You have to figure out your own story and your company’s story in a way that catches people’s attention and makes it interesting. You have to figure out how to tell the story in a way that is memorable - or sticky - and gets your audience asking for more.

You may have noticed a small change. A new logo in our email signatures.

If you've visited the Messaginglab site, you'll have seen an update.

Let me share why we made those changes.

I love strategy.

The word gets overused but you can’t accomplish a thing without a strategy.

And strategy is simple.

It’s a plan of action to achieve a goal

Imagine you had written an article or blog post, or had recorded a podcast or video that answered the most pressing issue in your industry.

Your audience would read, listen, or watch, and would understand your solution.

Their questions would be answered.

“To live well is to see wisely, and to see wisely is to tell stories.” - Padraing O. Tuama (quoted in Jerry Colona’s Reboot)

A question I’ve been asking myself lately is: Who am I talking to? Right now?

In the past three days, I’ve spoken with:

Let me tell you a story:

A few weeks ago, a post-Series A biotech company called and said, “We need a public relations agency.”

My stock answer is, “We’re not a PR agency. We help clients grow. Public relations is just one of many growth tactics. Let’s figure out if that's what you really need.”

Here’s the Biostrategy Canvas mentioned in What’s Your Biostrategy? How to Prepare Your Business for Synthetic Biology.

Biostrategy confers the ability to incorporate biology or biotechnology into a business, to survive and thrive under rapidly changing conditions. Biostrategy begins as an idea, is expressed in words, then gets translated into actions.

According to our recent survey, 80% of our subscribers do not have a written marketing or communications plan.

80%.

That's pretty astounding. 

Without a plan, you have no direction. It's like trying to get someplace new without a map.

I just got back from this year’s SynBioBeta conference in San Francisco. It was the most well-attended, most exciting SBBSF so far. I ran two well-attended panels:

For Medikly, a marketing automation platform designed to help brands better engage physicians, Messaginglab developed investment, sales, and media strategies designed to attract investors, engage brands, and drive media coverage.

When I started Messaginglab in 2001, I had an idea to become a branding shop that would help companies at the very beginning of their lives. I, and my partner at the time, knew (and continue to know) that building a killer brand was difficult.