In this introductory video of the "Beyond Business and Branding" series, business strategist Donna Brown argues that the future of business lies beyond profit‑centric branding and must be rooted in authenticity, ethics, and transparency. She observes that the pandemic has stripped away polished façades, prompting companies to show a softer, more vulnerable side, and calls for a new informality where leaders admit uncertainty and share genuine experiences. Citing the Dalai Lama’s analogy that ethics are as essential as water, she emphasizes universal human values—honesty, integrity, and consistency—in every aspect of a company, from product creation to stakeholder communication. Brown highlights research indicating purpose‑driven businesses grow about 68 % faster than those lacking a clear values mission, framing this shift as a present necessity rather than a future trend. Drawing on Marty Neumeier’s concept of “dreaming” in business, she encourages continuous ideation without immediate judgment, urging entrepreneurs to seek fresh perspectives to break out of stagnant thinking patterns. Throughout, she invites viewers to engage, comment, and share, positioning the series as a collaborative exploration of how businesses can evolve with integrity and purpose.
Chapters
Hi, it's Donna Brown, business strategist and mentor. And this is the first, I guess, of a long series, hopefully a long series called Beyond Business and Branding, because I feel that what is really going to drive the biggest changes that are happening in our world right now go much deeper than that. And we're all being called to have a different vision of what we understand a business to be, of how we act and serve through our businesses. And the creativity, but also the ethics and our values that we bring into play, need to come to the forefront. But we'll also see some very beautiful and exciting things come forward from all of this, even though today it may seem a little hard and it may seem Unlikely that that's going to happen. I truly believe that this is where we're headed. So I'm going to try and keep these a little bit shorter. I did a video yesterday, but hopefully I'll stay within 5 or 6 minutes. And I would really appreciate if you could join in the conversation, put in your comments. You don't agree? Tell me. You want to tag somebody, share it with your people? I would love it because I feel that more than ever we need to come together and talk. And communicate and share ideas and find commonalities and find sort of capture the ideas where we can find them so that we can build something truly unique. So today it was really about what is beyond business and branding and looking at ethics and integrity and honesty and transparency. I feel that if you notice what's happening now is we're all being called to be more transparent and That includes showing that we don't have it all figured out, that we don't know what to say, that maybe our hair and makeup is not perfect. My lighting is not perfect. I'm not in my own home at this point in time. And even there, the lighting is not that great, to be honest. But to show up, companies are showing sort of a softer side, a more vulnerable side of themselves. As you know, if you look at entertainment and all the programs that are sort of overproduced and have high production value, all of a sudden people are at home with scruffy hair and talking in their sweatshirts, sitting on their sofa. So there's a good in this. I feel that this, that falsity and that idea of separateness has been in some way pulled back, taken away by this showing everybody as being more similar than we think. And I feel that this is a good thing. And I hope that companies embrace this, let's say, new informality. It's not Casual Friday, which was kind of like a posture thing. This is where you're really being asked to show up for who you are and show who you are, say what you think, even if what your biggest answer is today, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. I don't have an answer. Help me find an answer. Right, we don't need to have it all figured out. And hopefully that posturing is going to go a lot by the wayside. And as we watch leadership in various areas in various aspects of the world and industries and governments, we're seeing how people are asking for the truth, right? And I don't want to go all into the what is truth thing, but they're asking to feel that there's an honest person on their side doing their best. Let's put it that way. There's an interesting quote by His Holiness the Dalai Lama saying, and he has an amazing book that's really meant for all, especially business people, all people, but definitely for business people. And it's called Beyond Religion. And it's really about secular ethics. And he makes the comment that tea, that religion is like tea. Not everybody needs religion. But ethics, it's like water. There isn't anybody that doesn't need water. So you don't have to have a belief system. You don't have to belong to any philosophy, any religion, any atheist, it doesn't, you don't, anything. It's just, but you know and appreciate, we all know and appreciate those core human values of honesty, of integrity, of saying what you're going to do and doing, you know, saying I'm going to do this and then doing it. And that coherence and that cohesiveness and that being, that having that coherence in everything that you do and everything that you say, in the products that you produce and how they're produced and how they're sold and where they're sold and how they're priced and how you speak to your stakeholders and how you speak to your shareholders. This is, it's all becoming one thing and you're being asked to integrate all of this into a vision that is much more approachable, but it is also less founded on profit at all costs, obviously. And the statistics show that purpose-led businesses or businesses that have a strong values mission are growing at a rate that I think it's about 68% more than companies that do not. This is the future. This is the now. It's not even the future. It's now. It's not an option. It's a necessity, but it's a good necessity. Just think of how much more impact we can have And how much more we can accomplish when we decide to infuse everything that we do in our companies, in our products and services, whether you're a solopreneur or you're a large corporation and all those in between, the small-medium enterprises. Those are often companies that start off with a huge values-based mission and it's easy to get pulled off mission in some way because you start listening to what a trend is or what you think your customers want from you rather than having this very clear core idea of who you are and what you're meant to be doing. And that's where I tend to operate the most and imagining sort of very innovative and unusual rethinking of what is possible for you as a company, what's possible for you as a person, what's possible for your clients. But this is, That's my zone of genius and my zone of joy and where I've been operating for the last almost 40 years. But it's really where we're all being asked to show up, right? In the same way, this very creative, what if, you know, what if? And to allow yourself, as Marty Neumeier would say, this dreaming, right? The dreaming aspect of our businesses and not worrying right away whether they're good ideas or bad ideas. Just keep dreaming. Pulling them out to see, and you'll get to the gold. You will get to the gold. And it's an exciting time, guys. I know it's tough, and I know there are a lot of challenges. And I've gone over by a minute or two, and I'm gonna get better. But I just want you to know that it is possible. Find people to talk to. Find somebody to come in and take a fresh look at your business, even if it's a very brief thing. If you're, if you're sort of thinking in circles and you can't really see your way out of it, What can you do to disrupt yourself and your own thinking patterns and move into that sort of ideal version of yourself and of your business? So that's it. And I'm 2 and a half minutes better than my video the other day. So I consider that a win, even though it's over my time. So Beyond Business and Branding, and it's Donna Brown, and I hope to hear from you and share the love. And I wanna hear your comments. Bye for now.
