Setting the Scene

Most B2B leaders can talk for hours about products, features, and technical details. But ask a simple question like “If your brand were a car, what kind of car would it be?” and something deeper comes to the surface: personality, values, priorities, and how prepared you really are for a market that doesn’t always offer a smooth highway.

In this episode, Lana uses this car analogy to open up conversations about brand strategy with B2B tech and manufacturing companies. Her message is clear: in a world of constant change, your brand has to be more than a polished logo. It must behave like a well-prepared vehicle that can keep moving when the asphalt ends.

Meet the Guests

Host Matej is joined by co-host Paul and guest expert Lana Stojan Zavasnik, a brand architect and designer with more than 25 years of experience across consumer goods, manufacturing, and B2B tech. Lana has been a creative director, senior brand designer, marketing manager, and product manager, and today she helps small and medium B2B companies stop “burning money on marketing” and start building brands with structure, depth, and resilience.

To open the conversation, Matej asks both guests to pick a car for their own brand:

• Lana picks a Land Rover Defender – boxy, practical, with an exhaust pipe above the roof, built to keep going when there’s no road left. That’s how she sees a healthy brand: prepared for detours, curveballs, and rough terrain.

• Paul chooses a classic British MGB roadster, customised and intimate, designed for two people and a small suitcase. A brand, in his view, can be crafted like a beautiful one-off car that reflects a very personal design philosophy.

• Matej imagines an old Porsche made for slow coastal cruising: simple, elegant, not necessarily practical for every situation, but full of emotion and character.

From the very first answers, it becomes obvious: how you describe your “brand car” says a lot about how you see your business.

Key Takeaways

• Your brand is not your logo – it’s the feeling your customers have when they experience you across all touchpoints.

• In B2B, brand and founder personality are tightly intertwined; questions about daily habits and preferences can reveal essential brand DNA.

• B2B is still deeply human-to-human: relationships, trust, and long-term communication matter as much as product quality.

• Personalisation is no longer optional; it’s a strategic advantage in markets where products and technologies are increasingly similar.

• A simple yearly elevator-pitch ritual in front of the mirror can reveal whether your brand is evolving or stuck.

Watch the Full Conversation

Why This Episode Matters

Brand vs. Logo: A Common B2B Misconception

One of Lana’s recurring experiences with B2B clients is the belief that the brand equals the logo. She shares a story of a client proudly handing over a USB stick and saying, “Here is our brand strategy,” only to reveal a single JPEG file of a logo.

For Lana, this is the core misunderstanding:

• A Logo is a tool.
• A Brand is a feeling – a mosaic built from every touchpoint where people encounter your company.

In B2B, those touchpoints are numerous: website, trade fairs, social media, forums, customer service, and every single person who represents the company. A team of 30 where 20 people dislike their work will inevitably communicate that lack of enthusiasm, whatever the official messages might be.

The Founder as the Engine of the Brand

Lana mostly works with small and medium-sized B2B businesses where owners are also operational leaders. In these companies, the line between founder and brand is very thin. To access that deeper layer, Lana uses questions that initially sound unrelated to business:

• How do you like your coffee?
• What is your close-up routine when you finish office hours?

These details help her understand the founder’s rhythm, priorities, and emotional landscape. That information later informs everything from visual identity to communication style.

At the same time, Lana emphasises timing and consent. When she enters a company, she sees more than design issues: she notices structures, culture, and strategy gaps. But she will only go deeper into brand strategy when the founder is ready. Change is scary. Introspection is challenging. If there is too much resistance, she respects it instead of pushing.

B2B as Human-to-Human

The discussion then compares B2B and B2C. While B2C often works with anonymous customer avatars, B2B still benefits from genuine human relationships. A salesperson and a buyer might know each other for years, exchange holiday messages, and track each other’s life milestones.

For Lana, this paradox is important:

• We speak about business-to-business, but behind every decision there are people.
• A B2B buyer listens differently when buying for the company than when scrolling as a private consumer at home, but the same human brain and emotions are at work.

Paul highlights another layer: in sectors like automotive, products are more similar than ever in quality and price. Technologies spread quickly. Without real personalisation in product, communication, and sales, long-term differentiation becomes hard to sustain.

Lana agrees, but adds another paradox: younger generations visually blend together, dressing similarly to feel they belong, yet at the same time they are hungry to be addressed as individuals. To navigate this, a brand architect needs not only design skills but also applied psychology and basic neuroscience – understanding how people really make decisions and process information.

A Simple Annual Test for Your Brand

To close the episode, Matej asks Lana for one practical tip a B2B CEO can use immediately. Her “diamond” is simple:

Once a year, put a reminder in your calendar to stand in front of a mirror and say your elevator pitch out loud.

Record yourself if you want. Then compare year after year:

• If your pitch never changes, that’s a red flag – the world has shifted, your customers have evolved, and you probably have as well.

• If you hesitate or struggle to articulate what you do in that one-minute window, that’s another red flag.

The goal isn’t to reinvent your brand every year, but to stay aware. Markets move, you learn, your business matures. Your pitch should slowly reflect that evolution.

Ready to Level Up?

If you are a B2B CEO or founder, ask yourself:

• What kind of car would my brand be?
• Would it survive when the smooth road ends?
• Do our daily touchpoints reflect the feeling we want customers to have?

This episode is an invitation to look beyond visuals and campaigns and to treat your brand as an integrated system – one that connects business strategy, people, and long-term relationships.

Watch the full episode on YouTube, and consider using Lana’s yearly elevator-pitch test as a simple ritual to keep your brand honest and alive.

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