WHEN THE STORY IS TRUE
The brand, ops, culture connection I can't stop seeing.
I’ve been calling myself a fractional COO for years because it’s the easiest shorthand for what I do. People hear “COO” and think: systems, processes, execution — and yes, I do all of that.
But here’s the part I’ve only recently owned: in every single engagement I’ve taken on for the past nine years, I’ve also led brand and marketing. Not reluctantly. Not because it got dumped in my lap. But because I wanted it.
So why do I keep ending up in brand work? Not in a begrudging, ugh, fine, I’ll deal with this way — but in a hand it to me right now, I can’t wait to dive in way.
I’ve figured it out: when brand work helps me tell the truth about a business — about what it really is and what it actually wants to bring into the world — I’m all in. I will move heaven and earth to make that alignment happen. Because that’s when brand stops being just “design and copy” and becomes something deeper: a mirror that reflects the reality you’re building inside the business.
When I say “brand,” I don’t just mean your logo, colour palette, or typography. I mean the sum total of how people experience your business — what it looks like, what it sounds like, and how it behaves in the world. It’s your visual identity, your tone of voice, your values in action. It’s the promise you make to customers, employees, and partners — and whether or not you keep it.
WHEN THE STORY ISN’T TRUE
There’s an old saying: if you always tell the truth, you don’t have to remember your story.
When the story you’re telling the world about your business doesn’t match the reality inside your company, everyone feels it. Customers. Employees. Job applicants. And especially the poor social media manager trying to make your “brand pillars” sound believable.
Picture this: your brand claims sustainability is core to everything you do. Your marketing is full of lush green imagery and earnest copy about the planet. Meanwhile, your supply chain is a mess, you’ve never measured your carbon footprint, and the closest you get to eco-friendly is recycling the Keurig pods. That marketing person isn’t telling a story — they’re making one up.
I’ve lived the opposite, too. When I ran my apparel brand, climate messaging was easy because it was real: near-zero waste production, low-impact materials, and a supply chain we actually cared about. We didn’t have to invent anything. We just told the truth. And telling the truth is infinitely easier.
Once you start looking for this misalignment, you can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere in startup culture: gorgeous brands built for companies that barely exist. The pre-launch hype site. The cinematic brand video. The merch drop. All before there’s a functioning product, a cohesive team, or a single paying customer. The emperor has no clothes, but wow, does he have a beautiful brand book.
That illusion lasts — until you interact with the company. The interview process is chaos, the product disappoints, the “values” on the website are just decoration. The disconnect is instant, and the trust evaporates.
The opposite problem is where I do my best work: bootstrapped companies that have poured every cent into delivering their product or service. They launched with a Canva logo and a duct-taped website because survival came first. The product is excellent. The customers are loyal. But the operations are clunky and inefficient, marketing doesn’t exist and the brand has never caught up to the quality of what’s being delivered. This is the work that lights me up. Getting to flex across every part of the business to transform it, inside and out.
A REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE
When I was fractional COO for Okay Perfect, they had an online program called the Courageous Cooking School Online — live cooking classes over Zoom. It started as an extension of their in-person school, but we saw a bigger opportunity: make it a standalone brand with its own presence and personality.
My official remit was operational — finances, hiring, SOPs, contracts, service delivery — but no one was steering the brand ship. And I knew that without a brand to match the experience we were delivering, the operational structure would be rowing upstream.
So I did it. I directed the development of every piece of brand collateral, sometimes doing it myself, sometimes working with talented artists. Together we created wordmarks, a colour palette, brand copy and whimsical food illustrations, then built those elements into a user-friendly platform experience — all on the smallest of budgets. I took this work on not because I’m a graphic or website designer, but because, as the person in the operations driver seat, I knew that business inside and out.
And once we had those external brand pieces in place things started clicking: Hiring was easier. Marketing landed better. Investors were interested. The team had pride in what they were building.
It wasn’t just prettier — it was more true.
THE RESEARCH BACKS IT UP
Strong brands aren’t just pretty. They’re profitable.
A study in the Journal of Product & Brand Management found that alignment between employer branding and organizational culture improves recruitment efficiency, workplace climate, and overall performance.
LinkedIn reports that: 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before applying and 69% would reject an offer from a company with a bad reputation — even if they were unemployed.
And here’s the kicker: engaged employees can increase productivity by up to 202%, and happy workplaces see 20% higher profits on average.
So remember that social media manager making up climate copy for your next Instagram post? Imagine if what she was writing was actually true. Imagine how much more engaged she’d be in creating that post — and how much better it would be. When your team isn’t resentful about the disconnect between what you say externally and what they live internally, the entire business performs better.
THE OPS/BRAND CONNECTION
Here’s what I believe about truly great businesses: they tell the truth. There is alignment between who they say they are, how they show up for their clients, and how they show up for their teams. There isn’t an “external brand” and an “internal brand.” It’s all one thing.
And as the person running your ops, I already know that truth. I know where you invest and where you cut corners. I know how your team really feels about working there. I know the difference between the goals you share at all-hands meetings and the ones you quietly hold close.
Brand is just the public-facing version of those truths. Which is why I believe operations leaders should have a seat at the table when it comes to brand and marketing. In my case, I often end up steering the brand and marketing ship — not as a “bonus” task, but because the health of the business depends on it.
When ops and brand are aligned, everything gets easier. Marketing flows because it’s rooted in reality. Hiring clicks because candidates can feel the culture they’re walking into. Retention improves because the internal experience matches the external promise. Customers trust you faster because there’s no gap between what you say and what you deliver.
THE TAKEAWAY
I’ve stopped thinking of brand as something separate from my work in operations. The more companies I work with, the more obvious it becomes: the best brands are built on operational truth.
When the story you tell the world matches the one your team lives every day, you don’t just have a good brand — you have a business that runs smoothly, attracts the right people, and earns trust without effort.
And you stop wasting energy maintaining a story that isn’t true.
That’s the real work. Align your brand with your operations, and you don’t have to remember your lines. You just keep telling the truth.
HOW MUCH SHOULD MY BABY BUSINESS INVEST IN BRAND?
Got a Q? Message me on LinkedIn.
Q: I get that ops and brand should align, but my business is just getting started. At what stage should I be thinking about brand work?
A: Sooner than you think — but please don’t drop $50K on a brand design before you’ve nailed your offer and proven demand.
Instead, invest in your brand early by answering three simple but foundational questions:
Who do you serve?
What do you promise?
How do you want people to feel when they interact with you?
Once you’ve nailed those, here’s how to operationalise your brand from an ops perspective so it’s consistent from day one:
Define your voice — is your copy fun? Serious? Witty? Use examples or “personas” so anyone creating content can match the tone.
Choose a typography scheme — decide on fonts for headers, subheaders, and body copy.
Pick a colour palette — lock in the exact colour codes so they’re always consistent.
Create a wordmark — skip the elaborate logo for now; you’re not Nike, but you do need your business name in a consistent style.
Build a simple brand kit in Canva — include your wordmark, fonts, usage guidelines, and colours.
That’s it. You don’t need to spend tens of thousands on design work at the start — but you do need consistency. A simple, documented brand kit ensures that you (and anyone helping you) keep your brand looking and sounding the same everywhere it shows up.
When your business is generating consistent, repeatable revenue month after month, then it’s time to invest in a more sophisticated brand redesign. And before any brand designers come for me with pitchforks — know this: every company I’ve worked with in the past four years has crossed $1M in revenue before spending a dime on high-end branding. So, yes, you can build a business without a big upfront brand investment.
💛 MA
WORK WITH ME
Want to work together? Book a discovery call here.
And as always, connect with me on LinkedIn!
Keep building the version of work that actually works for you. I’ll be here cheering (and occasionally nudging). See you next Monday.
Until next time,
Mary Alice
