7d • Journal Entries
Cover Band
Lesson: Don’t pretend. Become it.
Living Louder Journal
Entry 12
There’s something that has always struck me as strange about being in a cover band.
It’s not really you.
That’s one way to look at it.
You’re playing someone else’s music. You’re stepping into someone else’s identity. You’re performing something that already exists, already defined, already accepted.
And that got me thinking about branding.
Branding is an odd thing.
Because what people see is not always what is actually there. They see what they want to see. They connect dots based on perception, not reality. And if you’re not careful, you start building something that looks right on the surface but doesn’t match what’s underneath.
As the song goes, “Who are you?” by The Who.
Well, I’ll tell you who you are.
You are what you act like.
Not what you say you are.
Not what you look like.
What you consistently do.
That’s been one of the biggest challenges I’ve seen throughout my career, especially working with businesses trying to position themselves in the market.
They try to be something they’re not.
Over and over again.
A company will say they offer a premium experience. White glove. High end. Elite service.
But when you actually interact with them, the experience doesn’t match.
The people don’t match.
The delivery doesn’t match.
And that’s where everything breaks.
Because branding is not colors. It’s not logos. It’s not words on a website.
It’s behavior.
I saw this constantly in the medical space, especially in aesthetics. Almost every practice wanted to be perceived as premium. Nobody wanted to be the discount brand. Everyone wanted to be the gold standard.
But wanting it doesn’t make it true.
If the staff doesn’t act that way, if the owner doesn’t embody that level of service, if the systems don’t support that experience, then it’s just a story.
And people can feel that immediately.
There’s a gap between what is promised and what is delivered.
And that gap destroys trust.
I’ve seen business owners try to fix this by rebranding.
New logo.
New colors.
New messaging.
A complete shift in how they present themselves.
Yesterday they were one thing, today they want to be something else entirely.
But here’s the problem.
Did anything actually change?
Most of the time, no.
The experience didn’t change.
The behavior didn’t change.
The culture didn’t change.
Only the appearance changed.
And that’s where things fall apart.
Because people don’t experience your logo.
They experience you.
They experience your team.
They experience how you show up, how you communicate, how you deliver.
That’s the brand.
And changing that is not easy.
It takes time.
It takes commitment.
It takes a complete shift in how the business operates from the inside out.
You can’t just go from blue to red overnight and expect people to accept it.
We see this all the time in sports when a team changes their name or their identity. Fans push back. Hard. Sometimes for years.
Why?
Because identity takes time to build.
And even more time to change.
People are conditioned.
They have a memory of what you were.
And it takes consistent action over time to replace that memory with something new.
That’s why I’ve always named my band after me.
Not because I’m trying to create something I’m not.
But because I already am the thing.
There’s no gap.
It’s me.
What you see is what you get.
And that’s the point.
Because when your identity is aligned with your actions, there’s nothing to maintain. There’s nothing to fake. There’s nothing to live up to.
You just show up.
And that’s enough.
The real challenge for most businesses is that they don’t understand what true change actually requires.
It’s not a marketing decision.
It’s a behavioral decision.
If you want to move from blue to red, you have to commit to red in every way.
How you speak.
How you deliver.
How you hire.
How you respond.
How you solve problems.
Everything.
And that’s hard.
Especially for smaller businesses where the owner is still the center of everything. Because now the owner has to change first.
Not the brand.
The person.
Upgrading your business is not about looking better.
It’s about becoming better.
There is no difference between perception and reality in delivery.
Because in the end, people only experience reality.
Major brands like Disney or Coca-Cola don’t just market an experience.
They deliver it.
Consistently.
Relentlessly.
Over time.
That’s why they are trusted.
That’s why they scale.
So when I think about this idea of being in a cover band, it comes back to something very simple.
Be careful trying to be something you’re not.
Because that identity will stick to you.
And it’s very hard to undo.
It’s better to be yourself.
And then build everything around that truth.
Interpretation
This entry gets to the core of identity in both business and personal life.
The metaphor of a cover band highlights a subtle but important distinction. Performing something versus being something. Many businesses operate as cover bands. They imitate the positioning of successful brands without actually changing the underlying behaviors required to support that positioning.
This creates a disconnect.
Customers are highly sensitive to inconsistency. When expectations are set at a certain level but the experience falls short, trust erodes quickly.
True branding is operational, not visual.
It is the sum of behaviors, decisions, and interactions over time. Changing a brand therefore requires a fundamental shift in how the business operates, not just how it presents itself.
The insight about naming your band after yourself reflects alignment. When identity and behavior match, there is no need to maintain a facade. This reduces friction and increases authenticity.
The broader implication is that transformation must begin internally. External changes without internal alignment create instability and confusion.
Lessons From This Entry
Branding without behavior is illusion.
Customers experience actions, not promises.
Identity changes require operational commitment.
Imitation creates inconsistency.
Authenticity is easier to sustain than performance.
📩 Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work: https://mattcoffy.substack.com/
0
0 comments
Cover Band
skool.com/profitengines
Expert Level Digital Marketing, AI Focused Strategy and Business Consulting.
Powered by