Clarity updates

The story behind “Potential realised.”

Why “Potential realised.”?

Brand is important for any business. If I were to try and describe it, brand is how you are perceived in the world. The idea that pops into people’s heads when your company is mentioned. Amongst others, it’s what you do, how you do it, the problem you solve and the feeling you create.

Internally, brand is the consistent message you portray in all your marketing content and on your website. It’s the journey you take your customers on and, therefore, touches all areas of your business.

Externally, it’s customers knowing what you do, what problem you solve for them and how you solve that problem. It’s not only what you do but how you go about it too. For example, being honest, having integrity, being environmentally or socially responsible.

Having a clear and consistent brand is vital for the success of any business.

Why look at your brand now?

Does your brand represent who you are? Or, does is represent who you were?

As an outsider looking in, is it easy to understand what it is that you do and how you go about doing it?

Like many things, your brand is not a solid state so much as a continually evolving process. As we change and as the world around us changes, so must our brand, to reflect those changes.

Business has changed

With the pandemic ending, restrictions lifting and events opening their doors again, the business environment is changing. The messaging that you may have used for the last two years might not be the best fit for the next two years. This is true of any moment in time but particularly important, I feel, right now. Ask yourself, is your business still the same? Has your approach changed? Have the services you offer evolved?

It’s always good to take stock of where you are and make sure that the message you are sending out is still relevant and consistent.

Why we looked at ours

Multiple factors drove us to take stock of our brand

What we do, isn’t necessarily easy to explain. And buzzwords, sometimes incorrectly ascribed, are awash in our industry. But the primary driver was realising, from anecdotal feedback from members, potential customers and even from recent hires, that it wasn’t clear exactly what problem we solved or how we went about solving it.

Confused messaging

Over time we’ve had a few different messages; “Business advisory made simple”, “Bridging the gap between accountants and small business”, “Effortless Advisory | Powerful Results”, to name a few. And, while all were relevant to what we did and the pain points we solved, having more than one message is a big no. It creates confusion.

“Clarity is simple. Clarity helps start advisory conversations, doesn’t it?” Well, yes it does, but it does so much more. It provides a structured approach for delivering accounting services in a new way. “I thought Clarity created advisory reports for our clients?” or “Clarity creates action plans” Again, it absolutely does, but that’s not all it does. You get the idea.

As our platform and offering has developed, different messages or impression we may have (inadvertently) given, have stuck with people as to what it is that Clarity is and does. So, based on timing and the feedback above, we decided now was the time to devote our attention to clarifying our brand message.

Where did we start

We started, as we all do now, with Google (don’t deny it!)

This led us to different authors, thought leaders and brand podcasts. And after hours of consuming content, a common theme emerged – when it comes to brand you need to tell your audience a story and you need to keep it simple. Why? Well, a story is easy to follow, it has characters we can relate to and, if it’s told well, it keeps our attention.

Storyboard

So, what was our story, when did it start and end, where did our customers fit in, which characters did we all play? We had to answer all these questions and more. Thinking about our brand as a story made it much easier for us to understand the different roles we play and what is important to each of the characters in the story. A storyboard provided us with a great structure to follow to organise our thinking. As we’ve probably all learned from experience, sometimes you can have too many ideas and not get them all down or manage to organise them. So you end up losing them or becoming paralysed with a roadblock of ideas funnelling through your brain.

Our aim was to create a simple story that would resonate with our team and customers alike. Helping everyone to understand what they were trying to achieve and how they were to go about achieving it. Refining all the ideas that we mind dumped onto the storyboard led to a single easy-to-follow journey.

What we found tricky

Sounds easy enough right?

Well, we thought so too. But like all creative processes it takes a lot more brain power than you think. There are a few parts to building your brand story, but I want to focus on the area that was toughest for us. In the end it was the key stone to our new brand “potential realised” and I feel like this might be a sticking point for many people. So, I wanted to share how we got through it. We needed to understand our customers challenges. With a deeper understanding of their challenges, we could identify the philosophical dilemma at their core.

For us the steps were as follows:

Accountants really struggle with time, they don’t have much of it —> this is because the processes and systems they use are holding them back —> breaking away from those systems is difficult as they are the generally accepted practices —> change is scary and puts people outside of their comfort zone where they feel less confident —> this creates a frustration in the industry that they could and maybe should be doing more for clients but can’t, their hands are tied. Finally, we arrived at our destination. Accountants want to do more for their clients but can’t. In other words, accountants are struggling to realise their potential for doing good in the small business community.

It took us many rounds of thinking. Covering old ground, asking the same questions again and again. But eventually we cracked it. Ironically, being a time-for-money based model, we discovered a perfect storm of no time. No time to look at processes. And even if accountants did have the time, stepping away from the norm is difficult. There isn’t a playbook to follow. So it would be trial and error. Which takes time and costs money, both of which accountants don’t have because of current processes…

How we nailed it

Arriving at this destination, we were able to understand the problem that Clarity was solving, at its core.

Clarity, as a platform and as an approach to accounting, in reality, was untying the hands of accountants. When we pull this together, with the other parts of the story, how it affects the different characters and when, we were able to define Clarity’s brand.

Simply put: We help busy accountants thrive by realising the full potential of their team, their firm and their clients. We do that by giving them the structure, tools and plans to build better businesses; and the confidence to make it happen.

Potential realised

Boiling this down to two powerful words, “Potential Realised”. The successful ending to our story.

We wanted to encapsulate that our purpose was to help accountants realise their potential, so that they in turn could help their clients to reach theirs. And if we were successful in that endeavour, then we ourselves would have realised our potential too! (Very meta).

How we can help

Why not book a call, so we can schedule a strategy session to create a customised implementation plan? We will then work with you to help you execute your plan.

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