I observed 👇 Founder A Explained everything Shared multiple offers Used smart but generic language Expected the audience to “connect the dots” Result: Good engagement. Slow decisions. Long sales cycles. Founder B One clear problem One sharp promise One repeated message Same language everywhere posts, bio, conversations Result: Shorter conversations. Faster trust. Higher conversions. The second founder didn’t say more. They said the same thing clearly, again and again. That’s the part most people underestimate. When your message is clear: people know when to reach out conversations start warmer objections reduce automatically selling feels lighter Not because you’re persuasive but because you’re understandable. Here’s the real lesson: Consistency without clarity creates noise. Clarity with consistency creates momentum. If growth feels slow despite effort, don’t change the strategy yet. First, simplify the message people hear when they find you. That alone can change outcomes. #FounderGrowth #BrandPositioning #MessagingStrategy #BusinessClarity #SalesPsychology #StrategicCommunication #ContentThatConverts #AakritiOnLinkedIn

It’s not just what you say that matters - it's how your audience is wired to interpret it. Social Judgment Theory (developed by Muzafer Sherif and Carl Hovland) helps us understand why certain messages resonate while others fall flat. → The Anchor Point: Your Audience's Core Beliefs Your audience’s core beliefs act as their personal anchors - deeply held convictions that are difficult to sway. Your goal is to: - Understand these anchor points. - Align your messages with where your audience stands. (See example below) → Latitude of Acceptance: The Sweet Spot Around these anchors is a range of ideas your audience is open to - this is the Latitude of Acceptance. Messages in this range are more likely to be welcomed or at least considered. Your goal is to: - Identify and explore ideas within this latitude. - Avoid pushing beyond what they’re willing to accept. (See example below) → Latitude of Non-Commitment: The Grey Area There’s a neutral zone - the Latitude of Non-Commitment - where your audience is indifferent or undecided. It’s the “meh” area where your message might not inspire action but doesn’t provoke resistance either. Your goal is to: - Gently guide your audience from this neutral zone toward your desired outcome. - Link neutral concepts back to their core beliefs. (See example below) → Latitude of Rejection: The No-Go Zone The Latitude of Rejection is where your message faces resistance or outright dismissal. Push too hard, and your audience will double down on their original beliefs. Your goal is to: - Approach with caution and find common ground. - Gradually shift perceptions by focusing on shared values. (See example below) → Ego Involvement: The Wild Card Ego involvement is the wild card. The more an issue is tied to someone’s identity, the narrower their Latitude of Acceptance becomes. This means crafting your message with extra care. Your goal is to: - Respect and acknowledge their self-concept. - Frame new ideas as enhancements, not challenges, to their identity. (See example below) So, how can you ensure your brand’s message resonates? Start by understanding where your audience’s anchor points are. 1. Anchor your content within your audience’s core beliefs. 2. Aim for the Latitude of Acceptance to gently nudge opinions. 3. Be aware of the Latitude of Non-Commitment as a space for subtle persuasion. 4. Avoid the Latitude of Rejection unless you're prepared for resistance. 5. Approach ego-involvement with care by framing your message as a way to enhance their identity, rather than challenge it. Effective branding isn’t about shouting louder - it’s about speaking in tune with how your audience naturally thinks and feels. When you align your message with Social Judgment Theory, you connect with them on a deeper level.

If your go-to-market strategy relies heavily on targeting ‘Series B startups with 50-100 employees that just raised a funding round’, guess what… You’re fishing where 1,000 more competitors are fishing. That’s the reality for most marketing teams… 🐟 Fishing in the same pond with the same bait. And with generic targeting, the message also becomes generic and gets drowned in the sea of sameness. If strategy = knowing where to play and how to win… 🎯 The goal of signals is to help you understand where (& when) to play. 📓 But more importantly, they help with ‘how to win’. They help you craft a smarter way to win. While your competitors are still using surface-level signals (company size, recent funding), the best marketers are digging deeper: - Technology stack changes and migrations - Engineering team hiring velocity - Executive speaking engagements - Social media comments on key topics - Pricing page updates These nuanced signals reveal CONTEXT. The why behind the what. When a company just raised Series B, it's just noise. When they're simultaneously hiring 3 DevOps engineers, migrating from legacy infrastructure, and their CTO is speaking about scaling challenges – that's a signal. Then, your message isn't the same one they heard 47 times this week: ‘Congrats on your funding round’ Instead, your message is: "I noticed you're building out your DevOps team while transitioning infrastructure. Have you thought about how you can [specific outcome] in 60 days without disrupting your current roadmap?" Your differentiation doesn’t just lie in what you’re selling. It lies in how deeply you understand THEIR MOMENT. Everyone has access to the same basic data, but the competitive advantage lies in finding and blending new signals, interpreting them well, and landing a message that resonates given that context. Clay has launched custom signals recently, and it will lead to even more interesting experiments in this area. At Paddle, we watch for a whole range of moments that matter… - When more than 30% of a digital product company's web traffic comes from outside their home country (a signal that they are likely selling to a variety of markets, and will need sales tax compliance and local payment methods) - When a mobile app builds out a web property (a signal that they are likely to invest in a new web channel, and at some point, monetise there!) - When a large enterprise hires for or announces a new product-led offering (a signal that are investing in a new motion that will need to be flexible, fit for global scale, and fully compliant from day 1) Instead of 'fishing' where and how all your competitors are fishing... stop, think, and start to understand the companies you want to serve. Their context, the signals that indicate this, and the moments these lead to.

“What if you didn’t use slides at all?” I asked my client this, and it freaked them out. I meant it as more of a thought experiment. You know, to see if I could start to break them from their PowerPoint addiction. But they took the question literally, and so I went with it. “What would we say!? How will we keep our place in the client conversation?” They were panicking just a bit. Yes, that was my point. A lot of smart technology leaders I work with use slides as a crutch. It can get a little ridiculous, with decks of 70+ slides. Crammed with data that will never stick in the audience’s brain. Worse, I see them looking at their slides as a cue for what to say next. They should be looking at the client. The cues for what to say next should come from the dialogue. This is where the skill of strategic narrative comes in. Instead of creating a PowerPoint “script”, what if you prepared a few strategic stories in advance? And so we worked on the value-holding "narrative assets". These included: ⭐️ “Why I’m Here” stories — to make a personal connection and “humanize” the consultant team ⭐️ “Imagine a World” stories to invite a dialogue on what could be possible.  ⭐️ “I Helped Someone Like You” stories, to establish a point of comparison, and to begin revealing the nuances that were unique to this client. It turns out: ⚡️ The conversation had more energy. 💪🏼 The consultants felt more confident. 😲 They didn’t need slides after all. ❤️ The client loved it. 💰They got the gig. Are your teams suffering from slide addiction? What if you staged a story intervention? #storytelling #engagement #humanizedleadership

Storytelling is not strategy. Strategy is not storytelling. But one without the other is useless. I've been a graphic designer, a brand identity designer, and now a strategist for 10+ years. I've lived on both sides. And the line between the two has never been more dangerously blurred. I've fought this battle myself. For years I got the cross-pollination of my professional self wrong. Brought creativity in too early, too late, too softly. Let my design brain overlook data and miss the insights. Used storytelling as confirmation bias. Those mistakes cost clients time and money. They cost me sleep, and cost my GF a few extra doses of nicotine. But they also forced me to build a process that actually works. One where strategy gets locked before storytelling gets loose. Where the hard tradeoffs happen before the beautiful decks. Where patient zero is confirmed before the epidemic spreads. Because: Strategy is patient zero. Storytelling is the epidemic. Patient zero is the origin. Concentrated. Specific. Isolated. It needs to be studied, stress-tested, confirmed before you let it loose. The epidemic is how it spreads. How it scales. How it infects an entire organisation with a shared direction. But here's the problem: If patient zero is misdiagnosed, the epidemic spreads the wrong thing. You end up with a virus of beautiful nonsense infecting your entire company. Coherent decks. Inspiring manifestos. Gorgeous brand films. All built on a strategic foundation that was never actually solid. Beautifully inefficient, highly expensive. That's not alignment. That's collective delusion with pretty garnish. I see it constantly: → Teams skipping the hard tradeoffs and jumping straight to narrative → "Positioning" that's really just copywriting → Strategy decks that read like poetry but can't answer "what are we saying no to?" → Designers that sell questionnaire-driven strategy because they think they have to be strategists. Storytelling is powerful. It's how you onboard people. How you get buy-in. How you make strategy feel human and exciting. How you buy mental availability inside first, outside later. B U T it's activation, not foundation. The strategic platform, the sharp problem, the honest picture, the few moves the whole system will lean behind, that has to be locked before you weaponise storytelling to spread it. Otherwise you're not building strategy. You're performing it. You're not a strategist, but an actor. The disciplines should be distinct in their process. Interconnected in their activation. Strategy first. Storytelling after. Patient zero before the epidemic.

Storytelling isn't just about sharing random experiences. I see coaches struggling with this daily. Last week, a coach asked me: "Which story type works best for thought leadership?" Here are 7 proven storytelling frameworks that drive engagement: 1/ The Challenge-Solution Story ↳ Share how you overcame industry obstacles 2/ The Discovery Journey ↳ Document your learning moments & insights 3/ The Client Transformation ↳ Show the before & after (with permission) 4/ The Mistake Story ↳ Vulnerably share lessons learned 5/ The Process Reveal ↳ Break down your unique methodology 6/ The Industry Insight ↳ Share data-backed observations 7/ The Vision Story ↳ Paint the future you're building I've tested these frameworks with 20+ thought leaders. The results, they achieved: → 40% higher engagement rates → More meaningful conversations → Stronger audience connection → Consistent lead generation (30+ in only 30 days) Why these frameworks work: Authority: Shows deep expertise Relatability: Creates genuine connections Trust: Builds credibility naturally Structure: Makes complex ideas digestible Your thought leadership isn't about telling any story. It's about telling the RIGHT story at the RIGHT time. P.S. Which of these storytelling frameworks resonates most with your content strategy?

Why luxury requires hypersensitivity to nuance In luxury, most professionals concentrate on what they say. Clients, however, react far more to how they hear it. A conversation rarely collapses because of the words themselves. It falters because of the tone behind them, the rhythm of the exchange, the hesitation that appears where confidence was expected, or the warmth that fails to arrive at the right moment. These details look small. They are not. They shape the entire experience. A polite question can suddenly feel intrusive. A well-intended remark can come across as distant. A neutral comment can be perceived as judgment. And the person speaking often has no idea why the atmosphere shifted. Luxury clients are acutely receptive to these micro-signals. They read intention long before they read product. They sense inconsistency instantly. They evaluate trust, presence and emotional clarity within seconds. When verbal and non-verbal cues misalign, something imperceptible yet decisive disconnects. The most effective client advisors and leaders understand this intuitively. They pay attention not only to information, but to tone. They listen to what is said as well as what remains unsaid. They adjust their pace, their degree of formality, their gestures and their silences. They allow clients to feel respected without feeling watched, guided without feeling pressured, understood without needing to justify themselves. Excellence in luxury is not a script. It is a form of emotional precision. Brands invest heavily in service guidelines and training programs, yet the true difference often emerges in the smallest moments: a slightly softer voice, a question delivered at the right time, a smile that genuinely reaches the eyes, a silence that creates space rather than discomfort. When teams master this subtle layer of communication, everything becomes easier: trust, conversion, loyalty, long-term value. Nuance is not decorative. Nuance is strategic. And it is teachable. If you feel your teams could enhance the emotional impact of their communication, refine their tone, timing and presence, or strengthen their ability to manage sensitive interactions, I would be delighted to support you. Feel free to reach out for tailored training or guidance. #LuxuryExperience #Clienteling #LeadershipInLuxury #EmotionalIntelligence #RetailExcellence

4 Simple Ways to Tell Stories 👇 [and How I Apply Them in My Journey] Storytelling is a powerful tool for communication. It conveys emotions, teaches lessons, and connects different cultures. I've personally experienced how storytelling fosters connections and inspires change. Storytelling is a crucial skill for anyone looking to help customers choose the right path to achieve their goals. In my professional journey, I've found that data alone doesn't drive action—it's stories that do. Storytelling is crucial for impactful leadership, client interactions, and explaining complex concepts. Here are four powerful storytelling frameworks that have shaped my approach: 1️⃣ Pyramid Principle (Barbara Minto) The Pyramid Principle advocates for presenting your conclusion upfront. This method allows me to communicate efficiently, especially with senior leaders. Structuring my arguments logically enhances the clarity of intricate issues. --- 2️⃣ SCR Framework (McKinsey) Situation, Complication, Resolution. This approach highlights the urgency of a challenge. It’s about presenting a compelling narrative that leads to actionable solutions. It’s my go-to for high-stakes presentations. --- 3️⃣ Golden Circle (Simon Sinek) Start with the Why. This reminds me to always connect actions to purpose. By explaining the ‘why’ behind a strategy, teams become more aligned and motivated. I use this often during sessions with my mentees. --- 4️⃣ Story of Self/Us/Now (Marshall Ganz) Marshall Ganz, an organizer in the migrant farmworkers' movement and a Senior Lecturer at Harvard, created the public narrative methodology in the 1990s for community organizing based on values. Public narrative teaches people to share personal stories effectively, building a community around shared experiences and values. This can motivate large numbers of people to take action on important issues. I used this during my days as a citizen reporter. --- 💡 Stories are 22x more memorable than facts. They're for anyone wanting to make an impact. Which framework resonates with you? Share below. ⤵️ --- P.S. I would love to discuss how you can incorporate storytelling into your journey! Happy Sunday! Shivendra 🙏