Your Brand Narrative: Talking like a Customer instead of a Founder

When you start a business or nonprofit, everything is personal. Your story. Your passion. Your reasons for building it in the first place.

At first, that’s how it should be.

But as you grow, your message has to grow too. You can’t keep talking about your work from your point of view alone. You have to start telling your story in a way your customers understand and care about.

At Blazer Strategies, we call this your brand narrative—the way your business explains what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters. Not from the founder's perspective, but from the customer’s. This shift is essential for any founder, especially in small business marketing and nonprofit brand strategy.

Our Own Struggle with Brand Narrative

We’ll be honest—this was a challenge for us.

From the beginning, we were trying to do something different than most agencies. We didn’t want to just build websites or logos. We wanted to create a long-term marketing strategy for startups and small businesses—a real partnership without all of the negative baggage that comes with the title “marketing agency.”

But we were figuring out our own brand messaging while we were still shaping our services based on what the market needed. That’s not the perfect way to launch a business, but it’s real life.

What we’ve learned is this: even if you think your message is clear, standing still is going backward. The way you talk about your work needs to grow as your business grows.

Example: Groundhouse Coffee

Here’s a great example. When Steve and Beth Hines started Groundhouse Coffee in 2011, they used the tagline: “Where coffee breath is worth it.” It was fun and casual. It reflected their goal of making a coffee shop feel like a welcoming space—not fancy or intimidating.

When my wife and I took over, we kept the same values. But, honestly, I didn’t love that tagline. Not because the message was wrong—but because I don’t like thinking about “coffee breath.”

We didn’t throw it out. But we did shift the story.

We started saying something different in staff meetings and interviews: “We’re not a coffee company. We’re a community connection company that serves coffee and pastries.”

That message was clearer. It helped our staff understand the bigger purpose behind their work. And customers and local media outlets picked up on it too. The old tagline still exists, but now it feels more playful—because people understand the deeper mission first. That’s the power of a strong, people-centered business storytelling approach.

Customers Don’t Want to Guess What You Do

One of our clients last year was a new consulting firm. Their services page went on and on. They could do a lot—but their message sounded like “we do everything.”

The problem? Customers don’t want to guess. They don’t want to figure out what you offer or how you help. They want to know clearly what you do, who it’s for, and why it matters.

And no, that doesn’t mean you should lead with product features. It means you need to start with the feeling your solution creates, the problem you solve and the value it creates. This is where brand clarity really matters.

Lesson from MythicHire

We had to learn this again with MythicHire. The proprietary formula behind the applicant tracking system was inspired by my own experience as an applicant in a broken hiring process. So at first when we were pitching investors, we talked about the product from the applicant’s point of view.

But our customers aren’t applicants. They’re the businesses using our software. And investors called this out immediately.

That meant we had to flip the story. While good businesses do care about the applicant’s experience, they make purchasing decisions based on ROI. They wanted to know how they could hire faster and more effectively. Once we started leading with their problem, our message started working and we started to get interest from investors and future clients.

This shift from founder-centered storytelling to customer-focused messaging is one of the most important steps in building a business that lasts.

3 Ways to Check Your Brand Narrative

Want to test how you’re doing? Try these three steps:

1. The Stranger Test

Ask someone who doesn’t know your business to look at your website. Then ask them what you do and why it matters. If they get it right, great. If they’re confused, your message needs work.

2. The Competitor Test

Look at a few organizations like yours. Read their websites and compare them to yours. What do they explain better? What do you say more clearly? Who’s growing faster—and how might branding or messaging play a role?

3. The Sales Test

Think about recent sales calls. If you used the words from your website or pitch deck, were you understood? Or did you need to explain things a different way to make it clear? If your team always has to “translate” your brand, it’s time to fix the narrative.

At Blazer Strategies, we help founders and leaders make this shift—from internal storytelling to customer-focused messaging. We believe the right words can unlock real growth. Because when your audience understands your story, they’re more likely to believe in it—and buy into it.