All Posts By

BJ Bueno

Searching for Status, Discovering Everything Has Changed

Everything has changed—on the surface. Underneath, the unconscious motivators that drive consumer behavior remain the same.

If we stand here now and look back into the mists of time to the very first days of human commerce we’ll discover that business owners have always wanted the answer to a single question: what makes consumers act the way they do?

One of the factors that drive consumer behavior, consciously or otherwise, is meeting individual needs. You’re familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the model that tells us that we are all in possession of certain innate needs that must be met in order for us to enjoy optimal physical and psychological health.

July 28, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Take Your People on a Heroic Quest

Inspiring leaders see their companies’ journeys as grand stories.

Why are we drawn into stories about adventures? What is our fascination with journeys traveled by characters like Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen or Washington crossing the Delaware or the fabulously named Rough Riders?

Mythology expert Joseph Campbell tells us that these adventures are all part of the hero’s journey—a schema laid out in his ground-breaking book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The heroic quest predates written language and its primary structure can help guide teams through massive changes. This story structure is all but hardwired into the human brain: We tell stories this way because stories that follow this pattern release transformative psychological power.

July 14, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Sell The Dream, Create Evangelists

Evangelism stems from understanding that brands are co-authored experiences between the customer and the company.

We are big fans of great books.

One of our favorite books is Guy Kawasaki’s Selling The Dream.

In Selling The Dream, former Apple software evangelist Guy Kawasaki lays the groundwork for what it takes to drive passion.

July 7, 2020 by BJ Bueno

What To Do When You’re Worn Out

Fostering a happy workplace Starts with cultivating optimism within yourself.

There are ways to change the tide and bring greater optimism and joy into your organization as well as your personal life.

Fostering a happy workplace starts by cultivating optimism within yourself.

Here are four effective strategies for developing positive personal psychology:

June 25, 2020 by BJ Bueno

5 Ways to Enable Your Team

When times get difficult, leaders tend to take on burdens greater than they can carry alone. But, this is an impossible situation. In order to achieve anything great in an organization, you need a team to help you get there.

Here are five ways to enable your team to help you achieve your organization’s goals.

April 6, 2020 by BJ Bueno

8 Principles For Humanistic Leadership

The quintessential leader lives in the moment and leads from the heart. —Lance secretan

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.1 Corinthians 13:13

Real leadership is value-driven, based on principles such as humility, accountability, positivity, and love. Here are eight principles for a more humanistic approach to leadership:

Embody Values: Values determine what types of behaviors are in line with your company’s purpose that will help you achieve your vision. Values can never be given up. They guide you in good times and in tough times. They determine what you are and what you are not. Living up to your values protects you from cynics.

March 29, 2020 by BJ Bueno and Aaron Shields

Ten Tips for Using Emotional Intelligence to Become a Better Leader

Emotional intelligence is about recognizing emotions and emotional tendencies so that you are not dominated by them, don’t identify with them, and that you can respond to them and use them in constructive ways.

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

February 8, 2020 by BJ Bueno and Aaron Shields

Leaders Are Made, Not Born

To be an effective leader, you have to be a really good listener. And, not to what’s being said, but to what’s not being said. You have to be really observant. That was a big transition for me: I went from being a scorer and a floor general to being a leader. And, that meant putting others first. That means not worrying about: Are you in rhythm? Are you playing well in this game? Are you ready to go? [It means going] to being: Are they ready? What can I do to help them be ready? That’s the big transition to make. You’ve gotta observe them, because they all have things they want to accomplish as individuals. And, as. Leader you’re like, “Okay, what are those things?” And, how can I help them accomplish that within the system, the structure that we are trying to do collectively. —Kobe Bryant

The passing of Kobe Bryant this week had us reflecting on the man he was and the time we spent working with him. When we worked with Kobe, he was undergoing the transition from being number 8 to number 24. This transition was much more than just a number change for him; it had personal significance. 24 meant dedicating himself every hour of the day to being a better person that others could look up to; it meant going from focusing just on himself and his stardom to focusing on being a leader and helping his teammates achieve their goals. Kobe realized that leadership is a choice and that it takes dedication, practice, awareness, constant learning, and skill. Leaders are made, not born. And, great leaders never stop trying to be better not just for themselves, but for those they have the honor of leading. Rest in peace Kobe.

February 1, 2020 by BJ Bueno, Salim Bueno and Aaron Shields

Cult Brand Leaders Build Their People Up And Drive Results

At the center of the most successful brands that we have worked with is a management style that can be described as servant leadership. This is a people-first approach.

But can you build your brand this way in a competitive industry?

January 3, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Top 5 Cult Branding Blogs of 2019

As the year comes to a close, we’d like to thank all of you for continuing to support our blog with your readership.

We’d especially like to thank our friends that contributed blogs in the past year: Tyler Williams, Lead Link of Brand Aura at Zappos, wrote about what it takes to build a great brand without engaging in practices that would disappoint your mom; John Bunch, Lead Organizational Designer at Zappos, wrote about the journey to Zappos’ 20th birthday this year and what the future looks like for the company; and Greg Breeding, President of Journey Group, wrote about what it took to create the Love Stamp for the United States Postal Service.

Taking into consideration opens, shares, and clicks, below are our five most popular blogs of 2019.

We wish you and your family a happy, healthy, and fantastic New Year.

BJ, Salim, and Aaron

December 27, 2019 by BJ Bueno, Salim Bueno and Aaron Shields

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