Growth-Focused, Compassionate Leader | Amazon, Salesforce, Meta & Dropbox Alum | CHIEF Member | Mom²

I’ve been told “you’re not good enough” more times than I can count.

When I applied to early decision to Cornell, my Chemistry teacher laughed at me. She wasn't wrong - I got rejected. But “no” on a piece of paper wasn’t going to be the final answer. I called the Dean every single day until he finally took my call. He told me why I didn't get in and what I needed to change.

A year later, I walked through the doors as a student.

That moment shaped everything. 
It taught me how to speak up for myself — clearly, directly, and without apology. I've carried that into every role since. 

I’ve sold for and led teams across some of the biggest tech companies in the world, including Salesforce, Meta, Dropbox and Amazon. Along the way, that meant working through messy launches, rebuilding broken processes, coaching struggling reps, and helping leaders navigate growth, conflict, confusion and change.

And like anyone who's lived a full life, there were personal moments that forced me to rethink what leadership actually looks like. Rejection, personal loss, setbacks, and times where everything felt like it was falling apart. Those experiences changed the way I lead. 

Not with ego. Not with pressure.
But with clarity, communication, and being human first. 

Today, I coach sales leaders and partner fractionally with revenue teams who want to perform at a high level - without burning out or leading on autopilot. 

𝗜 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽:
- Sales Leaders who want confidence, clarity, and stronger communication
- Revenue teams who need simple, effective, human-first messaging
- Companies who want fractional support to stabilize, sharpen, or accelerate GTM

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜'𝗺 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗮𝘁: 
Connecting with people. 
Getting to the real issue fast. 
Helping leaders show up with confidence. 
Turning chaos into clarity. 

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲:
Leadership isn't about being the loudest voice. 
Sales isn't about pressure.
People don't need more hustle - they need more clarity. 

If you're a sales leader who wants to grow, a team that needs direction, or a company looking for fractional help... 

𝗟𝗲𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸.

Lindsey Fine

Can we please stop minimizing the badassery of women?

Yesterday's Gold medal game between Team USA and Team Canada was not deemed "high demand" by Olympic organizers.. 

Let's break this down: 

- This was the 7th time these two have met in an Olympic final. 

- Team USA entered the final game with a 31-1 goal differential. They outscored their opponents by 30 goals across 6 games. 

- One of those 6 games was against Team Canada where they shut them down 5-0. 

- Canada entered the final with a point to prove. Despite the loss in the prelims, they outscored the rest of the world 18-3. 

- And....they were the ONLY team in the entire tournament to hold USA scoreless for more than 2 periods.  In fact, Team USA didn't even find the back of the net until there was just 2:04 left in regulation. 

- The game tying goal was scored by Hilary Knight, making her the all-time leading SCORER in U.S. Olympic history. 

- It took a 3 on 3 sudden-death OT period for it to finally end. 

So, let's recap: 

- The greatest rivalry in hockey
- A record-breaking performance by a legend
- A literal last minute comeback 
- An OT goal to decide it all

If that's not "high demand", then I don't know what is.

Sales Leadership Coach & Fractional Revenue Partner | Coaching leaders. Guiding teams. Driving revenue. | Amazon, Salesforce, Meta, Dropbox Alum | Mom²

Ok, sold. 

Winter Olympics > Super Bowl

And I ❤️ football...

But Snoop on a Zamboni? 
100% here for it. 

What do y'all think 

🏈 or 🥇?

Bill Kenney 👋

In 2009, I co-founded an agency with zero agency background but a hunger to deliver great work. 

Since then, we've achieved...

👉 Growing into a team of 25+ driven individuals 
👉 Working with some of the largest brands in the world (Marketo, Netflix, Adobe, Zuora, Luminate)
👉 Rebranding the rising organizations of the future (Braze, Salesloft, Launch Darkly, Tray.io, Kion, Tango)
👉 We've seen 18 clients achieve unicorn status post-rebrand
👉 We've seen our clients raise $5.1B in capital post-rebrand
👉 We've become Workhuman Certified for an exceptional work environment  
👉 Authored a book: Conquer Your Rebrand

Learn more about me and what our team is building:

B2B Branding for growth-stage companies  →  www.focuslab.agency
B2B Branding for early-stage companies  →  www.odibrand.agency

I'm an open book. Shoot me a message, let's chat.

Humankind. Be both.

Partner, Chief Executive Officer

Bill Kenney

Brand alignment comes from structural alignment. 

Built from the bottom up👇

Brand alignment isn’t a one-time initiative.

It's not a logo and a tagline.

It’s a larger system at play.

𝗧𝗟'𝗗𝗥

• Purpose gives you direction.
• Strategy gives you focus.
• Identity gives you recognition.
• Activation gives you consistency.
• Reputation gives you trust.

---

✅ 𝗣𝗨𝗥𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗘: Why do you exist? Dig for the belief that drives your business beyond features?  Everything in your business spawns and rallies around this point.

Canva – Clear belief in creativity for all and a purpose anchored in removing barriers to design.


✅ 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗚𝗬: How will you win? Build your strategy around crystal-clear positioning, audience, and differentiation. Without it, alignment suffers no matter how sexy your visuals are.

HubSpot – Singular focus on Inbound and a strategy anchored in earning attention, not demanding it.


✅ 𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗬: How do you look and sound? Your visual and verbal system turns strategy into something people recognize. This is where clarity becomes tangible.

Gusto – Cheerful color palette, people-first voice, and light-hearted animations that convey care and optimism.


✅ 𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡: How do you show up across all channels collectively? Website, campaigns, content, and culture. This is where consistency is proven or lost and has profound implications on trust.

Liquid Death – Flawless activation of irreverent tone, consistent humor, and new campaigns all point back to their identity, strategy, and purpose.


✅ 𝗥𝗘𝗣𝗨𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡: What do customers say about your business behind your back? Reputation is the compounding result of alignment over time. The proof that everything is in alignment. Earned slowly and lost quickly, reputation turns alignment into credibility and credibility into trust.

Shopify – Empowerment of entrepreneurs. Reputation for dependability, partnership, and platform strength.

---

If your brand, product, and people are out of alignment.

This is your playbook. 🫵

#b2bbranding #brandingagency

Author of Conquer Your Rebrand / CEO of Focus Lab

"Can our logo just be our name?"

Yes! Often, it's a great option. 👇👇👇

With 600+ partnerships under our belt, we've navigated this topic a ton. 

Most people believe a logo is a separate "shape" that pairs with the company name.

We've all come to expect this.

What most don't realize is that there's another option.

A name-only logo, called a Wordmark. 

It's a proven solution used by the biggest brands... 

💰 Coca-Cola
💰 FedEx
💰 Disney

𝗔 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲-𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗼 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗶𝗳:

✅ 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻: If your name is memorable, ownable, and not overly descriptive, you don’t need a symbol to prop it up.

✅ 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀: If recognition and recall matter more than visual metaphor, a workmark immediately removes friction.

✅ 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺: Wordmarks can scale well across product, digital, motion, and brand extensions without needing a secondary mark to “travel with them.” This point is underated.

✅ 𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: Trademarking a wordmark is often faster and less complex than defending a symbol. Nearly every shape has been made at this point. 

✅ 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: Some letterforms lend themselves to creative solutions more than others. Braze, for example, with their Z, offered up unique opportunities. 

----------------------------------------------------
 
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻:
 
⚠️ 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗱𝗲𝗱: If your name blends in, a symbol can help differentiate where words alone cannot.
 
⚠️ 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴: The length of your name becomes problematic as a wordmark, the longer it gets. You can overcome this, but it's worth calling out as a hindrance. 
 
⚠️ 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸: I don't subscribe to this thinking, but understand why it's often thrown around. I.e. if you're an app or consumer good that would benefit from a small symbol to denote your brand. This can still be accomplished with a workmark, but it's worth pointing out as part of the potential cons list.

⚠️ 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗼: This is how I felt in the Focus Lab rebrand. It's not objective, but it's real. I could't get past the thought of not having a unique mark. Many founders feel this way FWIW. If you find yourself in this camp, you're not alone. This post is for you :)

Long live the wordmark. 

When done well, it's a powerhouse. 

Shout-out to our past partners Luminate, Salesloft, and Braze.

Hopefully this post helps you take the workmark leap! 

#b2bbranding

Eight years ago, we partnered with Marketo.

The work was ahead of its time 😍

Well before AI influence, and everyone's hunger to be bold.

It's wild to see this work nearly a decade later.

This outcome would still crush today.

The recipe was a perfect setup...

✅ A C-Suite ready to take a big swing
✅ A leadership team that was 1000% aligned and empowered
✅ A brand archetype that became very sticky across the project: Maverick 😎
✅ A CMO who trusted a small group of creatives (us, of course)

This was SUCCCCCCH a great project in our company history. 

It really set the stage for us to raise our B2B Branding flag.

It forged relationships that still thrive today. 

I'm forever grateful that Sarah Kennedy Ellis found our little agency and trusted us to go big. 🙏

Shoutout to all of the Marketo Mafia from back in the day. 

Long live team purple.

P.S. Then, to see the news of the Adobe acquisition on the heels of the launch. 🤯 Which meant it was happening during our efforts, unknown to us. What a wild journey to be a part of. 

#b2bbranding

Brand clarity = AEO TOF growth. 🫵 

The genie is out of the bottle 👇

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲/𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴?

❌ Ai doesn't know what to do with you ❌

❌ a.k.a You don't exist ❌

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱?

✅ Ai will surface you in the right moments ✅

✅ a.k.a you exist and can serve someone ✅

𝗦𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝘆:

💀 Get clear or else 💀

------------------------------------

This has always been the foundation of brand building. 

It's now front and center inside a massive market shift.

In 2023, I shared here how "one" lead found us through ChatGPT. 

I was shocked. It was our first experience with this new reality. 

Since then, our AEO TOF has been climbing like a rocket. 

In 2025, AEO moved into 3rd place for us. 🤯

Why? How?

1. The clarity of our offering 🎯 (Brand only)
2. The clarity of our brand position 🎯 (B2B Tech)
3. The clarity & consistency of our content 🎯 (Brand all day every day) 

That doesn't happen overnight. 

It happens through intentional business/brand decisions.

1️⃣ The decision to trim our services down to brand only. Saying goodbye to web development at year eight, while also avoiding oh so many fringe services along the way. The temptation is high, the risk is higher. 

2️⃣ The decision to niche to B2B at year nine. We needed to be know for something. AND, we needed to be able to win a category. B2B brand was our path to winning. We embraced it even when it wasn't "cool."  

3️⃣ The decision to focus on marketing as an essential motion in our agency. Agencies of our size rarely have a fulltime marketer on staff. We have two. We win by being unmissable. At Focus Lab step one of our flywheel is labeled "Presence." If future customers don't know exist, nothing else matters. So we show up, every day, in the same way, and on the same subjects. Turns out, AI loves that. So does everything else that matters to inbound. 

As we say at Focus Lab: Brand first, brand forever. 

✌️

#b2bbranding #brandagency

“They would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford

He was talking about branding. 👇

If you let customer input drive your rebrand, you’ll likely end up doing exactly that, building faster horses.

Incremental improvements. 
Safer language. 
A shinier version of what already exists.

You’ll meet expectations rather than redefine them.

This does not mean “ignore your customers.” 

Customer conversations matter. 
They’ll tell you what’s resonating. 
What’s broken. 
Why they chose you.

Customers are great inputs. 
But they don’t see the whole picture.

They don’t see the internal dynamics. 
The strategic pivots ahead.
The internal ambition yet hit the market.

They can only reflect your past and present. 
They cannot define your future.

That’s why at Focus Lab we use customer input intentionally.

❌ Not in bulk. 
🧠 In depth.

A small handful of conversations with the right people.

Add too many perspectives and your signal starts to blur.

The reality is:
Your strongest brand clarity comes from within the company, not outside it.

Your vision. 
Your conviction.
Your difference.

That’s where brands take root.

So when you’re rebranding, don’t optimize the horse.

Consider what comes after it. 

----

P.S. A photo of me in a cowboy hat felt right for this 🤠

#b2bbranding #brandagency

This is where the next battle for presence and inbound will be fought. Happy to see Focus Lab holding our ground. 👀

Lately, I've been sharing how influential AI search has become for us. 

I literally just posted about it yesterday, with our stats. 

We feel it on the front lines of our inbox every week.

Colin Knowles takes it a step further into why and how across our landscape. 

Thanks for the deep dive, Colin. 🫵

AI Strategy & Implementation for Creative Agencies | Synthetic Audience Research | Cloudflare Infrastructure

Your prospects are talking to AI before talking to you. If you're not part of the conversation, you're invisible. Feel that? 

I was in the kitchen at an agency recently and one of the founders asked "do you know about GEO?". "I do" — my background is web engineering, so GEO overlaps with making practical use of AI today. 

The night before, I'd been looking at their site, thinking about GEO, and had an idea for how to influence how AI talks about their business. 

But, this was just big talk, waxing lyrical in the kitchen, and I didn't have a way to show it in action. 

So I've built one.

It models what your customers ask ChatGPT, who gets recommended, and  why — which sources it's citing, who those sources mention, and where the gaps are. 

AI doesn't just know things. It pulls from specific sources. If a source cites your competitor but not you, you can learn from that.

The deck below focuses on Global Creative Agencies — three buyer profiles, 51 queries, 218 agencies.

No surprise: big consultancies dominate. Siegel+Gale, Landor, and Wolff Olins hold the top three spots, appearing in roughly a third of all responses. 

'Players By Customer' gets interesting. Walker Sands captures 100% of its mentions from a single profile: the mid-market marketing director. Accenture Song and AKQA are locked into enterprise. The Branx and Focus Lab only surface for startup founders. 

This is only three buyer types. Don't be surprised if you're not here. Your niche might be different. Each specialisation needs a different map. That's the whole point of audience-first measurement.

UK-specific version tomorrow. More industries to follow. And for practitioners: open source coming.

If you want one published for your industry comment below. 

And for deeper strategic analysis on your business, get me on my DM. 

Top 20

1. Siegel+Gale
2. Landor
3. Wolff Olins
4. Interbrand
5. Prophet
6. Pentagram
7. Walker Sands
8. VML
9. Lippincott
10. Accenture Song
11. Column Five
12. Ogilvy
13. The Branx
14. WPP
15. Focus Lab
16. Wieden + Kennedy 
17. Design Bridge and Partners
18. COLLINS
19. DesignStudio
20. Edelman

Honourable mentions (featuring in top 10 for one customer type): AKQA, Ironpaper, Clay – UI/UX Design Agency, MetaBrand, Matchstic, Igor Naming Agency, Ramotion, Red Antler

Audience-first AI Visibility: Global Creative Agencies

Startup Advisor | Investor | Board Member -- Narratives crafted. Pipelines built. Markets unlocked.

Crazy that AI is going to make brand the most important thing in the world.

Assume AI creates a Cambrian explosion of software products. More products than any buyer can possibly evaluate. Feature parity everywhere.

In markets like that, what does the customer do? They gravitate towards brands they recognize and trust. 

To me, a great brand is a fundamentally human thing: who you are, what you believe, your taste, your point of view, and the ability to make someone trust you. I suppose AI will at some point be able to create a world class brand, but right now it falls into the category of "uniquely human skills."

Act accordingly.

Generative AI nerd | Mission-driven storyteller | Content strategist | post-Techstars, post-Wharton

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The em dash is not an AI tell.

AI uses em dashes because it was trained on great writing — and great writing has always used em dashes. Treating the dash as suspect confuses the tool with the judgment behind it.

This is what happens when anxiety about new technology turns into pattern-hunting. Instead of reading for meaning, structure, and intent, we scan for surface signals. Punctuation becomes evidence. Style becomes guilt by association.

But writing doesn’t work that way. No punctuation mark is inherently sloppy. No sentence structure is inherently inhuman. What matters is whether the language is doing real work — advancing an idea, clarifying a relationship, earning the reader’s trust.

Blaming the em dash for bad AI writing is like blaming the hammer for a crooked shelf. The failure isn’t the tool. It’s the absence of care, taste, and craft.

Want to know how to actually spot AI slop? Read on, my friends: 
https://lnkd.in/eUFDWhJ4

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Bill Kenney

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