Every brand wants to stand out. But the real challenge is figuring out how to build trust and value in a way that feels authentic. Logos and taglines might grab attention, but how do you keep them in the conversation once you’ve hooked them in? If you’ve ever felt like your business is stuck hiding behind a pretty logo or a catchy tagline, you’re not alone. 

Branding isn’t just surface-level polish; it’s the soul-searching work of figuring out who you are, what you stand for, and how to share that story in a way people actually believe. It’s clarifying your story, aligning your team around it, and giving people a reason to believe in the work you do.

Branding Bootcamp: How to Build a Brand That Sells Itself with Becky Escott

Think of it less like a quick elevator pitch and more like a bootcamp for your business: tough at times, but designed to give you clarity, consistency, and the kind of confidence that earns trust. 

Today, our guest, Becky Escott, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at BKV Corporation, walks us through the core steps every entrepreneur needs to overhaul their brand and finally build something that feels real, aligned, and ready for growth. 

Throughout the conversation, Becky, Matt, and Ward discuss the importance of seeing the whole ecosystem behind the business and aligning internal and external communications. 

They also discuss why leaders must live and breathe their story in order for others to believe in the vision, too, and how to cultivate a company where your team is proud to work, where they become more like brand advocates and less like passive employees. 

Listen to the full conversation on Spotify - 

Becky Escott on Rethink Change 

When Becky Escott joined BKV, the company was operating under six different logos and struggled to define its identity. She saw the need for more than just a new logo. What they needed was a clear story. Through Strategic Guardrails, Becky and her team helped shape who BKV was, who they served, and where they were headed. 

The result? A launch that felt more like a celebration than a simple rollout, complete with a story-first brand toolkit and the “Back to Our Values” peer-to-peer campaign that gave employees a voice and turned them into advocates.

As BKV grew from a startup to a publicly traded company in under 10 years, the brand had to grow too. Becky maintained consistency in the message throughout the fast-paced IPO preparation and changing market conditions, ensuring the story remained credible, particularly when it came to creating a decarbonized energy future. Campaigns like “It’s on” and “Innovating the Invisible” made complex ideas simple and easy to connect with.

Now, with operations spanning upstream, midstream, carbon capture, and power, BKV’s brand remains strong and aligned. Becky’s journey shows that branding done right is not just about design. It is about building belief, creating pride, and setting the stage for lasting growth. 

So, how do you do that in a tangible way that everyone in your company can understand, rally behind, and carry out in their day-to-day work? How do you build trust and value through branding from the inside out?

How to Build Trust and Value by Leaning into Who You Are (and who you’re not)

For starters, you have to take an honest look at where your company stands today. If you’re feeling stuck on defining your values or your brand story, try asking yourself and your leadership team the following questions: 

• What is our story? 

• How do we want to share it? 

• Who is our target audience? 

• Why does this story matter to them?

• How do we communicate that vision?

Once you have clear language around these questions, you’re able to truly define your vision, mission, and values that go beyond a quick elevator pitch. By having clear language and actionable steps, you can stress-test your vision, audience, and actions until your story feels aligned and believable internally and externally. 

Of course, that process can feel uncomfortable. Guardrails require honesty about where you’ve been and where you want to go, but that honesty is also what creates breakthroughs. Just take BKV as an example.

As Becky shared, “Two long days of the leadership team and me sitting down and putting pen to whiteboard on who we are and where we headed allowed us to build a story of who we are and figure out how we wanted to talk about ourselves. [It became] natural from there on out, [because] once you know what you're trying to say and who you're trying to say it to. 

Sometimes the easiest way to figure out who you are is to start by deciding who you’re not. As Becky explained, the guardrails process “also identifies who you aren’t and where you don’t want to go. And that’s a real difference maker.”

This kind of clarity gives your team the confidence to move forward with focus, and it gives your audience a brand they can trust and believe in.