Why This Brand Strategist Thinks Templates Are Basically Evil

Jeffro (00:01.804)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Today, I’m joined by Aussie brand strategist Beatrice Gootknecht, who specializes in helping established service-based businesses create a distinct brand presence that makes them stand out. We’ll dive into key brand strategy essentials from steering clear of templates to fully implementing strategies that make a lasting impact. So, Beatrice, welcome to the show.

Beatrice Gutknecht (00:23.713)
Thanks so much for having me, Onda. I appreciate you.

Jeffro (00:26.754)
Yeah, I’m excited to be here and talk about kangaroos and digital marketing and all that good stuff.

Beatrice Gutknecht (00:32.511)
All that badass, right?

Jeffro (00:33.518)
Well, I do love how fun your branding is. It’s a great example of what’s possible when you embrace kind of who you are, where you come from, and all of that. So, I mean, do think it’s easier for a person, individual to build a brand than it is for a business?

Beatrice Gutknecht (00:51.603)
I would say it’s equally challenging. For me, like the way that I did it, I put myself first. So like to be as an example so that people can see like, okay, if you do do it, like people will get that memory of like, say for example, the kangaroo, the badassery or, you know, there’s all the different elements including like, you know, certain key words that are used, right? that can be applied to both businesses as well as personal.

Jeffro (01:28.397)
Do you think it’s harder for people to kind of conceptualize that when they’re doing it for a business versus as an individual like, know what country I’m from and the things I like, but what does the business like? Is there a disconnect there?

Beatrice Gutknecht (01:43.617)
Well, a lot of the times it’s say, for example, the founders who came into the business, what was their vision? It’s the same thing as when you’re approaching a personal brand. When I’m working with service-based businesses, it’s like we go through, what are the values? What’s your vision? The goals that you want to have for this business? And if say, for example, it’s the head of marketing.

We’re getting them to make sure that there is that connect with that founder’s vision or the owner’s vision for the business, right? Because at the end of the day, behind that logo, there are a bunch of people, right? And there is like an essence. if you, a easy way to check out what it is, if you’ve been established, you’ve been running for a while.

is just ask the team random question, even if they do it like anonymously here, put it on like a piece of paper. What do you think that we stand for or how we’re perceived? Or what do you think is the vibe of the business? Asking questions like that is going to get a vibe of how they feel it is because it might not be the same.

say for example founder themselves because it’s like a bottle of wine right from the inside you can’t see what’s written on the label very clearly right but on the outside you won’t really know what the taste is exactly so it is that combination that comes out with like this is what an overall kick-ass brand looks like

Jeffro (03:42.166)
Got it. So, I mean, that’s one thing to start saying, you know, this is what I want it to be and defining those values. But how do you define the brand strategy where you then, OK, take that and go forward with it into the world?

Beatrice Gutknecht (03:55.661)
So in terms of defining the brand strategy, there’s a lot of steps, know. Firstly, it’s understanding, say, for example, the internal brand, going like from the founder, from those visions, etc. And also understanding the audience, the competition, where there’s gaps in the market.

And then going in, okay, where can we differentiate from them? What are our strengths? Really defining that defining a position, even if that means like, looking at what’s going on in the industry, and taking a step back and maybe aligning a little bit with like a different industry and bringing that together. So similar is like, say, Halo top.

ice cream brands. Instead of just being like, you know, there are so many other ice cream brands which are well established. Let’s take a step back and have a look at the working out health supplements and build like an ice cream or develop an ice cream which can be a post workout.

sort of protein thing, right? So it’s like completely reframing how it’s positioned so that, yes, you’re still keeping your feet in something which is knowing, and that is key. You’re not doing something completely wild, which people like, wait, what’s that? Right? Because then you’re going to lose either way. Like it can’t be too wild. There always needs to be like that foot in the knowing.

so people get it. And then here comes the strategy part, like to implement it, right? Going through and seeing what that looks like in the voice, what that looks like visually, in terms of messaging, in terms of getting that in with the team, right? Getting their buy-in, talking to them. So it’s every single touch point, same message, same vibe.

Jeffro (06:22.699)
Do you think that a lot of businesses, maybe they follow the bigger brands and try to do it because that’s what they’re doing and then ultimately miss the mark because they’re obviously a different company. Like if you look at the Coca-Cola’s or whatever, like, I need to do that, then they go do it, but it doesn’t work for them because it’s like, well, you’re not them, right? Do you see that?

Beatrice Gutknecht (06:44.683)
Dude, like all the time, all the time. It’s always like when you’re comfortable, or say for example, when you’re first starting, those two spaces that are happens most often, right? When you’re first starting, it’s like, you know, I see these other guys in this industry doing this. Okay, let’s follow that because they’ve already got this, they’ve already established this.

Jeffro (06:59.946)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (07:12.937)
And whereas if you’re comfortable, you’re just again following. But if you’re following, then you’re always a step behind. Right? So if there’s something changing, you’re, you’re maybe in the last to know or the last to pivot. And that leaves your business at a very weak point.

Jeffro (07:23.529)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (07:35.102)
Right, I’m sure there’s lots of lessons we can learn from the bigger brands, but it doesn’t mean we have to do copy paste exactly the same. We’ve got to adapt it to your own brand tone and vision and all of that good stuff.

Beatrice Gutknecht (07:40.949)
Yeah.

Beatrice Gutknecht (07:47.155)
Exactly. And see, like I was talking to another business owner, they started podcast matching. So podcast guests to podcast posts. And the way that they started it was leveraging LinkedIn. And you know, they broke it down during the episode. And the way I see that they did it wouldn’t work.

Now. So if say, for example, now somebody is like, yeah, no, no, they they’ve just dropped and you know, they’ve they’ve explained a different way in which they would approach it now. But if they only drop that way is like, this is how we did it. And somebody tried to do it in the same way. It wouldn’t work. And that’s the case for most successful businesses, because it was a big part, the sense of timing.

Jeffro (08:49.832)
Right, and even if you think of like viral videos, for example, I might see a video that went viral, like, I could do that and try to make the same video. It’s not going to… The chances of it also going viral are very low just because even if I copy them, use the same words, I tried to position the camera the same, eh, you know, people might be like, you’re just copying that guy. Like, I’m not going to share this, right? They’re going to go back to the original. So you got to have your own spin on it or some original ideas to make people care.

Beatrice Gutknecht (09:20.349)
exactly something that makes you like uniquely you like same as what you’ve done with your brand right like you know there are a lot of others in the field but like how many I really do you with a fro really

Jeffro (09:34.601)
Not many.

Well, and this plays perfectly into the other topic we wanted to bring up, which is templates, right? Because this is essentially what a template is. You’re copy pasting someone else’s work, bring it into your own world. So whether that’s a template for a web design or a flyer or even the script for a commercial, if you’re just copy pasting and changing a couple of words, it’s not a magic formula. It has to be connected to the brand behind it in order for it to work. And it has to be

original. So can you talk a little bit about templates and how they cause problems?

Beatrice Gutknecht (10:12.257)
templates should just go burn in a dumpster. don’t know. That is how I feel about them. And the problem is they are so prevalent in a lot of the industry, be it like with marketing, even in brands, like I see a lot of other brands, they’re like, so, you know, here’s a template in how to do your positioning statement. But I was like, well,

You know, if you have a template for that, then you’re going to end up sounding like all the other businesses that use that template. So, I mean, yes, you’re using different wording in there, but the structure is still going to sound the same. And it’s the same as what you just said there. Like, it’s like doing a video based on someone else and using like, you know, different wordings. It’s still that same vibe. And you like, if you’re going to do it.

you might as well make it uniquely you and follow more of like a framework. Like, so this is the kind of direction that we need to go in with this. But let’s take your ideas. Let’s take the market gaps. Let’s take, you know, the audience pay points, put all these things together. That’s that’s your little magic. I think. Jenna, say,

Jeffro (11:38.62)
Right. Well, and I think the same thing applies with templates. Like we can learn lessons from them and even help us get past writer’s block or designer’s block, right? If we can look through cataloging, like, OK, I kind of like I couldn’t describe it. But now that I see that, I have a better idea of what I want to do. Right. But it doesn’t mean you do it exactly the same. You maybe take parts of it or elements of it and do your own version. So I think that’s how we should start to think about templates.

Beatrice Gutknecht (12:06.494)
Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend that because subconsciously we’re still going to have that template in our minds. So even if we’re like, what like,

Jeffro (12:09.744)
Okay.

Jeffro (12:20.497)
Do you think it’s helpful for beginners though, to get past a certain stage and then you wean yourself off the templates as you get more advanced?

Beatrice Gutknecht (12:31.522)
Yes and no, but are you really going to wean yourself off though at a certain point? Like there is like that comfort zone that you’re going to be in. Like as soon as people get to know you for one thing, and that’s why, you know, say for example on LinkedIn, a lot of the posts or that sort of thing, it’s very similar sort of style.

Jeffro (12:40.325)
Yeah.

Beatrice Gutknecht (12:58.055)
And people are like, it’s another like, you know, this, this kind of post or this kind of post. And it’s like, So even if you’re just beginning and then you copy a template like that, that’s just helping you to blend in with everyone else.

Jeffro (13:05.799)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (13:16.301)
So I think understanding the general idea is better, right? Or reading, just reading a whole bunch of different content, comments, books, listening to different perspectives, then taking your own perspective, your own take at it.

Jeffro (13:43.601)
Got it, yeah, I agree. I think you have to at a certain point just make that decision that, hey, you know what? I’m going to try stuff. It might not be good. People might not like it. But because I tried it, I’m going to start learning and getting better. And that’ll help you have that lens to look through. Even then, let’s say you’ve tried something. Now you go back and look at templates and like, OK, I can maybe see what I did differently that didn’t work as well as this over here.

And we’re using templates in a broad term, right? Like there’s a ton of templates online that are just terrible, right? You can buy a pack of templates that somebody cranked out in a weekend, maybe they use AI to help design it. And then there’s the curated designs of other websites that are successful, that have invested into it. And you can look at those as we can call it a template or inspiration, right? But that one is at least proven to be working. And so if we take lessons from those, we’re more likely to move quicker than the

maybe the free bundle of 50 templates that are kind of, you know, generic looking. So.

Beatrice Gutknecht (14:46.123)
They weren’t built equal for sure, for sure. And again, like.

Jeffro (14:49.153)
Exactly.

Beatrice Gutknecht (14:52.853)
think I’m always just gonna have that kind of aversion to them because it doesn’t let you have that advantage. By using those templates, you have less of a chance to fail, less of a chance to win big, right? Because you’ve done something completely different when somebody’s by or they’re looking at a website and they’re like, whoa.

This looks nothing like what I’ve seen elsewhere. Sure, it follows the general idea of this is how websites should be built. It’s functional, but the approach is different.

Jeffro (15:40.154)
Yeah, and I love that you mentioned that how it allows you to fail when you’re doing it yourself. And that’s an important piece of it. Because if you’re doing a template and it doesn’t work, you’re going to blame the template designer, right? And not taking responsibility yourself for understanding what worked or didn’t work and making it better. So the more you can just take ownership and try things, the better off you’re going to be.

Beatrice Gutknecht (16:03.251)
Exactly, I mean all these business owners that have tried like thousand different things and like I failed this, this, this, this.

Right.

Jeffro (16:15.243)
Yeah. Okay. So let’s get off that soapbox for a minute. I think we’ve beaten the horse or it’s dead. So we’ll move on. Let’s come back to the brand strategy a little bit. Do you have a real world example you can share of how you’ve helped the company kind of fully implement this brand strategy and talk about some of the changes that you’ve seen in their business because of that?

Beatrice Gutknecht (16:43.627)
There’s been a few difference, but let’s say in terms of helped with a project management company. This was last year and into this year and from their old positioning and everything, they were trying to target multiple.

packet audiences and they weren’t clear, okay, like in terms of like who their competition was. They weren’t clear in terms of like their little, like their unique genesis, like what their position is compared to other project managers is like the same kind of messaging what we were talking about before, right? So we went through like the whole process I explained earlier and defined like, okay, hey, you you have

a great background in music. And that’s something that you’re already bringing into your training, your training style in a way that’s like effective. It’s a memorable and it’s getting teams to actually learn and take it on. That’s what we should be seeing in your messaging, in your vibe, in your presence, et cetera.

So they’ve adapted that and they’ve honed it down to one target audience. And since then we keep in touch and they’re really getting a lot more attention because the right people know who to contact them. And they’re being remembered. They’re like, hey, I remember, know,

because you’re talking about like the school of rock, talking about like all these different rock elements, music elements together with project management elements to make it super memorable.

Jeffro (18:52.025)
Yeah, I think the memorable piece is key because there are so many people that do project management, but if you can add something on top of that little cherry that’s going to stand out and people are like, yeah, I think you guys are way more fun than this one or I love music, so I’d rather work with you guys versus these other ones. And it’s just, you don’t need to appeal to the whole world. It’s okay to shrink your potential audience in order to more deeply connect with them.

and you’ll end up having a better time overall because of that.

Beatrice Gutknecht (19:24.701)
Exactly. And I think there’s a big misconception as well as when you narrow down your audience, that other people won’t approach you. And that’s wrong. You know, if somebody also is in that same vibe, and you clearly put it like at every touch point, that, hey, this is what we what who we are, what we’re like, these are the kind of people we work with.

other people will also approach, but they’re going to be the right kind of fit, rather than you’re getting all different kinds of people approaching and, you know, people often saying, actually, what do you do? Like, what is your service? Like, how can you help me? Like, I kind of like that post. But how can you help me? Right?

Jeffro (20:21.891)
Yeah. Well, I think there’s something to say about having an external third party help you through this process to identify those things that make you different. Because I think for so many of us, whatever our experiences are normal to us, it doesn’t feel special or different necessarily. And so it’s hard to say, like, I don’t know, I just this is what I’ve done. Right. But someone else comes in and they have to draw that out. Like, you have this background like nobody else has that. Like we should focus on that piece. And so that’s why it’s so helpful to have

that external perspective to pick up on those things and say, let’s run with this.

Beatrice Gutknecht (20:57.121)
Exactly. It’s and I don’t know how many people have told me this recently. I feel like I should just change my branding now. It’s like therapy for your brand. Right. Like you go through, go deep into like, okay, this is the original approach to it. These are the what makes your brand you know, what your intention was around it all. And really going into that.

Deep feeling, this is what I mean, businesses, okay? I’m not saying like personal brands, but it also applies, right? Talking to founders or like business owners and deconstructing.

Jeffro (21:41.155)
Well, you’re kind of putting yourself out there in a way, like are people gonna like who I am if I show more pieces of me and the things that I’m interested in, right? So you’re right. It is kind of like getting past that, being comfortable with who you are and letting that come through and the way you communicate with everybody. So it’s a good process to go through.

Beatrice Gutknecht (22:02.237)
Exactly. mean, even you can build out like a certain persona of like, this is how I would like it to be like same as like how Duolingo has done it with their very violent owl duo.

Jeffro (22:02.742)
for multiple reasons.

Jeffro (22:19.232)
He’s passive aggressive.

Beatrice Gutknecht (22:22.832)
Yes. Did you do your Spanish lessons?

Jeffro (22:24.29)
I’m

These notifications don’t seem to be working. It’s funny, but it’s effective for them. That’s their brand, right? They’ve kind of like, they’ve become the nagging tool to like help you learn a language.

Beatrice Gutknecht (22:35.411)
Exactly.

Beatrice Gutknecht (22:43.201)
And that’s the thing, right? The key is that it is, going back to what we mentioned, memorable. like, you might not need that product now, but later on when you’re like, okay, like say for example, like, you know, I need to learn Spanish. Okay, let’s download Duolingo. You don’t even think of any other options.

Jeffro (22:44.322)
Take care.

Jeffro (23:06.988)
Right. That’s just the one. Well, I think this is a really cool conversation. I hate having to wrap us up, but I do appreciate you joining me today. I love seeing really great examples of branding like yours. And I hope this conversation has inspired those of you at home to work on your own brand. You know, make sure you check out the links in the show notes to connect with Beatrice. Take a look. If you’re using a template right now, now you know, maybe start looking around and have somebody help you with that.

Get some original ideas in there. But I have one last question for you, Tell me honestly, were you nervous when you first decided to run with the kangaroo theme for your brand?

Beatrice Gutknecht (23:46.369)
No, no, honestly, I wasn’t. There was actually a little story behind it. On LinkedIn, used to be this thing that came up, like a phase of people putting the little emojis next to their names before LinkedIn started taking down their accounts. And so I was like, okay, I’m seeing all these emojis.

Jeffro (23:48.711)
Okay.

Beatrice Gutknecht (24:14.397)
what emoji should I use? And then, so I did a poll and one of them was a kangaroo and I was like, okay, so this is gonna be my brand thing, but let’s make it extra badass because like, know, like kangaroos isn’t already badass enough. So let’s give it a baseball bat, let’s give it shades.

Jeffro (24:27.54)
us.

But they’re pretty hardcore. I wouldn’t want to mess with a kangaroo. Not at all.

Beatrice Gutknecht (24:35.723)
So they’re intense.

Jeffro (24:39.489)
Yes. Well, thanks again for being here, Beatrice, and thanks to all of you for listening. If you thought this was valuable, please leave a review for the show. I’m looking forward to seeing the awesome brands that you guys create now that you’ve had this kick in the butt. So take care and we’ll see you next time.