Dreamhouse Wine Night
How to turn Friday night brand development into a sleepover party…
This blog was originally posted here.
If you follow our Snapchat, you’ll know that Katherine and I had #DreamhouseWineNight this past Friday! It may have had you wondering if we actually work (especially since our Snap Story ended with me dancing to a Chief Keef song) or if we just FaceTime and mess around. Well, I’m here to tell you…
Our first Dreamhouse Wine Night was a huge success!
Let’s be honest, building a brand from scratch is HARD WORK. Yes, even the experts can admit it. There are so many different elements that go into building an amazing brand that it’s easy to get caught up in the little projects and lose sight of the big picture. So when we felt ourselves getting a little bit stuck in the small stuff we decided to set aside a night to hang out on FaceTime, pop open a bottle of wine, and write down all of the plans and dreams in our hearts and minds.
Here are a few branding discoveries we made on #DreamhouseWineNight…
1. Building The Foundation Of The House
Katherine and I were hard at work compiling a list of our services and price points last week during our Brand Party (our once a week day to work exclusively on Dreamhouse projects together) when we found ourselves getting stuck in these lengthy discussions. We asked ourselves things like, “Should we even offer Logo Design services if we haven’t done a Brand Profile first?” or “Is it worth it to offer Social Media Management without also including Strategy Consulting?” These are important questions that we needed to answer, but it quickly became apparent that the answers to these questions lie in much deeper philosophical values of our brand. These will shape the future of Dreamhouse. We needed to address the philosophy FIRST.
The essential values of your brand are the foundation that hold up every other part of your business.
Just as we do with our clients, we took a step back from the daily grind to focus on the foundation of Dreamhouse: Our Values. We spent time assessing them and fleshing them out into very practical daily practices.
Some of our values include:
- Honesty
- Connection
- Generosity
- Empowerment
- Influence
- Growth
- Opportunity
- Understanding
It felt SO good to write these things down and to see the future of the company on the horizon. It felt as if we were literally building the foundation of my DREAM for this brand.
2. Developing Client Culture Is Crucial
Developing the culture of your company is something people talk about often, but how often do you take time to develop the culture of your interactions with your clients?
We had a great time (really hilarious, actually!) talking about how we want our clients to experience Dreamhouse. Here’s a sneak peak:
“How do we want our clients to feel about working with Dreamhouse?”
- We understand their struggle, idea, goals, vision
- Excited about their own dream
- Like they can and WILL accomplish their goals
- Trust us
- Like their vision is coming to life everyday
- We value their skills
- We’re excited and inspired by them
- We respect and value their views and input
- Our work is worth their money and is making a good return on investment
Some other (much sillier, but still real!) points made the list too:
- They believe in love because of us
- They wish we would hang with them for fun
- We think they’re pretty
Considering how you want your clients to feel when experiencing your brand will influence every interaction you have with them.
Katherine mentioned during this discussion how much she loves that we inspire our clients while they inspire us! “And it’s this never ending cycle of achievement and inspiration!” 🙂
#DreamhouseClients, can we get an “AMEN?”
3. Keeping The Brand At The Center
Every time we created a list of values (client relationship values, employee values, culture values, etc.), Katherine and I wrote out all the ways we can manifest those values in our daily activities. This exercise pushed us to analyze how to make every action a beat in the heart of our brand.
Analyzing your brand’s core values turns everyday tasks into a means of fulfilling your company’s mission.
For instance, some of the ways we can develop our Client Relationship Values are by:
- Be on time to meetings / calls
- Send them handwritten notes
- Be available to encourage them
- Add value to their brand life and personal life
These actions are vital steps that manifest our values.
During our Friday night branding session, we also learned a few exciting things about our own company:
Katherine and Mallory Are On The Same Page
We’ve already written a lot about the fact that Kathy and I are BFF’s first and co-workers second but the night of branding and bonding exposed the fact that we are REALLY on the same page when it comes to the brand of Dreamhouse. As we shared a Google Doc, we worked together writing out bullet points about how we want our clients to feel, what motivates us to do our job, what we value about the company, etc. There were SO many times where KP and I were writing the exact same thing at the exact same time! It was amazing.
Although Katherine and I have many differing perspectives and values, in our life and creative views, she knows and shares my vision for what Dreamhouse Marketing will become. It gave me a feeling of peace and excitement to be, once again, reassured of how deeply KP understands the core of this company. She dreams with me toward our goals.
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