![Transparency in B2B Branding with Focus Lab’s Bill Kenney [Video]](https://i1.wp.com/learn.g2.com/hubfs/G2CM_FI1124_Learn_Article_Images-%5BProfessional_Spotlight_Bill_Kenney%5D_V2a.png?w=1480&resize=1480,800&ssl=1 "Transparency in B2B Branding with Focus Lab’s Bill Kenney [Video]")
If people can’t trust you, then what’s the point?
You might be thinking, “Duh,” but it’s easier said than done. Authenticity can be very challenging for B2B companies that don’t get as much customer-facing time as others. So, how do you establish that trust? How important is it, really?
Bill Kenney, the CEO of Focus Lab, believes that trust directly determines a company’s success. Trust begins before a customer has even heard of a company and continues far beyond a signed contract. Ever wanted to skip out on putting authenticity first? Bill wants to warn you of the consequences.
As the latest in our Industry Insights series, I chatted with Bill to discuss his journey to leading Focus Lab, how trust impacts B2B branding, and what the future of transparency looks like with the rise of AI.
To watch the full interview, check out the video below:
Warm-up questions
What’s your favorite beverage? This is not even going to sound all that interesting. My preface is that I’m not a coffee drinker but slowly becoming a version of one. My new favorite is just a simple iced decaf Americano. I’m not a big caffeine person. It makes me all jittery.
What was your first job? I mowed the graveyard in my little town. My mom was the town clerk and could get me town jobs, and she got me the mowing duties in the graveyard. I didn’t do that for very long, I think three weeks. Then I was like, “Oh, this is creepy and weird, and I don’t really love it.” But, hey, you gotta start somewhere.
What are some of your best time management hacks? I’ve become a big-time blocker later in my career. That’s not who I was initially. But now I block my Google Calendar religiously. I just put my Asana tasks on my Google calendar as individual tasks and color-code them. The color coding is really helpful for me because I color-code all my meetings red. Red, for me, means it’s going to discharge my battery. And then things that would charge me up are purple. So, even without seeing what all the little micro time blocks are, I’m able to get a scale of my week, and that’s actually quite helpful.
What’s your favorite software in your current tech stack? I’ve evolved from designer to business owner. So, my software usage now is pretty boring. I think the team is using some pretty cool stuff, so I’ll call those out. The team is heavy in Figma. We use a lot of Loom for all of our deliverables at the end of the week. We obviously are in Slack but really, we are a creative team. So Figma now is everything.
Deep dives with Bill Kenney
You lead an established brand agency with Focus Lab, which aims to help B2B companies stand out. What were some key moments that led you to this point, and how did they shape your approach to branding?
My path to where I am now was very organic, but I’ll call out a couple of pivotal moments.
The first was when I decided to become an art major in college. I was a pretty poor student in general, even through high school and college. But when I became an art student, I loved it, and I thrived with straight As from that point. The pivotal moment there was when I started to take design classes. I transitioned from painting, drawing, and sculpture to actually sitting down at a computer. That intersection of technology and creativity for me was epic.
The second pivotal moment was when I took one of my first jobs out of college, which had nothing to do with design. I was working for a woman who ran a vacation rental company, and that was pre-AirBnB. I had to answer phones and help people find the house they were looking to rent. She realized I could design, and I started to design for her and then for all of her business friends. That’s when I realized I could make money doing this.
So, first, I fell in love with it, and then I realized this could become a thing. I also ended up meeting my business partner, and we made a run at it. But without those other two moments, I don’t know how I ended up here, quite honestly.
You mentioned that trust is a major pain point for many B2B companies. How do you see branding playing a role in building trust with customers, and why is it such a critical factor in today’s market?
It feels like a dramatic statement, but trust is everything in any type of relationship.
So then you ask the question: how do we build trust? Well, we promise a service and deliver it. But how do you build trust even before that? How can somebody look at my company, Focus Lab, and trust that after paying us money, we will have delivered a solution that works for them and that they will be happy with? How can they find that brand trust?
If you’re going to a strip mall and you’re looking for a food place, and there’s like a really beautiful looking restaurant, and then a really torn down looking another, you’re probably not going to trust that the second one can give you good food. So, this idea of a brand looking a certain way, speaking a certain way, and acting a certain way is to create trust.
Now, you still have to deliver on the promise. That’s where the trust is solidified.
For B2B companies that are just starting to build their brand, what’s your advice on the best ways to establish trust early on?
First and foremost, you have to be genuine and authentic. You can’t just come out in a business suit and say, “Hey, I’m a big businessman.” You have to own who you actually are. Even when people have faults, if they are real, genuine, and authentic about themselves, we still trust them, right?
Brands are the same. Brands have to be genuine. You can’t just project a reality that’s not you because people will sniff it out. You’re eroding their trust already. So just be genuine. And I say that first because I think it’s the easiest thing to do.
Second, you have to be really consistent. If you’re going to say a certain thing, you need to follow through with it. Do that consistently because, again, people’s radars are up. They’re looking for a crack. If you say things on your website but out at a conference or on social platforms, you say differently, that’s a crack. It is a tall task, but consistency and authenticity are the core of starting to build that reputation.
Back to the strip mall example. What if my initial perception of that bad-looking restaurant is accurate, but one of my friends says it’s the best place they ever ate? There you go. It doesn’t matter. I will go eat there now. So that would be another thing to rely on early to boost what you are not able to achieve on your own.
On the flip side, what are some common branding missteps that can ruin trust, and how can companies recover from those mistakes?
Two things erode trust. One is more tactical, more product-focused, which is the fact that the thing you sold doesn’t do what you said it would. It would get people frustrated, and they’d feel like you lied, and then they detach. But I actually think that’s not as detrimental.
I think the long-term detrimental effect is giving people the feeling of being wronged.That’s when people feel like they have experienced something unfair. It’s the people factor that you have to really take special care of.
Imagine I call up a cable provider and they’re unwilling to help me with something that seems so small, and they just treat me like a number and not a human. That is eroding trust at the brand level as opposed to a miscommunication.
I’ll even speak for our company. Some projects are really challenging. Maybe we make a mistake. Maybe we didn’t follow through on something in the way that we should have. But if we care about the customer and own up to it, we can resolve all of that, and we can still end in a very happy state.
Just own it. I do feel like people can understand an error if you just own it. That’s all they’re looking for. It’s when companies don’t own it that you get a bad taste.
Every company has to own it in a different way. It’s very easy for us to own it at any moment because we can be very intimate with our clients in a one-to-one or small group setting. In a large enterprise company, it’s harder because there are more people in between. You still have to own it, though.
With the rise of AI and automation, have you noticed a shift in what B2B customers expect from brands when it comes to trust and transparency? How can companies evolve their branding strategies to meet these expectations?
B2B is a gentle relationship because these are big decisions. They’re generally long-term contracts. You’re kind of jumping in and getting married, and there’s not much dating that has happened. People’s radars are really up.
In the age of AI, the world is more nervous about what’s real. This will push us to be more real now as a brand. I think all that comes down to communication. It’s just good communication, though easier said than done. But that’s what people will continue to align more with, even when you think about content online now.
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I can tell when the comments on LinkedIn are not an AI bot responding but a person using AI to respond to what I said. It’s very clear. I don’t engage with that. It’s not real. Companies will have to be the same way. They have to be real so they can tout all the AI initiatives and features they’re baking into their product. They still need to put a human face forward. It can’t just be buttons, widgets, and features, right? It is still a people-to-people world. AI will just push the momentum of the need to be human even more. And honestly, I think that’s a good thing.
The AI capabilities that will be baked into nearly all of these B2B software companies are helping their products become more powerful for their customers, but they are not defining their brand.
At G2, we’re all about reviews. How do you see customer reviews and testimonials supporting a brand’s trust-building efforts, and how can companies integrate reviews into their overall branding strategy?
There would have been no way for me, before this interview, to create a testimonials page on our website that has 40+ testimonials on it or to have a YouTube channel that has videos of me interviewing clients and having them talk about us or have 27 G2 reviews at this point. I’ve already believed in this. I’m not just saying this. I’ve been building this up for years. I don’t know that there’s anything more powerful than a customer review. I think it’s that simple.
We go on to Amazon, and we all look at the reviews. Every single product I buy, no matter how epic it looks or how they tout themselves, I’m still checking the reviews. I go by most recent and if I can scroll the first 20 reviews and they’re all high stars, I feel pretty safe. If the most recent five in a row are one or two stars, something ain’t right.
I think we all understand that reviews mean a lot. And coming back to that example I made earlier, if someone tells you something is great, you just believe it so much more because you know they won’t steer you wrong. We don’t have the radar up on our friends. They have no secret agenda.
A company, on the other hand, does have an agenda. No matter how we want to feel about it, we all have an agenda, right? We’re trying to sell a thing, so reviews couldn’t be more paramount in my opinion.
Watch the full chat on YouTube and subscribe to G2 Tea, our SaaS-y newsletter with tech insights and tidbits from industry professionals like Bill!
Follow Bill Kenney on Linkedin to learn more about his journey with Focus Lab as they work to help B2B companies resonate with their customers and stand out as industry leaders.
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