The 3 Branding Mistakes That Stop Product Growth | Jim Macleod

LifeSci Continuum with Bill Schick

Find out how a Fractional CMO can get the right questions answered from the right audience. https://meshagency.com/fcmo-fractional-cmo-fractional-marketing/
- Connect with Bill https://www.linkedin.com/in/founderandcdo/
Jim MacLeod Designer-turned-marketer, brand systems builder, and author of The Visual Marketer—a field guide that translates design fundamentals for marketers and founders.
- Connect with Jim MacLeod: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmacleod/
- Jim’s Book: https://book.jimmacleod.com/
Struggling to make great tech look inevitable? Bring in MESH as your fractional CMO to turn brand, web, and product storytelling into qualified pipeline.
Designer-turned-full-stack marketer Jim MacLeod breaks down why “good enough” visuals stall growth, how he led a 90-day rebrand without losing brand equity, and the small design choices that decide whether your product gets tried…or ignored.
00:00 Intro — brand fragmentation & growth roadblocks
01:12 Meet Jim Macleod — design, marketing & brand systems
04:17 Case study — 90-day rebrand under Apple-style deadlines
08:27 Why keep the purple? Modernizing without losing equity
12:25 Outdated design vs. innovative tech — fixing the disconnect
16:08 Sales decks & storytelling — shaping the brand narrative
18:10 Customer support as brand — protecting what matters in acquisitions
20:32 Bridging design & marketing — lessons from The Visual Marketer
25:00 Three essentials founders can’t DIY: logo, colors, consistency
31:00 Why first impressions matter — design as trust and credibility
35:09 Trade shows & booth design — why presentation drives traffic
39:10 When to invest in brand — moving beyond referrals
42:12 Copy vs. design — which comes first, and why both matter
45:57 Final thoughts, book link & wrap-up
Founders swear “the tech sells itself.” Buyers don’t. In this episode, Jim MacLeod shows how small visual decisions snowball into trust, attention, and adoption. He walks us through a compressed 90-day rebrand, explaining why his team kept the legacy color (because the market already mapped it to credibility) while modernizing everything around it.
Brand Swagger: Jim’s 3 No-BS Design Wins
- 1) Codify your visual system—once.
Stop “designing from scratch” every asset. Build a one-page brand kit that nails your type hierarchy, color roles, spacing grid, icon style, motion rules, and image treatment (e.g., duotone, depth, lighting). Turn those into tokens in your CMS/Slide master so the choices are baked in. Result: faster production, fewer off-brand detours, and a look that’s unmistakably you across web, decks, UI, and booths.
- 2) Color with intent, not taste.
Pick an ownable anchor color (distinct in your category), pair it with two neutrals for clinical credibility, and reserve one accent for calls-to-action and data highlights. Pressure test it in the wild: accessibility contrast, print vs. screen, scrubs/OR lighting, tradeshow LEDs, and dark mode. If it fails anywhere your buyers live, it’s not your color system—it’s a liability.
- 3) Design the first impression you can’t afford to miss.
Prioritize the touchpoints that actually sell: homepage hero, product shell/packaging, sales deck front half, and 10×10 tradeshow booth. Make them story-led (problem → outcome → proof), ruthless on clarity (one idea per screen), and visually scannable at six feet. Then measure like a grown-up: booth dwell time, deck completion rate, hero click-through, and demo requests tied to those assets. If it doesn’t move pipeline, it’s just decoration.
For more specialized help with growth, check out my firm, Mesh.
https://meshagency.com/
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