This Series:
Part 1 (Intro) | Part 2 (Hire Strange Renegades) | Part 3 (Build Craftsmen) | Part 4 (Create Artisan Products) | Part 5 (Earn Raving Fans) | Part 6 (Forge an Inimitable Brand)
There is this little coffee shop near my house that has been around for 25 years.
It has a great location in our downtown area, roasts their own beans, and has sourced their coffee from the same farms in Central America for decades. The beans are so great that they have a thriving second business providing other local coffee houses around Metro-Atlanta roasted coffee beans. And while they don't have a national brand like Starbucks, they do have brand customers trust.
A brand built over 25 years by consistently doing good work. Day in and day out.
And that kind of sustained discipline over time is a lot like what we try to do over here at risk3sixty.
An inimitable brand isn’t about being flashy. We aren't talking about press releases announcing our latest round of funding or billboards at the airport. Heck, it's not about being known much at all.
For us an inimitable brand means that those people who know us - trust risk3sixty.
It’s the reputation you earn when customers, partners, and peers know what to expect from you - not because of what you say, but because of what you consistently do. It’s how people describe you when you’re not in the room.
That kind of brand can’t be copied. Competitors can replicate services, messaging, and even products - but they can’t replicate years of lived behavior, culture, and earned credibility.
An inimitable brand is the visible outcome of invisible work done well, over a long period of time, forever.
When you are trying to grow a business, like risk3sixty, there is a lot of temptation to turn every interaction into a potential sales opportunity. It's not that you want to push a product on anyone - it's just that you are excited by opportunities to work with people. So when someone brings you a problem your first instinct can be "I can help with that!"
People do not want sales pitches. They do not want every interaction to turn into a transaction.
So, we have tried to channel our energy to help folks into what has become one our most defining principles behind our brand: Give first.
Our philosophy is that if you give first, then it turns out that some people may choose to do business with you.
We believe the best way to earn trust is to provide value without expectation. That mindset shapes how we show up in the industry and how we engage with the community around us. We try to lead with insight, experience, and a genuine desire to help.
It's kind of a heart posture thing that we hope people feel when they interact with us.
That's why over the years we have created thousands of free videos, dozens of whitepapers, free courses, free templates, written a best selling book, a kids book, sponsored conferences, and spoken at hundreds of events.
It isn’t some sort of genius marketing strategy. I mean, of course we hope to earn business from time to time, but it is also an authentic reflection of our desire to build meaningful relationships. We just enjoy the opportunity to teach, to give back, and to try to do good for the community. We enjoy that people trust risk3sixty.
We’ve learned that when you focus on helping first, a few good relationships form naturally. Some turn into customers. Many turn into advocates. And at a minimum we hope that people respect the effort.
One of the areas our “give first” mentality shows up most clearly in our thought leadership. Over the years, we’ve invested heavily in creating educational content. It is a way for us to slow down and think through problems, to give our team an opportunity to shine, and contribute to the broader security and GRC community.
That includes:
We try to avoid creating content that is to salesy or pushes a transaction. Instead we focus on trying to add real value by creating things that are insightful or just helps people do their jobs better.
People have viewed, clicked, and downloaded our content more than 10 million times.
That's pretty cool for niche security and GRC content and it is one of the reasons security and GRC professionals have come to trust risk3sixty.
Risk3sixty did not forge its brand quickly.
Because we’re a bootstrapped company, we’ve never had the luxury of pouring millions of dollars into marketing to get attention. Historically, we have never paid for press, we have never head huge booths at conferences, and never spend millions of dollars on ad campaigns.
We have earned our media (never paid for it). And any eyeballs we have received is purely because people found our content useful.
Our brand is largely the result of ten years of showing up, doing the right thing, and earning trust one engagement at a time.
Over time, those decisions compound into reputation. And reputation becomes brand.
Harvard professor Michael Porter says that all competitive advantages are temporary.
Over time competitors can copy what you sell. They can copy how you market. They can even copy how you talk.
But what they can’t copy is your history.
They can’t copy the trust risk3sixty has earned over a decade. They can’t copy a culture built around craftsmanship, feedback, and doing the right thing. They can’t copy the credibility that comes from consistently delivering for customers.
That’s why an inimitable brand is so powerful - and so rare.
Because it is slow and methodical.
Warren Buffet gave a great talk where he says that a lot of wins come not from individual moments of heroic effort, but rather from from sheer staying power. Just doing something right for a decade or two without quitting. And those wins compound over time to create something special.
And I think both Michael Porter and Warren Buffet are right.
Most of the best things we have ever done are due to a decade of great people, doing great work, creating thoughtful products, relentless focus on customer experience, and a willingness to give first.
Brand is trust. Trust is is your history. Your history can't be copied.
Momentum doesn’t come from big moves. It comes from consistent ones.
That’s how an inimitable brand is earned.
That's how our flywheel turns.