By Sandie Eggers

Valentine's Day is a perfect day to show your brand some love. Here are 3 ways you can do just that: 

 #1.  Total Makeover

Has your brand gone stale? Has your target market changed? Did you change your products or services? If you answered "YES" to any one of these questions, consider giving your brand a Total Makeover.

#2.  Spa Day

Not as drastic as a Total Makeover; just a little refresher. A Spa Day for your brand is needed when your logo needs a little update, your brand statement could be written more clearly or your brand persona is not quite in alignment across the board.

#3.  Share the Love

In keeping with your values-driven brand--and Valentine's Day--why not share the love with your clients or customers? This could be a special Valentine's day offer, discount, small gift or valuable content. Any way that makes sense for your brand to tell your customers:  "I love you." 

 If you liked what you read and want to learn...

Great advice about predicting the future. 

An original creation, an animation full of whimsy, delight, and inspiration. Enjoy! Happy Saturday Whimsy!

Ok, I want to know what you like the best:  white, milk or dark chocolate? Go here to the YLA Facebook page and comment below the post. Enjoy!  

Political Values Branding vs. Values-driven Branding

by Sandie Eggers

Within the past six or more months, companies have taken positions on current issues.

Target defends transgender rights by de-linking sex from bathrooms and changing rooms. In the last few weeks, Nordstrom supports the side that lost the election by pulling Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories lines from their inventory. Budweiser entered the immigration conversation by creating a Super Bowl ad featuring its founder’s immigrant heritage.

Now, I’m not about to use this article to take my own stance on any current issue, as it would undoubtedly divide my readers, serving no purpose except for a chance to set-up my soapbox.

Wait. Did you just read what I wrote above? That sentence makes my point. I’ll explain.

Political positions are values, but . . .

There is nothing inherently wrong about a company taking a stance on a current issue. After all, companies have a responsibility to be...

Enjoy this brief animation. 

“Monday Motivations” is a weekly post that is inspirational, encouraging, or reflective. It is meant to help with this big thing we call “Life”.

As we go through life with all its challenges, heartaches and stresses, it’s often hard to be grateful. And with the 24-7 on demand, online world we also inhabit, we are so easily swept into the trending currents, flowing ever faster downstream to where we really want to be.

It’s hard to stop and enjoy the scenery. Let alone be grateful. But to preserve our sanity, reclaim our inner peace and be fully human, we must.

So I’d like to share five thoughts that, I hope, will help you walk in a cloud of gratitude.

Spend time in reflection.

Take some time each day to pause and reflect upon all that is good in your life, especially those simple things we often take for granted, like the gift of waking up another day. Time spent like this each day doesn’t have to be long, especially at first. But...

Enjoy this brief animation explaining why you need values-driven branding. 

Of course, we’d all want to ensure that the values we hold and express through our brand are all positive. But are they? Let’s take a closer look.

Who are you, anyway?

Like it or not, as entrepreneurs, our brand is us; they are one in the same. Oh sure, not all your values of your personal brand are expressed in your business brand. But many are, especially the core ones.

To illustrate, I’ll share some personal examples.

For me, one of these core values is creativity. Creativity, because I discovered many years ago that the jobs that made me the most unhappy were the ones that had no outlet for my creativity. I can vividly remember, my first job after leaving college was as a mortgage interviewer at TRW Credit Data. All day long, I would ask mortgage applicants questions about their residence, job and credit histories, dutifully filling out form after form. Desperately driven to create, I soon found myself furtively jotting down lines of poetry on scraps of paper...