Monday, June 20, 2016

Discover your Brand Part 1 - from the Amazing Jim Rubart


Me, my daughter, and Jim
Sitting in on a class with Jim Rubart is an experience!

It’s 1/3 humor

1/3 excellent writing material

And 1/3 preaching.

And every 1/3 weaves beautiful one into the other. (Allen Arnold teaches this way too, if you ever get the chance to hear him)

In May, I had the opportunity to sit in on Jim’s Branding class and, needless to say, it was fantastic, so today I’m going to share a few tips from it for you. (And I’m paraphrasing because that’s how I take notes usually J

First of all, what is a brand?

                I love some of these answers our class discussed.

1.       Identity

2.       A Visual representation of who you are

3.       A promise you make to people

However, I LOVE Jim’s take on it. He says, “A brand is not what we create but what we discover”

Tweet: “A brand is not what we create but what we discover”

Isn’t that a great thought?!? Have you ever considered ‘discovering’ your brand?

The brand is not what I thought it was! It’s not your books or your tagline. It’s not your agenda or message.


You are the brand.

Authentically YOU!

How does God use your uniqueness to create stories for readers?

God is a personal God. He’s also extremely personal. He’s created each of us in a unique way to fulfill a purpose only we were designed to fulfill. Writing is a part of that. A ‘calling’ upon our hearts endowed by our Creator.

So…..what is your unique sermon that only YOU can tell?

A brand transcends genres and prescribed ‘boxes’.

It draws people in because it’s organically you not what you’re ‘selling’.

It’s much more personal than that. J

So here’s an assignment Jim gave to us to help us discover our uniqueness.

Email 5 people who are close to you and ask them this question. How would you describe me to someone else?

Then email 5 acquaintances and ask them the same thing.

Look at the results. Listen to what people are saying about how they see you. Start discovering how you are unique.

I’ll leave you with this idea from Jim’s class.

Remember what you enjoyed as a child. What you were passionate about?

We forget what we were born to be. We forget our identity.

Satan attacks at the level of our identity because at the core that assaults our purpose.

Rediscover who you are and it’s the first step to discovering your brand J

Share your thoughts. Do you KNOW your brand? How did you discover it?

1 comment:

Jerusha Agen said...

Great post on brand, Pepper! I've benefited from Jim Rubart's classes in the past, too. I appreciate this different take on branding--that it's more about who you are created to be by God and what you offer as a person (or writer), rather than about the books themselves. I'm working on developing a new website and brand at the present, so it's nice to confirm that my new tagline and brand does represent ME well, too!