Jeremy Miller's Blog, page 16

How Cheerios Got Its Name

Cheerios is America’s #1 breakfast cereal.

Did you grow up eating it? I sure did! It was a household staple, and on weekends my brother and I got the “good stuff” — Honey Nut Cheerios!

The Graphic Design of Brand New Name

Reading doesn’t have to be boring, and your books don’t have to be bland! It’s time we demand more from our reading experiences.

That was the challenge I gave myself when I began work on . I wanted to create a book that could compete with an iPad — something that grabs and holds your attention.

More importantly, I wanted to give you a tool. Brand New Name is a graphically designed branding book that shows you how to name (or name) anything. It shows you what to do every step of the way.



Part 1: Everything Starts With a Name unpacks the power of names and how they get stuck in your mind. It’s a surprising and fascinating topic. For instance, the way a name sounds can give you a sense of what the brand is like. Swiffer makes the cleaning system seem fast and light, compared to the word “mop” which is heavy, slow and wet.



Part 2: How to Name Things provides you everything you need to name a brand — whether it’s for your company, product, service, system, or idea.



Over the course of two to four weeks you can name anything! The page spread below shows the timeline: Plan, Sprint, Select.

The process starts with a Naming Strategy. You create a strategy for how a name will make your brand stand out. Next we Sprint. I take you through a 5-Day Naming Sprint to generate lots of potential names for your brand. Finally, in Select, you discover the tools and exercises you need to test and select the right name for your brand.



Whether you are naming a company, product, service, or even an idea — choosing a brand name is one of the most important business decisions you will make.

A brilliant name defines your brand, and it can shape the future of your business. shows you how to name, or rename, anything. The process is simple and strategic. Anyone can do it! You’ll learn how to unlock your creative genius to create a name that you’ll be proud to own.

Brand New Name will be released on October 8th. Pre-order your copy today!

And join me for the launch event on October 15th in Toronto. I will be giving a 1-hour keynote at the Rotman School of Management from 5-6pm. The price of admission is $24.95; the price of a book. You’ll see a fun and inspiring talk (from me, Jeremy Miller), and you’ll receive a copy of the book. Register today. Tickets are 50% sold out!

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Who Knows About Your Next Customer Before You Do?

A good referral made at the right moment makes your life so much easier. It feels effortless, even fun, to sell your services: the customer has a need; you have the solution; everything comes together perfectly!

That’s the beauty of a well-timed referral. You’re starting off the relationship on the right foot. You are connecting with a customer at the right time with a relevant need, and you are being endorsed by a trusted partner. You really can’t ask for a better situation.

Referrals are your best source of customers, and you can generate more of them. You just have to answer one simple question, “Who knows about a customer’s need for your services before you do?”

If you can find those people, you’re going to generate the best referrals ever!

Who Sees the Opportunity First?

Every industry has predictable buying processes. This information is gold, because it helps you plan your sales and marketing strategies.

For example, Foresight Sports manufactures golf simulators and launch monitors. Their equipment is badass. It will show you exactly how the clubhead gets to the ball; the positions of the face at impact; and what happens to the ball as it leaves the clubface and makes its way downrange.

If you’re an avid golfer, this is the gear you need to own.

Foresight Sports Canada, the exclusive Canadian distributor and a Sticky Branding client, serves over 400 homes, retailers, and commercial facilities. The question we’ve asked ourselves frequently is “Who sees an opportunity first?”

For Foresight, a key referral source is custom home builders, architects, and designers. These are the people who know about a deal before the sales team. And these are a critical referral channel.

In your industry, who knows about a potential opportunity before you do?

Build a Referral Marketing Strategy

Most “referral marketing plans” are weak sauce.

Asking people, “Do you know of anyone that may need my services?” is not a strategy. Going to your customers and begging for referrals isn’t a strategy either. It just makes you look needy and annoying.

An effective referral marketing strategy is brand building. It’s driven on the core principles of Sticky Branding: how do you get your referral partners to know your brand, like it, trust it, and refer it?

This is a two part process:

First, it’s relationship building: you need to build trust before people will refer you.
Second, it’s education: you need to teach your referral partners how to spot an opportunity and how to make an introduction.

Sure, sometimes referrals will happen organically, but that’s not a referral marketing strategy. What you’re trying to create is a process to generate consistent sales leads every month. This is no different than any other marketing strategy: it’s all about strategy, process, and execution.

It Starts With a Question

Before you build a referral marketing strategy, do your research: Who knows about a deal first?

It’s a simple question, but it’s easy to overlook. But answering it gives you a target market. You already know who your customers are. By asking who knows about a customer need first will help you identify who your referral partners are.

That one-two combo is powerful and keeps your sales funnel full of high quality leads.

What do you think? We’re here, we’re happy to chat. Send us a note.

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3 Steps to Grow Your Brand (and Generate Tons of Sales Leads)

There’s one simple and singular reason why you should care about branding: sales. A strong brand is the fastest and most effective way to generate sales leads. When your customers know your brand, like it, and trust it, they will choose it first.

That’s the power of a Sticky Brand — it creates a sales machine.

But like so many other aspects of life, branding is easier said than done. It comes down to mastering a set of behaviors that are theoretically uncomplicated, but are also difficult to put into practice consistently.

You gotta do the work to grow your brand!

When I advise a client, we boil a branding and marketing strategy down to the basics:

Simple Clarity: Describe your brand and what makes it unique in ten words or less.
Clear Calls to Action: Guide buyers to logical (and helpful) next steps.
A Solid Marketing Plan: If you don’t blow your own horn, nobody will.

Simple Clarity

Simple Clarity is the foundation of your brand, and it is the first principle of my book, Sticky Branding.

Using the language of your customers, describe your brand:

Category: Who you are…
Services: What you do…
Market: Who you serve…

Avoid the desire to be creative or catchy. Just give the facts. Fluffing up your brand messaging waters down its impact.

The benefit of Simple Clarity is makes your brand more easy to recall and refer. If someone understands exactly how you can help, they’ll think of your brand first when they have a need for your expertise.

Clear Calls to Action

Great salespeople are facilitators. They help their customers navigate the buyer’s journey and make smart decisions.

This type of selling can be a competitive advantage. If your competitors are product pushers, salespeople that facilitate the buying process make your business stand out as more professional and solution oriented.

The same is true in marketing:

When a customer visits your website, does each page guide them to a logical next step?
When they engage with your content on social media, is it clear how you can help them?
Do you show and demonstrate how people can buy from you?

Marketing isn’t some passive, “if you build it they will come,” kind of thing. It’s sales. Drive your customers to logical (and helpful) next steps.

A Solid Marketing Plan

If you want a strong brand, you’re going to have to invest in marketing.

For most small- and mid-sized organizations, I recommend a tentpole marketing plan. The term originates from the movie industry. Tentpoles are those big, blockbuster movies that support the financial performance of a movie studio.

In marketing, tentpoles are your major campaigns:

The big annual, industry conference that you need to dominate.
Product launches or feature updates that your customers are anticipating.
A major customer event.

For example, software companies like Salesforce.com and Hubspot run massive conferences every year. Salesforce runs Dreamforce, and Hubspot hosts Inbound. These events are then supported by smaller roadshows that are run in major urban markets to maintain the hype throughout the year.

My tentpole this year is the launch of my new book, Brand New Name (coming October 8.) The build up has been nine months in the making and the peak of the tentpole is the book launch event at Rotman, University of Toronto, on October 15 at 5pm. (I hope you can attend. Register today.)

A tentpole gives your marketing focus. Rather than trying to do everything, you focus on one to three major events that engage your customers, build brand awareness, and drive sales.

Use Your Brand to Drive Sales

Instead of looking at branding as some nebulous marketing activity, look at it through a sales lens. How do you make your business stand out, attract customers, and drive sales?

The starting point is in your strategy: you need Simple Clarity, clear calls to action, and a solid marketing plan.

We’re here, we’re happy to chat. Send us a note.

You're reading 3 Steps to Grow Your Brand (and Generate Tons of Sales Leads) by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

Four Things The Simpsons Can Teach Us About Brand Naming

Like most kids who grew up in the 90’s, I was raised by The Simpsons. I watched it every Sunday. I watched every re-run. And I even have the first five seasons on DVD.

That funny yellow family taught me so many lessons, and this hit home for me over the weekend. I’m writing a new keynote for the launch of my new book, . (If you’re in the Toronto-area on October 15th, I hope you can attend the launch event. Tickets are available now.)

I was poking around YouTube looking for the perfect clip to add to my talk. I found what I was looking for in three minutes, but I then managed to kill another hour giggling away.

It dawned on me: The Simpsons can teach us a lot about brand naming.

1. Your First Ideas Usually Suck

In “Das Bus”, Homer starts his own internet business, Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net. It’s never revealed what the company actually does, but it does catch the attention of Bill Gates.

Watch how Homer generates names for his fledgling business. They are all obvious and cliché. This happens all too often. You rarely come up with a great idea in the first round of brainstorming. It takes time.

This is why I spread out the naming sprint in over 5 days. By asking participants to generate “5 good names per day for 5 days” helps them to get beyond the obvious and cliché.

2. Say It Out Loud

I am pretty sure I have the humor of a twelve year old, but I can’t help myself. I find it hilarious.

To Name Something Is to Know It

There’s a classic scene in The Simpsons where Mr. Burns loses his nuclear power plant and has to become a “regular guy.”

Standing in the grocery store aisle he stares perplexed at two identical bottles. One is labeled “ketchup” and the other is labeled “catsup.” Looking back and forth he repeats, “Ketchup… catsup. Ketchup… catsup. Ketchup… catsup.” He stutters for a moment and mumbles, “I’m in way over my head.”

The scene cuts with him being arrested by Chief Wiggum and taken to the Springfield Retirement Castle. Wiggum says, “Relax. You’ve gone off your nut. So we’re stuffing you into an old folks home.”

Everyone Needs a Coach

“Every leader needs a coach. Every leader needs to coach,” says Sue Pahl. Sue is a dear friend, mentor, and the CEO of Shift Coaching. She advocates that “Great leaders aren’t born. They’re coached.”

Coaching is integral to performance management. We need coaching, feedback, guidance, and accountability to achieve our full potential. You need it. I need it. Our teams need it.

The reason for this is disruption — or the trendier acronym, VUCA, short for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The rules keep changing, and we need better ways to cope. If you rely solely on your gut and the data, you can get led astray very quickly.

I can see the issues of VUCA with the marketing of my new book, . The playbook I used five years ago to launch Sticky Branding is running out of steam.

In 2015 I launched Sticky Branding as a #1 Globe and Mail Bestseller. The launch was so successful that we sold out the entire publisher’s inventory within four hours of the book’s release. That was an impressive milestone, but I was beside myself. I had my marketing engine firing on all cylinders, but no inventory. It took the publisher another twenty-one agonizing days to replenish the stock and get us back on track.

When we started the launch activities for Brand New Name we built our book marketing strategy based on the successes of the first book. What we discovered very quickly is the game has changed.

(It’s too early to go into the data of the book launch yet. I will share more on what we learned later in the fall.)

What we are seeing is the realities of a rapidly changing digital marketing landscape:

Engagement happens in the feed. In 2015, articles and emails won the day. In 2019, people are consuming their content in their social media feeds. And don’t expect them to click on your links.
Turn up the volume. In 2015, posting weekly was a good pace, and posting daily was annoying. In 2019, posting less than daily, especially on Instagram and Twitter, is a good way to be forgotten.
Strong calls to action. In 2015, people would be offended if you were too pushy with your marketing. In 2019, you don’t stand a chance of generating leads if you don’t present clear calls to action. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Pay to play. In 2015, good content could translate into leads. In 2019, it doesn’t matter the network, you’ve gotta pay to play.

Working within a changing marketing climate is stressful and frustrating. You can try a lot of things, and not see results (at least immediately). That’s the way I have been feeling. Sometimes it seems like I am throwing money into the abyss.

The way I am managing this changing landscape is by being humble, agile, and aggressive. We’re tracking the data, avoiding old assumptions, and working to find the right mix for us. We can’t let any of these changes hold us back. We’ve got books to sell.

This is the journey that you and I are both on. To grow your brand today (and to create marketing that moves the sales needle) requires a different playbook — one that requires new strategies and tactics, and a different mindset.

One of the best ways to overcome a VUCA world is through coaching. At Sticky Branding, this is a big part of my practice. I provide Brand Coaching to entrepreneurs, marketers, and business owners. We think of the program like “strategic thinking partners” — we’re in it together, working together to achieve an outcome.

Working with a business coach — whether it’s me or someone else — helps you to rise above the uncertainty to take a fresh look and approach to your business. You know things have and are changing. The question is who do you need on your team, especially coaching and mentoring you, to achieve your objectives?

What do you think?

You're reading Everyone Needs a Coach by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

An Author’s Brand Drives Book Sales

Today’s article is from Sarah Young, my co-pilot and marketing manager. I asked her to roll back the curtain and share how she is helping me launch and promote Brand New Name . Let us know what you think!

When I began working with Jeremy in early 2019, I had no idea what writing and promoting a book entailed. After a week, my mission was clear: build Jeremy’s brand as an author to sell a lot of books!

Jeremy was deep into writing his new book, but we needed to bring it down to reality — we needed a plan. I began developing a marketing strategy for based on the launch campaign for Sticky Branding (the book). Jeremy had one bestseller under his belt, and we knew we could do it again.

A core element of my strategy: Jeremy’s author-brand. I had a gut feeling that all authors need an in-depth sales and marketing plan; revolving around marketing and promoting their book(s). To fully build an all-inclusive marketing strategy, I had to first understand and work with Jeremy to build his author-brand to set him apart from the pack.

The Importance of Creating an Author-Brand

The easiest place to start a branding project is with the person or company. For the author, I started with Jeremy’s biography, personality, interests, skills, accomplishments, published books, and other content.

It was clear that his brand identity helps him build trust in his work, attracts new readers, builds his fan base, and ultimately leads people to buy his books (and speaking and services).

Note: Your brand identity is a major part of what makes your buyers (in this case, readers) have trust in your work and your books.

When people get to know your name and have an interest in who you are, they’ll be much more likely to take an interest in what you do and what you say. Perhaps, even enough interest to make them want to buy your book!

My advice to elevate Jeremy’s brand was simple:

Be yourself. His persona and voice needed to remain true to who he is — a funny, driven, and determined “master of branding.”
Be present. Be consistent. Be prolific. The important thing for Jeremy was to consistently maintain his brand identity across all of his social channels and external communications. (If you aren’t following him, you need to! @StickyBranding)
Engage your connections often. I assessed where he had built his largest audience. Sticky Branding has the largest branding group on LinkedIn with over 50k, and over 20k followers on Twitter. So I focused in on those two channels specifically, and built a strategy to grow his audience on Instagram.

How Do You Get Started Building Your Author-Brand?

1. Find your brand voice.

Determine how you want to be known and what sets you apart. You achieve this in what people see, experience, and read.

Make your brand visually appealing: color scheme; style; logo or imprint; professional headshot. And be consistent! Use the same voice and visuals for your website, business cards, book covers, communications, and other marketing materials.

2. Build your author website or web pages.

Your website is the base of your platform. Include your bio, simple clarity (describe your brand in 10 words or less), blog posts and videos, links for readers to buy your book, and contact information.

3. Build your author-platform on social media.

Your public presence across all social media sites is your platform. The best author-platforms aren’t spread across every site. Spend your time steering your audience to your most effective social media sites. Use your social channels to establish relationships with your readers.

4. Create a media kit.

Make it really easy for influencers, readers, and the media to get to know you. A media kit contains a concise asset list of downloadable images and PDFs about you and your work.

Be sure to include your bio, headshot, contact information, books, blurbs, endorsements, reviews, book trailers, and any other pertinent details.

5. Create great content.

Build up your content bank by updating your blog, growing an email newsletter, and filming personalized videos — and always remember Google is watching. Keep SEO front and center as you create content.

Build a content funnel that starts with your social media presence. Reach across your author-platform and other appropriate social media sites to engage your readers and the readers of other relevant authors and thought leaders.

6. Maintain your online presence.

Keep up your relationships with all kinds of “book people,” including your publisher, readers, other writers, influencers, industry professionals, and media gurus. You can do this by publishing quality content on your blog, reaching out via your social channels, linking to content across your platform, and simply being available. Be concise and consistent, and keep it up!

The Bottom Line: Your Author-Brand Sell Books!

Jeremy’s brand is core to our book launch. I hope that by sharing my strategies, we can build our relationship on trust and you’ll want to buy out his new book, Brand New Name, out October 8th!

Get engaged in our launch activities:

Launch Event: Our launch event is at Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto on October 15 at 5:00. Sign-up today. Jeremy will deliver a 1 hour keynote. I hope to see you there!

Books for Talks: Have Jeremy speak at your next event, for FREE. What a deal! Check out the details or give us a call: 416.479.4403.

We’re here, we’re happy to chat anytime.

You're reading An Author’s Brand Drives Book Sales by Sarah Young, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

Use Social Media to Fill in the Gaps

For B2B brands, nothing beats face-to-face customer meetings. Relationships matter when you’re selling big deals, and face time accelerates the sales process.

The challenge B2B brands face is time. As much as getting face-to-face with your clients is ideal, meeting people is time consuming! It’s not like you can multitask when you’re meeting with a client (or at least I hope you don’t). And if you are meeting in person, you’ve got to factor in the windshield time of driving both ways.

In a busy city like Toronto, where I live, a single client meeting can knock out half a day. I can easily spend two hours in my car commuting back and forth, plus the hour to meet the client.

Do I complain? No way! Nothing beats meeting my clients. But I don’t get to do very many of these meetings either. There’s only so many hours in the day, and I have to pick my priorities:

Billable client work
Prospecting and meeting with clients
Content creation

Where B2B brands create scale is in social media. Social media creates the opportunity to scale your relationships, because it fills in the gaps between client meetings. It provides the tools to engage, nurture, and maintain relationships in-between phone calls and face-to-face meetings.

Every time you post on social media — whether LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram — your followers see your face. Your brand pops up, and that creates a small moment of awareness.

If you post frequently enough, you can create a lot of brand awareness. If someone sees your brand in their feeds daily, they will get to know you. It’s guaranteed.

Will they like you? That’s a bit more complicated.

Posting frequently doesn’t guarantee success. If all you’re posting is generic or irrelevant content, then people will tune you out. It’s like being that annoying person at a cocktail party. People learn quickly who to talk with and who to avoid.

Scaling relationships on your social media channels is dependent on two levers:

Frequency: Post as much as you can. Social media feeds are busy, distracting places. What you posted last week is already forgotten.
Relevance: Not all content is equal. Retweeting memes, news stories, and generic articles may fill your feed, but they don’t grow your brand. Content has to be relevant for people to notice and engage with it.

A good metaphor is to “turn up the volume on your marketing.” Almost every brand is active and posting on social media. That doesn’t mean everyone is doing it well, but there is a lot of noise. To fill in the gaps between meetings, you’ve got to be heard:

Post frequently
Post high quality, relevant content
Focus on the feed (people are spending more and more of their time reading what’s in their Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn feeds versus clicking on the links)
Measure, adapt, and get better

Nothing will replace face-to-face meetings, but social media gives you the tools to scale your brand by filling in the gaps between those meetings.

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Customers Judge Your Brand With Their Eyes

We are visual creatures. We judge with our eyes. How your brand looks demonstrates its perceived value.

For instance, an ugly, out-of-date brand — demonstrated in its website, signage, marketing materials, and brand identity — tells a story. And probably not a very good one.

You can see this when you walk into an old, industrial business: the carpets are threadbare; the furniture in the lobby is caving in and held together with tattered pieces of duct tape; the cubicles look like they were purchased in the 1970s.

Does this picture present an innovative company, or one barely hanging on?

Even if the company is wildly innovative and profitable, the visual experience does not present confidence, success, or credibility. And that’s why how your “brand” looks matters.

When I say brand, I mean it as a catchall for every customer touchpoint. Wherever your customers interact with your company, products, and services — they are judging with their eyes. How it looks presents a story; your brand story.

An Attractive Brand Is a Persuasive Brand

Attraction goes beyond marketing. It’s how we are wired. As human beings, we like pretty things.

In the late seventies, Dr. Shelly Chaiken, a researcher and expert in persuasion, ran a fascinating experiment. She recruited a group of students at the University of Massachusetts to persuade their fellow students to petition the university to ban the sale of meat products on campus.

As you can imagine, banning the sale of meat in the seventies was a pretty audacious request. Vegetarianism was not widely accepted, or even acknowledged, at the time.

What’s fascinating about the study is not the request, but the approach. The students recruited into the study were divided into two groups:

One group were hot. They were individuals of “high physical appeal.”
The second group were not. They were presenters of “low physical appeal.”

The hots and the not-so-hots.

Dr. Chaiken proved humans are influenced by attractive people. The students who received the message from the hot presenters were more inclined to agree that meat shouldn’t be sold on campus than the students who heard it from the not-so-hot presenters.

Think about that for a second. You may love meat. Steak is the best thing ever. But if a beautiful person approaches you, makes eye contact and smiles at you — your intelligence falls 10 points (at least). You may not agree, but the science says you’re more likely to say yes to a hot person.

Customers Choose Hot Brands

The same kind of behavior is happening with brands. Customers are more likely to choose attractive brands that they personally identify with than unattractive brands.

You don’t have to look far to validate this argument. Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, Starbucks — they’re all stunning. Each brand takes great care and attention to how it looks at every customer touchpoint — from product to retail to advertising.

And frankly, there is no excuse to have an ugly brand. Design is completely within your control:

If your website is out of date, update it.
If your facilities are shabby, upgrade them.
If your products and packaging need a makeover, stop procrastinating.

In the world of business decisions, fixing how your brand looks is easy. The only challenge is realizing that you have to keep at it.

Your Brand has a Shelf Life

The #1 reason brands look ugly is they are not maintained.

Every two to four years your brand needs a makeover. The most obvious place to see this is in your website. After three years, a website can look archaic. Imagine what that says to customers? I can tell you: it places your brand in the not-so-hot category.

Take design seriously. If your website is out of date, or you brand is looking like it needs a makeover, bite the bullet and get it done. Customers choose attractive brands first!

This post originally from Customers Judge Your Brand With Their Eyes