So at this dinner I met a marketing exec going through a rebrand. She’s at a $10B public B2B SaaS company. This is their fourth or fifth rebrand in as many years. She’s tired and wants this one to stick.

“How do we make this one work?” she asked.

I thought about it for a second then shared something relatively philosophical—don’t sell the finish line.

Real winter vibes on this one

What’s this about a finish line?

When most of us sell a rebrand (or any big project for that matter) through to leadership we try to paint the picture of what'll happen one day. How perfect things will be. How easy it’ll be to use. How differentiated. How exciting. How [pick your CMOs favorite adjective]. This is the finish line. The thing is one day isn't day one and when you launch, it's gonna be broken.

You'll make assumptions. You'll get inspired by other companies. You'll try things differently. Some of it will work and some of it won't. Then it's back to the drawing board and this is where we’ll typically get stuck.

By selling the finish line, we’re really just selling a point in time 3-6 months from now when we think things will be done. We don’t account for mistakes, delays, or experiments. In doing that, we only get budget once. When we come back and ask for more to fix what isn’t working, we end up upsetting the C-suiters. And you know what, upset bosses I can deal with. The bigger consequence for me is that you also lose credibility because the expectation and the “end result” are different.

Sell the starting line instead

Yes, it’s harder. We need to address that off the bat. You’re actively admitting that the rebrand or refresh or evolution or whatever you want to call it isn’t a single scope, one-time fee project—and that’s how it should be.

Brands need to evolve or they die (the finish line approach expedites this big time). You’ll launch, you’ll learn what your audience responds to, you’ll collect feedback from your teammates, you’ll discover things you don’t like about the brand, you’ll iterate.

On top of that times will change, channels will change, technology will change. If you have the mindset of “we launch and we’re done” you’re not going to think of your brand as an evolving asset but rather a time-bound liability.

By setting the vision for what's to come and how things will play out over time. You'll get the appropriate budget and resources to do the work and maybe even a bit of grace to build your brand the right way (that doesn't mean you can mess around though).

This is how we built the HubSpot brand. This is how I was able to get the resources to invest in self-service systems. This is how we’re selling our services at OhSnap! now. It’s about painting the picture that you’re building for the long-term. A picture that keeps you ahead of the curve AND saving money.

Brand is about continuous evolution

A rebrand is just the beginning, not the end, and it surprises many C-suiters when you just did this big job and now there’s more work to do but it’s all about setting expectations because brands never stop evolving.

Anyone who tells you different has no idea what they're talking about so next time you have to influence leadership, remind them that it’s not about the destination but about the friends we make along the way… or just sell them not on what it'll look like for a few days in 6 months but how amazing it'll be for years to come—and don’t forget the money!

“The friends along the way” line made me laugh but it’s true. The learnings that you make as you go are the ones that will actually transform your brand into an industry leader and prevent you from having to jump from one expensive rebrand to the next. If you’re debating a rebrand or wondering how to approach you next stage, we got you.

If you’re looking to experiment, Canva is the perfect place and we’re ready to get you set up.