Tag: creative leadership

  • Learning from My Natural Cosmetics Venture: The Importance of Branding

    Learning from My Natural Cosmetics Venture: The Importance of Branding

    From Self-Made Cosmetics to Brand Identity: What I Would Do Differently Now

    A Small Business That Taught Me Everything

    Over ten years ago I ran a small cosmetics company. I made self-made, natural products for skin and hair. The business does not exist anymore, yet it became a learning experience that I now treat as a case study. In the coming videos I want to show what I would do differently with the tools and resources sitting in my hands today. Let me get into it.

    The Difference Between Labeling and Branding

    I am a highly creative person, and for those who know me, I am also an artist. So I was hands-on with the labeling. What I did not understand back then is that labeling is not the same as building a brand. People speak a lot about brand, and the way I have come to understand it, branding is about identity, and whether a group of people speak, relate, and feel drawn to who you are. Not only who you are as a person, but the way things are done by you, the way the brand behaves. A brand has a name. It might have a logo. These are elements of a brand, not the brand itself, so the terms should not be used interchangeably.

    Giving an identity to an object became the hard part. I went back and forth choosing jars, the way each one would present, the colors, the way the product needed to sit in front of a customer. How does it speak to that customer? That question led to production costs, inventory costs, and the creative costs poured into the work. The outcome was a business without a solid brand identity.[1]

    When People Forget You, Your Product Stops Mattering

    Here is what a weak identity leads to. People did not think my products were bad. I received compliments. The products held their quality. The problem sat somewhere else. People forgot me. They saw me once and forgot who I was. I was banking on the hope that customers would use the product and keep buying it on repeat.

    Even when a product is top tier, triple A plus, a customer who forgets you will reach for a brand that is as good, or sometimes weaker, because that brand shows itself better and builds an identity worth connecting to. Quality alone does not hold attention. A brand identity is the way you speak, connect, and relate to the customer in front of you right now. Brands grow when they stay easy to remember and easy to find.[2]

    The Tools Available to Me Now

    If I looked at the resources available now, I would put language first. My website would be filled with words that relate to the audience I am speaking to. I would run the research, study the audience, and shape copy with chatGPT so that the message speaks to people and they recognize themselves as a customer of the product. They see themselves using it. They see it sitting in their bathroom or their bedroom. They would not want to leave the door without rubbing on a butter that I created.[3]

    I would produce a range of mockups and test what people respond to. Put them in front of an audience through social media creation and watch what speaks. This is content creation working in service of identity, and it feeds directly into a clear social media management plan.

    These resources do not take over the company. They supplement, support, and strengthen. A social media management tool, paired with steady workflow automation, would have helped me reach a better understanding of the brand, the identity, the colors, the logo. These are elements that come together into one full picture. A workspace such as Claude Cowork sits beside the creative work as a partner, the way a creative agency supports founders, artists, content creators, and influencers who run art galleries or product lines without a large team behind them.

    It is even possible to scan your social media pages with a research tool. I have seen this across a number of videos, and I need to test whether it works here in the Netherlands. Scanning your pages lets you ask whether the brand speaks to the people who follow you, and how to build social media management around the brand itself. This would have helped me a thousand times.

    Creativity Strengthened, Not Replaced

    These tools do not push creativity away. They accentuate it. Used well, they help build better strategy and reveal the identity of a brand. Whether you run your own pages or you are outsourcing social media to a partner, the work stays rooted in who you are. The social media management tools sharpen the strategy. The vision stays yours.

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    Footnotes

    [1] Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap, New Riders Publishing, 2003, https://www.marty-neumeier.com. Neumeier defines a brand as the gut feeling a person holds about a product, separate from the name or logo, which supports the point that labeling and decorating jars is not the same as building a brand.

    [2] Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow, Oxford University Press, 2010, https://global.oup.com. Sharp shows that brands grow through mental and physical availability, meaning being remembered and easy to find, which supports the section on customers forgetting the business despite a quality product.

    [3] Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller, Marketing Management, Pearson, 2016, https://www.pearson.com. Kotler and Keller frame brand identity as the consistent way a company communicates with and relates to its target audience, which supports building identity through language, copy, and audience research tools.

  • Intentional Speech for Positive Influence and Success

    Intentional Speech for Positive Influence and Success

    Your Mouth Is a Container and Your Words Are the Tenants

    Your mouth is a container. The words you speak reside inside it before they ever reach the world. When the mind drops words into that container without intention, when you say things mindlessly, when you are unaware of what it is that you are saying, the effect reaches further than you. It lands on you. It shapes how others interact with you, or whether they want to interact with you at all. A lot of what happens to us sits inside what we say, and it tricks us. It tricks you.

    The Sentence That Sounds Humble but Works Against You

    Here is one of the trickiest things a person says: I do not believe anybody is better than anyone else. I am not better than anybody else. It sounds gracious. It sounds safe. I know this is going to feel controversial, but we are getting into it anyway.

    I started thinking about this after hearing it in a piece of content from a creator I follow. I love his content. He is such a straight shooter that you either take it or you leave it. He was speaking on a particular topic, and someone responded by telling him that nobody is better than anybody else, suggesting he had placed himself above another person.

    His answer was direct. He said he knows he is better than someone else, and that is exactly why he makes the choices he makes and has the life he has. He explained it plainly. He wants to be better than the people he does not want to share space with. He does not want to sit in the company of those who are doing bad, thinking bad, and acting on bad things. So he has to believe and know that he stands apart from that. That belief produces his results.

    The Part That Sounds Harsh Until It Lands

    Then he nipped it in the bud, the way he usually does. Do not come asking me who the creator is, because I am not going to say it. It is his content, and I am using it only as an example.

    What he said to the responder went like this. Of course you believe you are not better than anybody else. That is why you have the results that you have. I do not have that problem.

    It sounds harsh.

    Let it sink in, though.

    He was dissecting another person by pointing at the belief itself. Because you hold that belief, you used your mouth as the container for the words that came out of it. That does not place the two of you on the same level. It cannot, and it will not. You are right about yourself, he said, for not believing you are better. And I am right to know that I am. The results follow accordingly. He closed the door. We will not be discussing this any further.

    When I saw that exchange, I sat with it.

    Why This Matters for Anyone Building Something

    For a lot of people, this is going to sting. How dare someone say they are better than another person. I am not going to over explain it here, because I need people to think for themselves. If you do not want to think about it, you scroll on.

    The magnitude of understanding what happens inside that container changes how you use it. Once you grasp it, you start being mindful of what goes in. You become aware of what the container begins to attract back to you. This is not a soft idea reserved for personal life. It sits at the center of how founders speak about their work, how content creators frame their value, and how influencers describe what they stand for. Research on self efficacy shows that the beliefs people hold about their own capability shape the goals they set and the outcomes they reach.[^1]

    Watch any creative agency that has lasted. The people running it do not water down their language. They speak with precision about who they serve and who they do not. The same holds for anyone in social media management. When you describe what you do with conviction, you attract the right clients and repel the wrong ones, and that selection is the work. Words are commitments, and the words we accept as true become the boundaries of the action we take.[^2]

    Speak With Intention, Attract With Precision

    The lesson sits in front of us. Treat your mouth as the container it is. Decide what you allow inside it. A content creator who keeps saying the market is too crowded will live inside a crowded market. A founder who repeats that nobody is better positioned to solve a problem will move with the certainty that produces results. The words shape the standard. The standard shapes the choices. The choices shape the life.

    Language carries this weight because it frames how we interpret everything around us. The words we use are not neutral labels placed on a fixed reality. They set the terms by which we perceive and act.[^3]

    So be mindful of what you put in the container. Then watch what the container starts to bring toward you. Very cutesy, very nice.

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    [^1]: Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, W. H. Freeman, 1997. Bandura demonstrates that the beliefs people hold about their own capability directly govern the goals they pursue and the results they achieve, which supports the claim that the words spoken about oneself shape outcomes. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-08589-000

    [^2]: J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, Oxford University Press, 1962. Austin shows that speech is a form of action and that statements function as commitments rather than passive descriptions, supporting the point that words spoken become boundaries for behavior. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-to-do-things-with-words-9780198245537

    [^3]: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, 1980. The authors argue that the language we use structures how we perceive and act in the world, which supports the article’s central idea that the contents of the mouth shape the reality a person attracts. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html

  • Skill Development: Beyond Recipes and Instructions

    Skill Development: Beyond Recipes and Instructions

    The Recipe Is Not The Skill

    Let’s say you made a meal right?

    You say you made a meal and it is from a famous recipe. I am sitting here eating this meal and I say oh this is interesting. How did you make the meal?

    You say well I got it from this recipe.

    I say yes but what is in the recipe?

    Now you are looking at me like well I am going to share the recipe with you. I say yes but okay. How did you make it?

    You are looking at me like well I made it according to the recipe.

    So now I am going to be like okay. You got the recipe from someone else right?

    Then you say “Yes, the recipe is from someone else but I made it mine. I created my own sauce to it”.

    “Okay. Is that okay? So what did you do to create your own sauce to it? How did you do that? Because this is a nice recipe. I like the food. I like the meal that you created”.

    And then you “Say well I created the recipe according to the recipe that I got. But I added some extra pepper and salt”.

    The Notes Are Not The Recipe

    So now you walk away and you come back with this paper right?

    And I am looking at the paper like this is not a recipe. These are your notes.

    But you say here. Here is the recipe.

    And I am looking at the recipe like okay so listen. When I remove this and this and this from the recipe then what happens? Because you made it your own right? You said you put extra pepper and salt. So what happens when I take away these ingredients?

    And you say “Girl, I do not know. You have to make it your own”.

    Then it is not the recipe anymore right? Then it is a whole different recipe.

    And she is like “Yes, that is true. That is true. It is a whole different recipe”.

    And that is the point.

    When you made it your own and you do not know what happens when pieces are removed then what is the use of me getting this recipe from you? You do not know what happens to the food. You do not know where the structure sits. You do not know which part holds the thing together.

    Then you tell me “Girl I do not know. Do not bother me. My head is already hurting with the questions that you got”.

    But here is what I am saying with it.

    A Lot Of Y’all Are Buying Recipes From People Who Do Not Know The Ingredients

    A lot of y’all go online buying people’s recipe that they made their own. But they do not know what is in the recipe.

    The moment you take something out of it. The moment you remove one piece. It does not work anymore. Or it is not what it was in the first place.

    And now you want to go back to the original. But you do not know how to go back to it.

    So you go back to the person who gave you the recipe. The person who made it their own. And that person tells you they do not know what to do with it.

    Because in the first place they did not understand how the recipe was constructed for it to work. They only knew where to put some extra pepper and salt.

    And this is the part a lot of you are walking past. You are walking over it. Oh my God here we go again. But I do not give two frets.

    The Glitter Is Not The Skill

    This is why digital products are selling the way they are selling. Someone says buy this product. It teaches dropshipping. It teaches marketing. It gives sparkle and glitter. Come and buy it.

    Then you sit in your house. You look at the recipe. You start doing the recipe. And the recipe does not taste good.

    Not understanding that in order to do the recipe. First of all you have to be a cook.

    That is the part.

    The same thing happens with workflow automation templates. The same thing happens with chatGPT prompts. The same thing happens with Claude Cowork systems. The same thing happens when people buy a social media management tool and believe the tool will do social media management for them.

    Baby the tool is not the cook.

    Social media management tools help when there is a person behind it who knows what to say. What to remove. What to keep. What to test. What audience is being spoken to. What offer is being made. What story is being carried.

    That applies to social media creation for artists. It applies to artgalleries. It applies to content creators. It applies to influencers. It applies to founders. It applies to a creative agency selling strategy. It applies to outsourcing social media and then wondering why the food does not taste like the example.

    The skill is the thing that made the recipe work.

    The Research Says The Same Thing

    And this is not only me talking from the side of my eye.

    Kirschner Sweller and Clark published Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work. Their research explains that people who are new to something need guidance. A recipe without explanation creates confusion because the beginner does not yet know what matters and what does not matter.

    That supports this whole recipe conversation. When someone sells you a product and leaves you with figure it out energy. The issue is not only the information. The issue is that you lack the structure needed to use the information.

    Anders Ericsson wrote about deliberate practice. His work shows that expert skill comes from focused practice over time. Not from reading a sheet. Not from downloading a workbook. Not from buying one digital product and believing the skill is now yours.

    Harry Collins wrote about tacit knowledge. That is knowledge people carry through doing. It sits in their hands. Their timing. Their judgment. Their experience. That is why a good cook knows when the sauce needs more salt before the recipe says so.

    So yes. The research backs the point. Skill does not transfer because someone handed over a document. Skill transfers through practice. Feedback. Support. Correction. Repetition.

    Stop Buying Sparkle And Calling It Sauce

    The people selling something from skill are selling it because they acquired that skill. They built it. They tested it. They broke it. They fixed it.

    The people reselling something they bought are doing redistribution. That takes a week. Make an account. Upload the file. Tell somebody come and get this digital product.

    But building the skill behind it takes time.

    So when people say they were misled. Sometimes the truth is this. You misled yourself. The person told you they were handing you the recipe. They did not say they were standing in the kitchen beside you.

    Misleading starts when the product promised everything and the product did not have everything.

    But when someone tells you what is inside and you buy it anyway. You got what you paid for.

    And yes. That is an unpopular opinion.

    Get With The Cook

    Eventually buying one recipe after the other recipe from people who do not know who made it is not going to help you. Especially when you do not have the skill yet.

    It helps when you deal with someone who is the cook. Someone who has the ingredients. Someone who looks with you and says hey. You are doing this wrong. This is not something you should be doing.

    Because as per usual. More people will jump into the glitter and the glam.

    And I do not care how that feels.

    I am not looking down on anybody. I am looking you straight in your eye. I am sitting here looking you straight in your face.

    Somewhere there has to be a point where you say okay. It is enough. Isn’t it?

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  • Process Over Shortcut: The Path from Idea to Result

    Process Over Shortcut: The Path from Idea to Result

    There Is No Shortcut From Idea To Result

    The promise of an instant result sounds attractive to founders, artists, content creators, influencers, creative agency teams, business owners, and leaders building a platform. The problem is not the tool. The problem is the belief that a prompt, chatGPT, Claude Cowork, workflow automation, or a social media management tool replaces the process.

    Tools support execution. They do not replace it.

    The Hook That Sells Ease

    Would you like to have a tool, a cheat code, an idea, like a prompt or a workflow automation that brings you from the idea of your business, you know, maybe you’re a leader, a founder, you know, a startup, a creative, artist, business owner, group, right, whatever. Do you want to have something like that that brings you from idea to the result, yeah, instantly? Stay around, I got something. It don’t exist. Gotcha.

    That line works because it exposes the fantasy behind so much content creation advice. People want the outcome before they understand the offer. They want the post before they understand the message. They want social media creation before they understand the product, the service, the audience, the value, and the sequence that turns attention into trust.

    Where in your right mind were you thinking that you could do something that goes from idea to result? You didn’t even execute anything. And there is where most of you get wrong, go wrong. Believing that the execution is just a press on a button. We just have to use this prompt. We just have to use this workflow automation. It will work.

    Execution Comes Before Automation

    You haven’t even executed anything. You haven’t even done anything. You haven’t even went into the process of what it is that you are offering. You haven’t even went into the process of this is the product, this is the service. This is the value that I give. These are the steps, you know, and then you get the result. None of y’all are doing that.

    This is the point that separates useful AI resources from empty promises. A workflow automation has value after a workflow exists. A social media management system has value after the message is defined. Social media management tools have value after the user understands what needs to be distributed, repurposed, scheduled, measured, and improved.

    For founders, artists, artgalleries, content creators, influencers, and creative agency operators, the work starts with clarity. What is being offered. Who it serves. Why it matters. What result it aims to produce. What steps move someone from first contact to trust.

    Without that process, automation only repeats confusion faster.

    Why Easy Is Often Sold Before Work Is Understood

    But that is also because it is done by design. It’s not always the outside, but it’s what we are willing to consume and accept as a, unfortunately, a fallacy where everything that needs to be sold, needs to be sold from a premise where it is easy.

    Simplicity comes not from the place where things are easy. Simplicity really comes from the place where people have done things so many times that they eventually have found a way where they can do it in a way that there is the least resistance effortlessly. It looks effortlessly because there is a lot of effort in going to it, but it’s because they understand and they have studied the craft.

    This is the difference between a real system and a shortcut. A finished process looks smooth because someone has tested it, failed with it, adjusted it, documented it, and repeated it. That is why expert work looks easy from the outside. The visible result hides the training, revision, and judgment behind it.

    And that makes the difference between the people who eventually will fall out and fall out of line and the people who will stay in it. Because there has to be a moment where you’re like, if these things are not working, that we are not studying our craft, what is in front of us to see what could be a better solution.

    The Better Question Is Not Which Tool But Which Process

    And that is the difference between the people who are saying, I just need to have something that is the result right now. It doesn’t exist. Puts you now into a place where you can win.

    The stronger question is not which prompt gives the result. The stronger question is what process needs support. Once the process is known, chatGPT, Claude Cowork, workflow automation, and social media management tools become useful. They assist with drafting, repurposing, structuring, planning, and publishing. They do not define the business by themselves.

    When you say, then let me use the resources that are already out there. Probably you’re already using them in your software that you’re working with, right? Co-pilots and things like that, you’re already using it.

    Assist, because you’re not helpless. Assist, support you. Because I’m not here to help you with your business. You have your business. You have to know already what your business is about, right?

    Support Is Not a Substitute for Ownership

    What will happen is, there is support along the way of the things that you want to do using AI resources. When it comes to creative writing, I have a prompt for that that will help you exquisitely. I made a video about that here on this profile. And I’ve created a prompt that will allow you to make even better, more quality articles, blog posts, even if you’re on Substack, based on what you already have. Because I can’t substitute that.

    This point matters for outsourcing social media as well. Outsourcing social media works when the business owner has a message, an offer, and a direction. A creative agency works better when the foundation is already clear. A social media management partner performs better when the process is defined. Content creation becomes stronger when the raw material comes from real experience, not empty automation.

    You need to work for something that you already have. People forget that. That’s why I said, there is something in between the idea and the result. There’s the process. You already have that, right? You don’t have to rewrite, rethink that. You have that. You only need to find ways where there are holes and you dig into that, right?

    Repurposing Works When the Original Work Exists

    Creative writing prompts. Then there is a workflow automation prompt. Not a prompt, a whole course where I speak about it step by step. How can you repurpose your videos, like TikTok videos, Instagram videos, Facebook videos, Reels, and you create them into blog posts for your WordPress, for your blogger, or any other platform where you would like to write articles, your newsletter, reposting for social media, like for instance LinkedIn. If you don’t like being on it, you don’t have to. You just repost it to it, right?

    Repurposing is not a shortcut around thinking. It is a way to extend the value of work already done. A video becomes a blog post. A blog post becomes a newsletter. A newsletter becomes LinkedIn content. A short idea becomes a content series. Social media management becomes easier when the source material already holds a clear point of view.

    For content creators, artists, influencers, founders, and artgalleries, this is the practical use of workflow automation. It saves time on repetition. It helps organize distribution. It supports consistency. It does not replace the need to know what the message means.

    The Fallacy of the Button

    So there ain’t no such thing as going from idea into the result. Nobody steps into that like that, unless it’s already something that is bought and you have, you know, there are of course exceptions, but you’re not working from the exception. You’re not.

    The fallacy is that you have stepped into a twilight zone where people are bombarding you with it’s simple, simple, simple. It’s just one thing. It’s this, oh we made it simple, simple. And when your business, when your platform, when your sole propriety, right, when your leadership is starting to crack and fall down because everything just needed to be a push on the button and nobody wants to understand the process, that is on you. That is you. That is on you. You will have only yourself to blame.

    The article stands on a clear argument. Tools are not the missing middle between idea and result. Process is. AI tools, prompts, social media management tools, and automation systems support the work after the offer, message, and execution path are understood.

    Supporting Sources

    K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch Römer, The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance, Psychological Review, nineteen ninety three.

    Teresa M. Amabile and Michael G. Pratt, The Dynamic Componential Model of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations, Research in Organizational Behavior, twenty sixteen.

    Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock, and Chad Syverson, Artificial Intelligence and the Modern Productivity Paradox, National Bureau of Economic Research, twenty seventeen.

    Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Work, National Bureau of Economic Research, twenty eighteen.

    Thomas H. Davenport and Rajeev Ronanki, Artificial Intelligence for the Real World, Harvard Business Review, twenty eighteen.

    Ethan Mollick, Co Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, Portfolio, twenty twenty four.

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