As the founder of Wildstory, Marc Gutman is dedicated to building powerful brands by crafting differentiated customer experiences that create delight and encourage people to après.Before Marc founded Wildstory, he wrote for a little-known (okay, well-known) guy named Oliver Stone and propelled Chris Rock to animation folklore on Osmosis Jones, the story of a white blood cell with a mission to stop a deadly virus from killing its human host.No, not the virus you're thinking of, this was back in 2001!Join Marc as he shared the secrets of creating the right story for your company to elevate your brand and identify your customers as heroes.

In the rush to lead with purpose, many leaders are forgetting that businesses are about solving problems for customers. Now, this isn’t to say “why” and purpose are not important. On the contrary, they are extremely important and a key building block for a successful business that endures over time. But a lot has changed in the almost 11 years since Simon Sinek blew our minds with “Start with Why”.

Wildstory Brands are not like other brands. They have that “it” factor. They don’t sell products but rather they enroll customers into their world view. If you’re up for the challenge and ready to do the work then keep reading, because this is how you become a Wildstory Brand.

A manifesto is a way to state your purpose, goals, and what you stand for. It does all the heavy lifting for you by explaining why you exist to ignite the brand fire in your customers’ bones. It also answers crucial customer questions like, why do you exist? Why should I care? Why should I buy your product?"

What is brand and branding? Read this indepth article from Colorado branding agency founder Marc Gutman and learn why businesses must focus on branding now.

The new normal is meeting virtually - the impression you make on video has a real impact on how your brand is perceived. Make the right impression with these 6 tips.

Join Wildstory founder and chief strategist Marc Gutman as he hosts a one hour webinar on Manifestos: A Marketer’s Secret Weapon.

Are you looking to name or rename your brand or company? Wildstory has named 100s of brands and shares their proven naming process in this article.

Helping businesses find purpose and meaning in their businesses was what was lighting me up. And helping to answer the question, “How do we grow without losing our soul?” It’s a challenging task when you are trying to have a purpose but turn a profit. Most of the businesses we work with are not “.org”s, so making money is paramount to their survival as well.

Practicing empathy, allows us to put ourselves in others shoes and really understand what they may be going through. Whether you’re an individual, start-up, nationwide brand, or global powerhouse everyone is going through the same cycle.It is important to understand what our employees and customers are going through and will be going through as a result of this pandemic. This will allow us to build strategies and communicate in a way that is both empathetic and effective.

If “everyone” owns culture, then no one owns culture. And if no one owns culture this is where the problems arise. Learn how to fix this in your company.

This article is an overview of the myriad of different reasons why a brand may be losing sales, and what you can do about them sooner rather than later.

Diary of a Doer Episode 011: How Your Stories Sell, and Why You’ve Got to Tell Them with Marc Gutman - Wildstory

What is a Brand Story? Does your brand have one? Find out how to infuse meaning, purpose, and product into every element of your brand story and customer experience in this Warby Parker review by WILDSTORY founder Marc Gutman.

In this series of Brand Exploration articles Marc Gutman unpacks a brand's identity, how customers experience a brands story, and ways to tell a more cohesive brand story.

Recently I was able to sit down with an incredible entrepreneur and owner of JavaPresse Coffee, Raj Jana, for his "Stay Grounded" Podcast. What I loved most was that we didn't discuss the normal story stuff.Raj's podcast is focussed on happiness and what it takes to be happy. I would never claim to be an expert when it comes to happiness. Heck, I struggle most days to remember that I am happy. But this interview reminded me of what does make me happy and what I do to regain alignment with happiness.I'm not sure of the title "Walking Away from Millions" as I'm not claiming I ever walked away from millions but hey, the podcast has to sell tickets -- and everything else is spot on.I do share my story in a way that I haven't before and some of the things I do in my morning routine as well as what I do in the pursuit of happiness.

The Main Reason Stories Fall Flat … and What You Can Do About ItStand-up Comic Turned CopywriterKevin Rogers is a guy that gets Story. As a stand-up comic turned copywriter, he has worked with some of the most successful marketers in the world and now focuses his efforts on connecting business owners with copywriters through his company Copy Chief.I had the privilege of being interviewed by Kevin on his Podcast The Truth About Marketing where we exchanged notes about our separate Hollywood journeys, as well as going deep on some story writing and storytelling tactics. We start sharing about my time as a story editor in Hollywood with Disney and Oliver Stone.While this may sound like a dream job with endless perks, keep in mind the biggest moment up until that time was when they gave me an LL Bean tote bag to carry around the 20 scripts I had to read every week before defending the most production-worthy stories to Oliver Stone’s team.

An interview with my friend Rent about about how my adventures and storytelling from Hollywood has helped me bring success to my clients.

“Are you beige or are you someone or a company I can some of myself in? Is this for me?” That is the first, subconscious question your customers and prospects are trying to answer in the moment it takes to draw in a breath. It’s the question we all try to answer for just about everything in our lives. The simple fact is that people across this globe want something to believe in. Brett Michaels was right about that for sure! Look at our thirst for sports in this country. We want, no we need to believe in something. The Detroit Lions (I’m afflicted), the UM Wolverines, and whatever your favorite team is. We need to be in a stadium of 70,000 other people who believe in what we believe. It inherently feels right -- because it’s a basic human need... [...]Read More...

A common mistake is to assume everything is a story. A story is a series of episodic, influential, connected events that changes a person’s life. More simply put, a story is a journey. And a journey has conflict and energy and obstacles and stakes and things that create a struggle between the dynamic positive and negative changes of life! We will break down this definition in a later post but let’s assume for the sake of our discussion here this definition is in deed accurate. The key point to understand here is that a story revolves around change. Positive change and negative change. If there’s no change, there’s no story. [...]Read More...