The importance of finding your flock.

Several years ago, I was sitting in my little flat in Surrey, feeling quite out of place.

 

Dr Sharon Blackie writes about this in her book If Women Rose Rooted “my feet literally felt like they were in the wrong place.” It wasn’t my place, they weren’t my people, I felt at odds with it.

 

I reached out to my dear friend Tamsin Jardinier who does the Flow Game (if you’ve not seen it, I suggest you check it out!). As part of this game, I pulled a card filled with birds.

 

“You haven’t found your flock yet.” Tam announced with a knowing smile!

 

It struck me how right she was. This idea that there are some places and people we resonate with more than others. And when we’re not in a place of our flock, our people, we can feel it.

 

This has been an idea that has stuck with me and I’ve taken it into my brand strategy practice: this idea that if something feels off in our business, in our client base, team, nature of work, then we haven’t found our flock yet. And there’s work to do.

 

We can be super intentional about this – who we work with and who we serve. The notion of niching and being hyper focused on your client and your business design can be scary for some – the counterintuitive idea of carving out a smaller market to speak to may result in reduction in revenue. But it does the opposite.

 

Getting clarity on what this looks like for us, how we want to feel, who do we want around us, what sort of work we want to do, what value to we want to bring and to whom – it’s all figureable-outable. And ACTIONABLE.

 

With branding, we get back what we put out – so if we’re putting out the wrong message, tone and offerings, then guess what? That’s what we’ll attract.

 

The beauty of great branding is in finding your flock through an emotional combination of all the things – the voice, words, visuals, packages, packagING. It’s a resonance that’s hard to articulate, where YOUR clients feel that THEY’VE found their flock in YOU.

 

It just feels right.

 

It can be a mirror, it can be aspirational, it can be an alignment in values, it can be an energy or an attitude they pick up on.

 

And there are more like them – their colleagues, friends, people in their network. And if we serve them well, they feel they have found their flock in you, then they will TELL EVERYONE ABOUT YOU.

 

They become raving fans and want to get more like-minded people in on their find so they can see the value and magic you offer, too. And so the positive cycle of attracting the right people, doing the right work and fulfilling our vision begins.

 

So I ask – have you found your flock yet? Are your clients waiting to find you?

 

This is a topic dear to my heart, I love talking about this – so if you need to raise this with your team, leadership or want to highlight this topic in your next event, get in touch and book me as a speaker.

 

Lauren.

Happily found her flock, lives by the sea, works with amazing global clients from her garden studio.