Find your Sweet Spot as a Brand Strategist
By Levina Kusumadjaja
How differently would you do things today if you know it’s okay for you to make mistakes? If you knew your failures were as valuable as your successes, would it change the way you make decisions and take risks? Would it make you bolder and less afraid?
Mistakes and failures get way too little credit for the value they bring. The world glorifies success so much, it often forgets that learning how to get it right includes learning what it looks like to get it wrong. This is why process and progress are so important, even more important than doing things perfectly. When you think of process and progress, it means that you can embrace failures and wrong decisions not because you want to keep failing, but because you understand the lessons you can learn from those events. It’s about growing and never allowing any experience to go to waste.
There are two ways for you to become better brand strategists: finding out what works, and finding out what doesn’t.
As a brand strategist, you want to find out what works for you. You want to know the clients you would love to work with. You want to find out what makes your process exciting and stick to those things. However, finding out what doesn’t work is just as valuable. Knowing things that drain you, things that don’t bring joy in your client work, and things that don’t help your client reach their goals—these are priceless things to discover as your journey onwards in your path as a brand strategist and beyond. Knowing what doesn’t work help you know what you can change and improve. It points you to other directions that will potentially help you be more inspired and give more value to your clients.
For example, you might need to connect with 10 different clients first so that you can figure out you want to work with the 11th type of client. In the past, I would have seen this as a failure because I was wrong 10 times out of 11. That’s a lot of not-getting-it-right. But now, I understand that the process is more valuable than the results. Now you know the 10 types of clients that you don’t want to work with, and through that journey you have a deeper understanding of who you would love to work with. That’s fantastic progress!
While we might not be able to point out how it’s supposed to work yet, if we can point out what’s not working, that’s already a huge first step.
Finding your sweet spot takes time, and that’s okay. Your growth isn’t just about finding out what works all the time, because sometimes figuring out the best way starts with knowing what doesn’t work at all. Imagine if you bring this mindset to everything you do. A mindset that embraces failure, that celebrates progress over perfection. Imagine how different your work would look like, how different your client relationships would be, and how much more joy would you experience in what you do. Imagine how liberating it would be to see your failures as valuable as your successes.
“Finding the people you don’t want to work with is just as important as those you do - it makes your path so much clearer.” - Cindy Liang
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!