PRINCIPLE  TWO:  The best ideas usually begin with listening

All Rise

When the University of Kentucky School of Law came to us for a rebrand, the easy move would've been to just start designing. We didn't. We started asking questions instead.

Working with Kim Royster and Pulse Marketing Group, I talked to alumni, donors, admissions leaders, civic leaders, and, most importantly, prospective students. Focus groups and interviews started turning up something interesting. The Law School already had real respect, a strong reputation. But what prospective students actually wanted to know was more personal: would the faculty invest in them? Would anyone actually help them succeed? That question changed everything.

So instead of building a brand around who the Law School hoped to become someday, we walked stakeholders through something harder: looking honestly at who they already were, and where they genuinely excelled.

In one of those conversations, the most senior person in the room said something that stopped everyone: "We want every student to achieve their personal best." It wasn't a slogan. It was just how they actually thought about their job, their responsibility to the students, to the program.

And there it was. We didn't need to invent a strategy. We just needed to finally notice the one already sitting in the room.

That idea became the foundation for the new brand, along with the tagline "All Rise." The next recruitment cycle brought more applications, stronger applicants, and a much wider reach for the school. That lesson has stuck with me since.

What this taught me...

• Understanding comes before positioning.

• A strategy grounded in an organization's authentic strengths has a much better chance of becoming a promise people believe.

• When people recognize themselves in the strategy, they're much more likely to carry it forward.

• Don't confuse research with listening.  Understanding what it means to the person sitting across from you is the real work.