Aspirational 🫀 EBH

Lies, damn lies, and (ahem) "advertising" 🙄

“How aspirational can your employer brand be?”

I get this question at every other speaking event I go to.

My suspicion is that people are so focused on being relentlessly positive, that they see the cracks and imperfections of their company and assume their only option is to present a company that will exist in the future.

In other words, a company that does not exist today.

Aspirational thinking seems to come from Ad Land, an industry desperate to get you to envision how amazing your life would be when you use this new detergent that makes your clothes 3% cleaner. Or how this gum makes your smile brighter. Or how much better your life will be with this foam rubber stick that keeps fries from falling under your car seat.

Cherry-picking positive results (manufactured in controlled environments that have no relation to the reality you and I experience every day) and using them to highlight a product’s effectiveness, then spinning the holy hell out of its value is Ad Land’s every day. It is (if you can believe it) their job.

I mean, there’s no evidence to suggest that playing a certain kind of music to your unborn child will make them smarter.

Or that such and such an app will make your brain healthier.

There are no magical shoes that will help you lose weight.

But Ad Land has spent decades trying to convince us that those things are… true enough. The world of advertising lies to us every single day, and we’ve become okay with it.

And that’s why I don’t work in it.

I work in employer branding.

I describe a company and its culture as it exists as you join it. Not some day. Not when leadership makes some magical leap. Not when the stock price gets better. Today.

No one expects a perfect job. Every job, even the best ones (maybe even especially the best ones) has unpleasant aspects to them. That’s reality. Don’t be scared of it.

This is what happens when you embrace the idea that your roles are NOT for everyone: You stop trying to spin or massage the truth and instead embrace that truth as power.

Generating “amazing stories” about a job that doesn’t even exist (and likely never will), use that as a huge red flag that you are going in the absolute wrong direction.

When you see your employer brand as a means to cover up the problems everyone else can see instead of as a means of adding context to those issues, you’re not building a brand, you’re spinning.

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It is available right now, either as an ebook, a hardcover book, or as a complete video course.

Please share it with someone who “gets” the power of employer brand, but just needs a little direction on how to make it happen.

***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***

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