We spent some time recently with Patrick Hanlon talking about Primal Branding. Having that deep assessment of who you are as a brand can inform and even drive everything you do. I think we reached the conclusion that spending time to deeply understand and define your brand is important, whether you are a content creator or have products and services to sell. The topic of branding is quite intriguing to me. When it’s done right, the brand is memorable, if not successful. So I wanted to continue the conversation, but add some different perspective to it. Rick Ray is the co-founding partner of brandstory. It is a brand marketing consulting firm currently based in Italy, though Rick has worked on both sides of the Atlantic over the years. Rick’s experience is leading big agency brand efforts globally, but he’s spent the last 19 years helping companies define their brand story. Rick’s general philosophy is that success comes from standing out. Brands need to tell a compelling story. That sounds similar to our conversation about Primal Branding recently, doesn’t it. That’s because it is. Rick’s spin, though, often starts with HR so you’re hiring people who buy into that story.  His firm digs deep into an organization to find the untold, unheard, unknown and sometimes untellable stories that surprise and delight, move emotions and what he says, “Liberates people power.” As you might imagine, the same process can apply to creators and personal brands, too.  But for you brand-side marketers out there, how can you brand story inform the creators and influencers you choose to work with? We’ll find out more from Rick on Winfluence. As always, this episode of Winfluence is presented by CIPIO.ai. Let us scale your user-generated content needs and deliver authentic, high-performing UGC to fuel your paid, owned and earned content strategies. Learn more at CIPIO.ai. But we want to take a moment to tell you about a new sponsor of the Marketing Podcast Network. Support for all the shows on MPN, including Winfluence, is provided by ActiveCampaign. It is a powerful marketing automation platform that can help you to increase your sales, improve your customer service, and build stronger relationships with your customers. ActiveCampaign has over 10,000 five-star review on G2 from happy users.  For a limited time, ActiveCampaign is offering our listeners a chance to double your contacts for free when you sign up at activecampaign.com/activate. That means if your email list has 10,000 contacts, you only need to pay for 5,000. Or, you can pay for the 10,000 and get an extra 10,000 totally free.  Go to activecampaign.com/activate to sign up today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices