We recently connected with Bryan Mann-Entzel and have shared our conversation below.

Bryan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

This is an interesting question for us because of our approach to our work. At >Greater Thought, as you can tell from our name, we have a focus on providing impact, or as our tagline frames it up, Creating Mindful Marketing. We look for meaningful ways to help our work have an impact for our clients and the communities they serve.

We do that through a mix of different ways, starting with asking our clients to think about what it is they need and want most out of the work. What goals do they have for the work and what would success look like. The work we do should be rooted in solving problems and helping drive toward these goals. If you set off to create something but aren’t rooted in these basic ideas, it likely won’t connect. We want our work to not only look good, and sound good but to be functional. It should work hard and serve the needs of the company, brand, and team.

Some of the more meaningful work we’ve done from a purpose-driven stand point would be web and branding projects for some of our nonprofit clients. As is the case at most nonprofits – needs exceed resources and when we have done work for Scleroderma Warriors, Bethel Lutheran and PhaseTwoCebu (to name a few), we’ve helped tell their stories, align tools and create better visibility – which creates more opportunities for people to engage with them. Seeing the things we’ve built starting to create success for them is really the best thanks we can ask for.

A few other examples would be brand positioning and storytelling that we’ve done for clients like EcoStrong, Homestead Honey, Midwestern BioAg and Presbyterian Homes. These projects all share the notion of getting their story out there. The right tone-of-voice, the right ‘feel’ to the brand or campaign, and the right approach has created a lift for these clients. We get gratification of seeing the work out in the wild, and seeing it start to get traction. But hearing from our clients that it is working, and they are having success is really what is meaningful.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My background spans more than 25 years, and covers a broad range of disciplines. Many people feel that you should specialize in a given area of design, but I have found that the design principles that I learned can be broadly applied to most problems. I have worked in academia, agency settings, and in-house corporate teams. My work spans working as a freelancer, an employee and an owner… and covers everything from product development, design, illustration, consumer packaging (CPG), campaign development, brand development, brand storytelling, brand experience/branded interiors and tradeshow, promotional marketing, content development, search marketing, digital marketing, UI/UX and web experience.

I don’t feel the pull to specialize because solving design challenges should always be a mix of what you already know and mastered, and learning something new as a means of expanding your knowledge and understanding. If we believe we have learned everything there is to know in our given industry, we are closing ourselves off to the notion of evolving with the times. You are effectively setting your own expiration if you aren’t always learning and growing.

I found my way into this industry in college, where I was asked to take over the student publications office after the existing teams fizzled and fell apart, thereby putting their publications and contracts in jeopardy. I had never done anything like this but I guess my ability to lead was identified very early on. After that, my career has been a series of similar opportunities, with places like Best Buy, Baker – a consumer packaging design firm, and others. My opportunities to advance, or step up, were never a given, I had to prove myself before being made official but it was these opportunities to show my ability to think differently, to be organized and curious that have made my work stand out.

The work we do now, at >Greater Thought, revolves heavily around finding clear space for our clients, to carve out what makes them unique. We focus more on defining their uniqueness, instead of chasing their nearest competitors. This approach has served me and us well and creates a more ownable end product. Make your competition chase you!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

When I think about what drives our creative work, and where I personally draw inspiration from, it is ‘to be different’. To find a distinctive way to represent the work for the people we work with. I take stock of what exists. The equity if it is an existing brand. What story does it tell? What can we amplify to make it stronger and more distinctive?

I worked on a ‘blue-sky’ project for Duracell nearly 10 years ago, and in the assignment, we were to help them find new and better ways of positioning their products. We looked at different packaging shapes and structures, different functions in the packaging, and different materials. What I arrived at in this particular journey was, that batteries were hard to get into. You had to destroy the package with a breadknife or scissors to get into it, leading to jagged edges and a storage problem after that. The concepts that the team developed solved for the storage solution, focused on creating a better brand billboard, and better, more eco-friendly materials. In the end, Duracell combined two concepts, staying very close to the original vision, and brought that to market. One of the other recommendations was for them to focus on clarifying their brand equity. The category was very busy. Go the other way… simplify and make the other brands chase you. You have to be willing to be bold and to challenge convention. I continue to learn this lesson over and over.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Our best source of new clients has been existing clients. Word of mouth, and direct experience are two areas that we speak about with our clients, and we live by that when we are working with someone. People remember how you treat them, and what we are selling beyond design thinking is a relationship. People want to like or at least respect who they are doing business with.

My team works very hard to maintain a very high-touch experience even with smaller clients. Scaling that can be challenging but we try to provide the same level of expertise and professionalism that a corporate client would get, to a start-up and anyone in between. We can make even a brand-new business look established, and we can tell a story through our work. It just has to be worked through properly so that the end product makes sense for the reader and the client alike.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://greater-thought.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greaterthought.mn/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greaterthought.mn/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/greaterthought/