Level Up Your Brand

Send us Fan Mail Declan Edwards is widely known as that happiness guy and as a thought leader in the space of positive psychology, employee experience, and personal development. As the founder of BU Happiness College, a social enterprise dedicated to helping individuals and organisations build the skills of happiness, Declan has built a strong personal brand by standing at the intersection of scie...

Send us Fan Mail Kerri-Ann Hooper on Building Smarter: Contracts, Cash Flow & Calling BS on Industry Norms This episode is for anyone who's ever looked at a building contract and thought: Wait, where did that charge come from? I’m joined by Kerri-Ann Hooper — straight-talker, industry shaker, and founder of a building company doing things differently. We get into: The sneaky stuff hidden...

Send us Fan Mail In this conversation, Martin Sully addresses the question of how to maintain a unified brand identity and consistent message for a two-sided marketplace with two target markets. He suggests creating personas for each target market and gathering information about their demographics, interests, and problems. By integrating this information with the brand values and message, it is po...

Send us Fan Mail Brand guidelines are the most important document for a business, as they control and maintain consistency in branding. They can go deep and include strategy, tone of voice, and messaging. Even small businesses should have brand guidelines to guide their brand identity. Not having brand guidelines can lead to issues like inconsistent colors and messaging. Brand guidelines help docu...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Martin Sully discusses how to maintain a brand's tone of voice. He explains the difference between brand voice and tone of voice, and emphasizes the importance of aligning the brand voice with the company's mission, values, and target audience. Martin also suggests creating a written style guide to maintain consistency in communication. He advises auditi...

Send us Fan Mail The conversation revolves around the importance of paying attention to the little details in business, particularly when it comes to aligning values with execution. The host shares a personal anecdote about a company he met that focused on renewable energy but had plastic-coated business cards, highlighting the disconnect between their values and their actions. The main takeaway i...

Send us Fan Mail Martin Sully discusses the importance of networking and building a personal brand. He emphasizes the need to connect with people both online and offline, and highlights the value of real-life conversations. He also shares his experience with starting a networking group called Chatterbox and the benefits it brings to businesses. He encourages small wins and offers advice on creatin...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Martin Sully interviews Joe McKay, a LinkedIn ghostwriter and content creator. They discuss Joe's background, his approach to working with people on LinkedIn and personal branding. Joe emphasises the importance of listening to customers and understanding their pain points to create effective marketing content. They also touch on the challenges and rewards of...

Send us Fan Mail Bek McCutcheon built Fit Test Australia from scratch as a sole trader – nobody else was doing respiratory fit testing properly, so she did it herself. Now she runs a team of eight. Along the way she got publicly called out for publishing an AI-generated blog post, owned it completely, and came out the other side with more credibility than she started with. This is a masterclass in...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we discuss the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in brand building.  And, although SEO can be confusing and expensive, it offers long-term benefits that outshine short-term marketing strategies like influencer marketing, which can be unpredictable and less controllable.  SEO should be a key component of any brand's website/marketing strategy and...

Send us Fan Mail Just like you might set New Year's resolutions, the start of the year is the perfect time to set and track ambitious, achievable business goals.  We talk about: Accountability My brand goals for the year Why brand goals need to be broken down into tasks Setting stretch goals and deadlines to help you achieve them.

Send us Fan Mail An explanation of the importance of brand audits.  In this episode, I describe how audits can be used to: Understand a brand's position Evaluate customer recall And to identify potential issues that a business might not have noticed.  I use brand audits to analyse three key areas:   External branding Internal branding Customer experience  The ultimate goal is to ensure busine...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Level Up Your Brand Podcast, host Martin Sully, shares his Christmas experiences and discusses the concept of 'is your business a brand?'.  It includes: A Christmas day wrap-up A thought provoking question raised by Kevin Finn Where the identity of a brand comes from And highlights that to build a brand, it must be worked on daily

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Level Up Your Brand Podcast, we discuss how baking a charismatic personality into a brand helps create meaningful connections to your audience.  We cover: How every person working in a brand becomes an extension of its persona The connection between a brand and its employees.  And give you a practical tool to create a charismatic brand personality.  We also...

Send us Fan Mail Snapper Studio and Martin want to announce limited availability for branding projects and podcasts due to Martin and his wife expecting a baby. I want to personally thank listeners for their support and encourage them during the holiday season to reach out if they need help. You can reach me on: LinkedIn Email – martin @ snapper . studio Or through the Snapper Studio website

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, host we talk to Mathew Goddard from Aquacultr about creating a more efficient and sustainable system for seafood production. Mat shares his journey from discovering a Barramundi farm for sale to establishing a sustainable fish farming model. He emphasises on the need for sustainable, low footprint technologies and how his company, Aquacultr, seeks to revolutionise...

Send us Fan Mail Martin Sully, a brand strategist and founder of Snapper Studio, discusses the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning on branding.  He explores the tools currently available that incorporate AI, including Chat GPT, photo editors, AI-generated logos and even the emergence of AI-assisted brand development tools.  However, he also emphasises that while...

Send us Fan Mail We talk with Claire from KidBiz Academy and Tara Clark Art about the pitfalls of working with kids, selling candles, fortune telling, and how we all need to persevere to get to where we want to.  This episode is packed with gems, by two guests who are doing incredible things. Claire is empowering children to take on an entrepreneurial spirit, teaching them all about the various as...

Send us Fan Mail Jess Hodge went on her honeymoon to Thailand, found a beautiful beach covered in plastic rubbish, and spent part of her trip cleaning it up. When she got home she tried to find a sustainable coffee table. She couldn't find one anywhere. So she made one. That was the beginning of Resourceful Living – a social enterprise that has now recycled 20 tonnes of plastic and saved enou...

Send us Fan Mail Rachel Smith is this episodes guest. We first connected when she took the quiz on my website. Point's don't mean prizes, but she's currently the high scorer with 3. Have a go here - Feels Finder Quiz We chat about • Yum cha and wine • Rachel's list, how it all began and maintaining a community. • The Content Byte Summit and the talks that lit up the stage – Jen...

Send us Fan Mail This is the episode that explains why this podcast changed its name. Branding has a genuinely uncomfortable past – from branding irons used on enslaved people, to the co-opting of ancient symbols by Nazi Germany, to the way modern branding has been used to colonise our imagination for designing alternatives. Martin Sully sat with this for 10 months before recording it. It's w...

Send us Fan Mail It's been 10 months. The podcast is back with a new name, a new identity, and a story about a topless man with muscles in places Martin didn't know you could have muscles. We're talking scent branding -- one of the most powerful and most overlooked brand tools available. Humans recall scents with 65% accuracy after a year. Visual recall sits at 50%. Your nose wins e...

Send us Fan Mail Every December the design world publishes 'trends to watch' roundups. Most of them are pointing you in exactly the wrong direction. Martin Sully looks back at 2022's predictions, reflects honestly on what actually happened, and shares six design trends to actively avoid in 2023 – starting with the one that has to stop immediately: off-the-shelf Canva logos. LINKS Ep...

Send us Fan Mail Do you cringe when someone asks for your website? Do you find yourself apologising for your logo? Is your branding a patchwork of styles from three different designers across five years? These are just three of the 20 signs Martin Sully shares in this episode. He also tells the story of how Martin Sully Design became Snapper Studio -- and why spelling out the problem was the only...

Send us Fan Mail Every year Pantone announces a colour of the year. Every year thousands of brands start using it. Every year those brands look exactly like every other brand that followed the trend. Choosing brand colours without a strategy is one of the most common and expensive mistakes small businesses make. Martin Sully -- brand strategist and designer with 20 years of experience -- walks you...