An Axe to Grind: Bury It or Sharpen It, Brand Alignment Cuts Both Ways

KANSAS CITY BRAND DEVELOPMENT  ·  WRITTEN BY COURTNEY SPECHT  ·  BELTON, MO

I used to hate the phrase "perception is reality." Every time I heard someone say it, they were using it to excuse a bad take as a shield, nothing more.

I get it now.

My P&L sheets taught me in red and black.

Business owners: your brand isn't what you believe. It's what the market believes about you, based on what you've actually shown them.

Politics, values, whatever label you want to slap on it-- none of that sits outside your brand strategy. It IS your brand strategy. Go public with a stance (or stand shoulder to shoulder with someone) and you've made a positioning call, the same kind you'd make on pricing or ad targeting. You just did it with your ethics instead of your service menu.

My PERSONAL Case Study

A few years ago I got loud about where I stand. Who I was voting for. Who I wanted in power. Said it in front of clients, my following, everyone who'd built an idea of me off pretty pictures and good lighting.

12% of my following, gone, across every platform just about overnight. Followers weren't the only thing I lost. Signed clients canceled contracts, people who'd already booked, already committed, walked because of where I stood.

Good. We didn't align. I'd rather eat that cancellation on the front end than spend an entire wedding day, a boudoir session, a whole client relationship, pretending I don't know what I know about who I'm working with (not everyone's money is good money with me).

But then I had room for who I really wanted to work with. I'm turning away bookings now, something that would've sounded like a fantasy years ago. My business bounced back from the red-hat departures because I let the churn happen instead of managing it. No walk-backs. No soft "we love everyone" post trying to win back that 12%. I let the segmentation do its job. Those clients were never going to be my best clients anyway. The ones who stayed, and the new ones who showed up because of the stance, book faster, refer harder, and don't haggle the quote. Sharper positioning does that.

The Business on Main Street

A small business opened in my hometown a while back. I love seeing new retail and entertainment show up on our main street, our town needs more of it, and I genuinely want this place to make it.

What got my attention a while back was who they were standing next to: a handful of political candidates I'm strongly opposed to, hosting and sponsoring events in conjunction with the business.

That showed me who they wanted to work with, and I made a decision then that I probably wouldn't want to patronize them. I've read and seen nothing since to change that. My perception is that people like my clients and me aren't exactly welcomed there.

Intent doesn't matter here. Whether the owner personally agrees with those candidates or just took a sponsorship check, the market doesn't parse nuance like that. They took the stage. They took the logo placement. That's a positioning and brand move whether they meant it as one or not, and once it's public, you don't get to un-ring that bell.

FAFO

Now the business is struggling and publicly. They're slashing prices to compete with other established venues offering the same entertainment, and they posted a straight-up bag of support plea, telling their community they'd have to close without it.

Apparently I wasn't the only one in this same perception and reality. The comments turned into a real-time strategy lesson, the local people who actually want what this business offers skew heavily toward the exact communities those sponsored candidates have built careers working against. So when the business answered the backlash with "we support everyone," it landed the way it deserved to: as a non-answer. And the volume of a non-answer is deafening.

"We support everyone" isn't a brand statement. It's the absence of one. Costs nothing to say, gives your audience nothing to trust. Nobody knows what stance is actually hiding behind that word, and that's the point. It's a cop out.

Last year, on behalf of my client, I called a new wedding venue close to Belton to ask if they support queer couples (their marketing was showing us that they either are terrible at marketing or really didn't want to show queer love)... their response was a monotone "we don't discriminate." I clarified, you're welcoming and excited to host all couples in love then, right? ... right? She again said "we don't discriminate" to translate that, they won't state they actually want to host queer couples and are excited to do so. If you can't say that, what are the unspoken words saying? I decided I probably wouldn't be working with them anytime soon.

If you believe in supporting the something, say that. If you truly believe in supporting everyone, name who everyone is and say why. No more chickenshit. The second you start letting your positioning slide soft, whatever direction it leans, you'd better be ready to back it boldly. Half a stance isn't a stance. It's just a business hoping nobody asks a follow-up question.

The Strategic Takeaway

Align your business with something publicly, consciously, sponsorship-level publicly, and you've made a market segmentation decision whether you call it that or not. One part of your addressable market hears "you're my people." Another hears the opposite (a nice way of saying GFY). Which isnt politics, it's brand positioning doing exactly what it's does.

Don't be shocked by the outcome: if your target market and the values you've publicly aligned with are working against each other, a price cut won't fix it. You can't discount your way out of a positioning problem. This business isn't struggling because the price was wrong, it's struggling because the brand showed a specific, engaged demographic exactly where it stood, and that demographic believed it. That's marketing at it's finest.

I know what specific costs... thousands of followers and a handful of signed contracts bought me that lesson. It's a new day and age... Businesses that last aren't the ones staying vague enough to never lose anybody. Strong brands pick their alignment on purpose, eat the upfront cost, and let their real market show up stronger for it.

Perception is reality: build one you can actually stand behind, because the market will hold you to it regardless.

For what it's worth: a follow-up post from that struggling business showed real support poured in after that ask, and I hope it carries them the rest of the way. Not everyone has what it takes to run a brick and mortar, especially on a street that still runs like a good old boys club. I want them to make it. I just want them honest about who they actually want help from-- and if it really is "everyone?" Then a blanket statement of "We support our whole community. Regardless of political affiliation, gender identity, race, sexual preference, all religions... we welcome you all and most importantly support you, and want you here" isn't warranted but required.

We haven't seen clarity. Without it, we have to create our perception. From that, we have a very good idea of what reality is and it's not currently one I would want to participate in.

Let's Work Together

If you've read this far and you're sitting there wondering whether your own brand is actually saying what you think it's saying, that's exactly where I come in.

I offer 1:1 business consulting sessions for photographers and creatives who need a thinking partner, someone to help you get honest about your positioning, not someone to hand you a template and call it a brand. In-person in the Kansas City area or virtual. I'm not here to tell you what to believe or who to align with. I'm here to sit across from you, dig into what your brand is actually communicating versus what you think it's communicating, and help you close that gap on purpose. No big commitments, just an hourly consulting fee.

Start with a free 15-minute discovery call. We'll figure out together if it's a fit and if I can be beneficial to you.

Discovery Call for Brand Development with Court