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How to Brand Your Personal Partnership

Apply a standard business principle to make a lasting marriage.

By: Melissa Thoma   |   02/12/2010

Branding. That ubiquitous marketing buzzword. Every business wants a brand; many businesses invest heavily in developing, promoting and growing their brands. Martin and I have created a business devoted to building strong, magnetic brands. So it got me thinking: Is there anything in the discipline of branding that might benefit a relationship?

The more I explored the question, the more interesting it became. Many folks have told me that Martin and I are a unique couple. They point to our ability to work together successfully. They marvel that for years we shared an office, working across a partners’ desk. Even now, our offices are separated only by a sliding door that remains open but for the quietest conversations.

There are, after all, some rather famous couple brands. How about Brangelina? Those political Clintons? The ever-expanding Duggars?

In our brand strategy work, we help our clients identify and validate attributes that are unique, sustainable, competitive advantages. It’s hard work, but it yields the foundation for their brands.

The first filter is to determine and highlight what is unique about the product or service. For Martin and me, it is clearly our desire and ability to partner on so many levels. What is unique about your relationship? This is a fun question to ask over a glass of wine. When I think about this question, I also think about how Martin and I were very young when we married. I was 20; I could get married but not drink in a bar.

I also think about our courtship. We dated six weeks before we were engaged;10 days later, Martin flew to Southeast Asia, where he spent the next six months. Not every couple has this for their courtship story!

Having established those unique bits about your relationship, now ask yourself, “What is sustainable about our relationship?” This is a tougher question. When I look at how young we were when we married, I can hardly say this attribute is terribly sustainable. I recently learned that while half of marriages end in divorce, the success rate for couples wedding in their teens or early 20s dips even lower–to about 35 percent success.

Certainly the fact that we had a short courtship is not the sustaining thread that has brought us to our 26th anniversary.

But that impulse to partner, to work together closely in most areas of life–that, I would say, is definitely a key to our ability to sustain our marriage.

So now I’m left with one attribute that might “brand” my marriage. Will it pass the last test? Is it a competitive advantage? When we talk about products and services, we’re really talking about how desirable the brand is to the marketplace. Does the market really value this and will people purchase based on this attribute? So for the sake of our relationship discussion, I’ll put it this way: Is this something that other couples might value or desire to have in their own relationships?

Based on qualitative research (all the comments I’ve received over the years I’ve been in business and marriage with Martin), I’d have to say that this ability and desire to deeply partner is an advantage. As life and people develop, they can find themselves drifting apart toward disparate goals and aspirations.

Martin and I have, for better or for worse, been forced to stay in very close, focused alignment about our future. I remember a financial advisor telling us that we had a better chance of succeeding in a business partnership than most because the key to a successful business partnership is to hold the same future vision for the company. Since our future is always intrinsically linked, our chances of holding that marriage together are also greater, I believe.

So the Martin and Melissa brand might be summed up as a marriage in which we partner to bring about the best possible life for ourselves and our family; and we couldn’t do it as well without each other.

We even have a tagline. When we were engaged (those first 10 days before Martin flew away), we assured each other that we were going to have “A Sky Blue Life.” It was a literary reference to what we recall was a Guy de Maupassant story, though we cannot find it now. A Sky Blue Life is full of promise, has no limits and is mostly sunny. Sure it’s the work of a couple of starry-eyed 20-year-olds. But I still love the ideal, and it suits us perfectly, even today.

So what’s your relationship brand? Try your own brand-definition project using our unique, sustainable, competitive advantage filter.

Uncovering the brand within is always affirming and energizing for a business leadership team. The same can be true for you and your partner. What a beautiful Valentine’s Day gift to give to one another. Over those chocolates, explore the foundations of your personal relationship brand. It really will make for a Happy Valentine’s Day.