Your Customer Experience Is Only as Strong as the People Delivering It

Marketers love dashboards.
We track journey stages, conversion paths, brand scores, and behavioral funnels.
We slice, segment, and analyze until the numbers sparkle.

But before any of that matters, there’s one truth every leader needs to face:
If your employees aren’t energized, aligned, and proud of the brand they represent, no amount of sophisticated modeling will save your customer experience.

You’ve felt this yourself.
You walk into a store or call a service line, and the person helping you is drained.
Their tone is flat.
Their energy is low.
They are clearly doing the job, but not bringing anything to it.

As the customer, you pick up on it instantly.
You don’t need data to tell you, your body feels it.
The brand loses its magic in a single moment.

Now flip that energy.
Think about the last time you interacted with someone who was fully alive in their role.
Someone who cared.
Someone who made you feel welcome, seen, and understood.
That wasn’t an accident. That was culture.

Here’s the part most leaders still underestimate:

Culture is not the warm-up act. Culture is the main strategy.

When employees feel supported, respected, and trusted to use their talents, they don’t “deliver service.”

They deliver experiences.
They become storytellers.
They become memory makers.
They become the strongest form of marketing you could ever hope for.

You can buy media, optimize funnels, and polish messaging.
You cannot buy genuine human enthusiasm.

In my work with brands over the years, from household names to fast-growing challengers, the pattern is always the same:

Brands grow when people grow.
Brands stagnate when people shrink.

When employees feel safe to stretch, proud to contribute, and connected to a meaningful mission, something beautiful happens.
Their energy becomes contagious.
Customers feel it.
The market notices.
And suddenly the brand isn’t just recognized, it’s trusted.

This is the real math of modern branding:

Low-energy employees create forgettable moments.
High-energy employees create unforgettable ones.

If you want a breakthrough in customer loyalty, stop obsessing over the outer shell while the core is running on fumes.

Great customer experiences are built from the inside out. 

Always.

How energized do your people feel today, and what would your customers say about it?

December 7, 2025 by

Big Visions Are Built One Dream at a Time… Times a Million.

“Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.”

It sounds tough. 

It sounds practical. 

It sounds disciplined.

But it’s only half true.

Sam Altman once said something that flips this on its head:

“The good founders are the people who have ideas all the time.”

Not one brilliant idea. Thousands. And that line should make every leader stop and rethink how brands are actually built. Because we have spent years obsessing over “the idea.” 

Your business will never be defined by one idea.

It will be defined by your ability to generate ideas endlessly.

Ideas about your product.

Ideas about how to market it.

Ideas about how to price it.

Ideas about how to position it.

Ideas about how to serve customers.

Ideas about how to tell stories.

Ideas about how to build culture.

Ideas about how to be different.

Ideas about how to stay human.

Ideas about how to create experiences people actually talk about.

Every. Single. Day.

Cult Brands generate a river of ideas that compound over years. Look at the greatest brands on the planet Apple, Disney, Patagonia, Liquid Death. None of them were built on one genius moment. They were built on hundreds of decisions, pivots, risks, experiments, surprises, and reinventions layered over time.

One idea didn’t make them great.

Thousands of ideas made them unforgettable.

Execution matters, of course. But without the steady flow of fresh thinking, you’re only executing yesterday’s relevance. Execution ships the work. Ideas shape the future. The brands that win in the next decade will be the brands that cultivate idea generation as a daily muscle, not a rare spark.

So how do you do that?

You create an environment where ideas can breathe.

You build rituals that spark creativity.

You ask better questions.

You encourage your teams to explore, not just optimize.

You let the weird ideas live long enough to reveal their potential.

You don’t need one big idea to transform your brand. You need a thousand small ones that add up to something extraordinary.

Are you producing enough ideas for your future to even exist?

December 5, 2025 by

Employee Validation Is a Business Imperative

“The biggest assumption humans make is that everyone sees life the way we do.” — Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

This one line may change the way you lead more than any management book ever will. 

It reminds you that as a leader, you often assume your people know they matter, know they’re valued, and know their work has meaning. But they don’t. Not unless you tell them. Not unless you show them. And this is where many organizations unintentionally break trust. Because the greatest threat to your business is not a competitor, not disruption, and not technology. The greatest threat is the moment your people stop feeling valued.

Once that moment arrives, performance slows, creativity dims, and culture begins to quietly crack. It happens silently, long before a resignation letter or a survey exposes what’s been happening beneath the surface. If there is one truth worth anchoring your leadership to, it’s this: employee validation is not a soft gesture. It is the foundation of every result you hope to achieve.

Nothing in your business moves until people do, and people only move when they feel seen. For years, you may have believed that strategy, innovation, customer experience, or digital transformation were the primary engines of growth. They matter deeply, but they are powerless without the emotional commitment of the people behind them. A 2016 LinkedIn Purpose at Work Global Report noted that 79 percent of employees stay longer at purpose-driven organizations that value them. This tells you something profound: employees respond to the same emotional forces as your most loyal customers: belonging, recognition, meaning, and human connection.

In Customers First, we wrote that loyalty grows when people feel understood, appreciated, and acknowledged. Inside your organization, this truth is even more urgent. Your employees need to know that their work matters. When people feel invisible, they disengage. When they feel seen, they rise.

You want innovation, initiative, and resilience. Yet these qualities cannot be demanded; they must be inspired. Validation is the spark. Think about the talented individuals you’ve watched lose their energy not because the work was too hard, but because they felt unnoticed. Think about how quickly a team’s momentum evaporates when meaning disappears. And think about the transformations you’ve witnessed when someone took a moment to recognize the effort, courage, and heart behind another person’s work.

Validation isn’t flattery. It isn’t a passing “good job.” It’s specific, sincere recognition that connects someone’s effort to the impact it created. And the best part is that you can start doing this today.

The path forward is hopeful. 

Begin with simple habits: 

Pause once a day to thank someone for something specific; celebrate the small wins; invite people to share their thinking; ask what they’re proud of; and make space to notice the quiet contributions. 

When validation becomes a daily rhythm, your team grows stronger, your culture becomes more human, and your people give their best because they feel their best.

Who is one person you can make feel seen today?

December 2, 2025 by

Stop Being Forgettable: 10 Ways to Become an Unboring Brand in 2026

Most brands don’t fail because their strategy is wrong. They fail because they are boring. Boring brands get ignored, and in a world where attention is the most expensive currency, “ignored” is the most dangerous position you can occupy.

According to System1’s Cost of Dull report, nearly half of US TV ads trigger a neutral emotional response. This dullness costs US brands an estimated 189 billion dollars in wasted effectiveness every year. When you fail to make people feel, you fail to make them remember. Forgettable brands never become loved, recommended, or woven into people’s identities. They never become Cult Brands.

So let’s change that.

Here are ten powerful ways to make sure your brand is anything but boring in 2026. 

These principles draw from the psychology of belonging, memory, community, and meaning. They are the shortcuts to becoming the brand people talk about, return to, and stand behind.

1. Expand your audience.
Cult Brands grow by welcoming new people into the tribe. When you hypertarget, you pay more to ignore your future fans. Broad reach widens your community and strengthens your cultural presence.

2. Build AI teams, not AI tools.
AI becomes magical when it works inside a creative feedback loop. Use agents that challenge your assumptions and produce unexpected ideas that feel alive rather than automated.

3. Audit your distinctiveness.
Every category is full of sameness. Map where you overlap with competitors and commit to the edges where only you can live. Distinctiveness is the antidote to forgettable marketing.

4. Develop a sonic identity.
Ninety percent of brands lack one. Sound imprints faster than visuals and creates emotional memory instantly. Think Harley engines or the Netflix ta-dum. Your brand needs its own audio signature.

5. Rebalance your 60–40.
Most brands overinvest in performance and underinvest in long-term brand building. That imbalance leads to short-term wins but long-term stagnation. The 40 is where emotional connection and margin growth live.

6. Go offline.
TV, radio, print, and OOH build memory structures that digital alone cannot. Offline presence provides weight, permanence, and cultural gravity that algorithms can’t replicate.

7. Hunt for underpriced attention.
Attention shifts constantly. CTV, niche podcasts, emerging creators, and local sponsorships often outperform the crowded places everyone else is chasing. Look where others are not.

8. Lead with emotion.
Emotion outperforms rational messaging across nearly every category. People buy when they feel understood, valued, and inspired. Emotion is what sparks memory and loyalty.

9. Be consistent.
Not boring, consistent. Cult Brands repeat ideas, symbols, and rituals until they become part of your identity. Consistency turns creative assets into cultural assets.

10. Aim for fame.
Choose one big idea. Make it unmistakable. Make it culturally contagious. Fame is efficiency. Fame turns a brand from a product into a statement.

The real secret to avoiding the boring brand trap is simple. 

Stop trying to be safe. 

Safe brands do not create community, ritual, or belonging. 

Safe brands do not inspire devotion. 

Safe brands do not become part of someone’s identity. 

To become unforgettable, you need to become more distinctive, more emotional, more human, and more willing to stand for something.

What bold move will make you unforgettable in 2026?

November 30, 2025 by

Reach Isn’t a Dirty Word

Somewhere along the way, “reach” became a bad word.

Marketers started saying it with hesitation, as if being broad or inclusive meant being wasteful or unfocused.

I don’t see it that way.

After years of helping brands grow, I’ve learned that reach is the foundation of relevance.

Too often, I watch teams chase precision like it’s the holy grail, narrowing their focus until they’ve filtered out the very people who could become their next customers. They pay more to reach fewer people, mistaking exclusion for efficiency.

But the data tells a different story.

Light buyers, the ones who purchase once or twice a year, drive nearly half of all brand sales. Yet most targeting strategies exclude them.

That means we’re literally paying extra to avoid our future customers.

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute demonstrated this decades ago: brands don’t grow by getting loyalists to buy more. They grow by reaching more people overall.

It’s simple math, but it’s also human psychology. 

Familiarity breeds trust. 

Repeated exposure builds memory. 

Shared stories create belonging.

When I talk about reach, I’m not talking about spraying ads across screens. I’m talking about expanding the circle, inviting more people into the story of your brand.

Because when you reach more people with authenticity and heart, you’re not wasting impressions.

You’re planting the seeds of connection. Reach isn’t a dirty word.

It’s how communities grow.

It’s how cult brands are born.

November 28, 2025 by

Why Your Loyalty Program Isn’t Working (and Never Will)

The travel and hospitality industry lives inside a trillion-dollar illusion: the belief that loyalty is something you can buy with points, perks, and programs.

It isn’t.

After decades and millions of miles, I’ve learned something that every brand, hospitality or otherwise, needs to hear:

Loyalty doesn’t come from your points. 

It comes from your people.

And not the ones you expect.

Most hotels operate under what I call the front-desk fallacy, the idea that loyalty is built at check-in. That’s where guests hear about their “status,” their “benefits,” and maybe get a slightly better room. It’s a ritual of politeness, not belonging. A transaction wrapped in a smile.

The truth is, loyalty happens far from the front desk. It’s built in the hallways, behind the bar, in the restaurant, and in all the quiet places where your people turn routine moments into human ones.

It’s the bartender who remembers your drink.

The housekeeper who notices how you like your room.

The server who knows your comfort meal and asks about your family.

Those small gestures of care do what no app, no algorithm, no loyalty portal ever could:

They make people feel seen.

Loyalty isn’t built through benefits. It’s built through belonging.

Because while technology can remember your preferences, only people can remember you.

So if you’re leading a brand, repeat this mantra daily:

 “It’s the people.”

Then go prove it. 

Empower your teams to notice, to connect, to care.

In a world racing toward automation, the most radical act left is still the simplest one.

Be human.

November 25, 2025 by

What If You Could See Every Market Before You Enter It?

Business decisions have always balanced three ingredients: gut, guesswork, and a little hope that the data you pulled from five different places is still relevant.

That’s starting to change.

With Google’s new location intelligence tools, we can finally bridge the gap between intuition and insight, turning what used to feel like educated guessing into informed strategy.

Imagine having:

• Real data from 250+ million global locations, updated every month
• Access to 300+ business types across 70 characteristics
• The ability to blend this with your own data securely, in your own space
• And tools you already know how to use, like BigQuery

Now think about what that means for your next move:

• Counting nearby restaurants, bars, and attractions to understand community vitality
• Seeing what’s working in similar markets and discovering why
• Understanding your competitive landscape, not just who’s there, but how they perform and what customers actually value

We’ve always said that a great strategy starts with great empathy, understanding how people live, move, and connect. Tools like this help turn that empathy into precision.

Because when you understand where your customers are, you’re one step closer to understanding who they are.

We got an early look at the demo here: https://mapsplatform.google.com/demos/places-insights/

Have a great day ahead!

November 23, 2025 by

What Makes Creative “Effective”?

For us, effectiveness goes far beyond clicks, views, or lift reports.

We define effective creative as work that moves people and moves the brand forward.

In simple terms: Remarkable work that works remarkably.

Remarkable means it has a soul.

  • Strategically grounded in the brand’s truth
  • Emotionally resonant enough to be felt, not just seen
  • Distinctive to the culture and community the brand serves
  • Crafted with care and intention in every detail

Remarkably means it performs  not just once, but over time.

  • It builds memory, connection, and advocacy
  • It delivers measurable business growth through emotional loyalty

That’s a high bar. Especially when so much advertising today on every screen fails to connect. Many studies suggest creativity is declining, not improving.

We take the opposite view: creativity is becoming more vital than ever. Because in an age of automation, what’s human becomes what’s scarce.

Our process for ensuring creative effectiveness begins long before launch. We pretest work not only for message clarity and recall, but for emotional impact, how it makes people feel, what stories it triggers, and whether it aligns with the brand’s deeper purpose.

We call it Emotional ROI. It’s how we measure meaning as carefully as we measure metrics.

Because remarkable results never come from guesswork. They come from deep understanding, empathy, and preparation. And when a brand creates something truly remarkable, something that resonates, performance follows.

November 21, 2025 by

The Future of Agencies Isn’t About Time. It’s About Trust.

According to the World Advertising Research Center, 41% of agencies still bill by the hour. 

Only 24% of marketers want that model.

That gap says a lot.

As AI speeds up production and automation reshapes workflows, billing for time makes less and less sense. Should a client pay more because an agency works slowly or less because they’ve invested in being efficient?

Hourly billing rewards activity, not outcomes. It measures inputs, not impact. And it risks breaking the very alignment that partnership requires.

At The Cult Branding Company, we’ve never believed trust should be measured in minutes. For over two decades, our relationships have been built on shared goals, transparency, and results that endure what we call Emotional ROI.

Our model isn’t about hours. It’s about outcomes that matter: loyalty, advocacy, belonging, and sustained brand growth. That’s the difference between a transactional partnership and a transformational one.

We believe the next generation of agencies will evolve toward this kind of alignment—models rooted in performance, trust, and purpose. Those that cling to the old system will struggle to prove their value in a world that increasingly prizes authenticity and measurable impact.

The shift away from hourly billing isn’t just operational, it’s cultural. It’s about moving from selling time to creating meaning.

And that’s great news for every brand ready to grow not just bigger, but deeper.

November 18, 2025 by

Don’t Just Look for Great Teachers. Become a Great Learner.

There’s real wisdom in finding a great coach or teacher. 

But there’s even greater wisdom in becoming a great learner.

When we’re truly open to learning, teachers start showing up everywhere. 

Not just in books, podcasts, and in posts like this one.

The person checking out your groceries can be a teacher.

The person delivering your mail can be a teacher.

Every human interaction can be a lesson, if we’re willing to see it that way.

Instead of rushing to judge, pause and ask, “What can I learn from this person?”

The moment we do that, something shifts. 

The world stops being divided between “experts” and “everyone else.” 

It becomes a living classroom where curiosity turns ordinary encounters into extraordinary insights.

As the old saying goes, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

So get ready. 

Be curious. 

Be humble.

And become the kind of student who never stops learning.

November 17, 2025 by