In our experience, we have seen many organizations working on the fruit and not the important components that produce the fruit.
We are privileged to work with many agriculturally based companies and often rub shoulders with the people who feed us on a daily basis. From that experience, we know that if you ask a farmer, he will tell you that when the fruit is mature, there isn’t much you can do to make it better. You might be able to shine it up a little on your sleeve, but if it’s bad, you’ve just drawn attention to the badness.
The same holds true for what you are selling/promoting (the fruit). Focusing your efforts on the final product and ignoring your brand is an exercise in fruitility (pun intended) and disappointment.
Nature teaches us, along with many other scenarios, that we must look after the plant in order to realize great fruit. We must carefully look after (nurture, empower and protect) the brand, which will then produce the desired results.
We’ve all heard the saying money doesn’t grow on trees. Often, that’s because we haven’t looked after our tree the way we should have.
Stretching for thousands of miles across mountains, deserts, and plains, the Great Wall of China is one of the most extraordinary structures in human history. Built and rebuilt over centuries, its purpose was simple: protection. It was meant to keep invaders out and secure those within. And in many ways, it worked. The Wall became a visible mark of identity: it declared, “Here is where China begins, and this is who we are.”
In 1860, the Pony Express galloped onto the American frontier with a promise of speed and daring. Young riders carried mail in leather saddlebags across nearly two thousand miles, from Missouri to California, changing horses at relay stations along the way. Messages that once took weeks by stagecoach now arrived in a matter of days. For a brief moment, the Pony Express captured the imagination of a nation.
In 1826, a French inventor named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce set up a primitive camera in the upstairs window of his estate in Burgundy, France. Using a metal plate coated with a light-sensitive substance, he attempted something no one had ever done before: to capture light itself and hold it permanently. The exposure took about eight hours. When the plate was finally removed, the result was faint and difficult to read. Blurry rooftops, hazy barns, and vague trees emerged in shades of gray.