Langford: Three coaching points to improve your brand

Photo: A graphic highlighting Palomar College’s Regional qualifiers.

Editor’s Note: This article appeared in WIN’s Volume 32 Issue 4, which printed Dec. 19, 2025. 

By Quantal Langford

For people who don’t know me, along with running Langfordesign and building a digital media and creative studio, I also coach wrestling at Palomar College, a junior college here in the San Diego area. Coaching wrestlers — like many of you know — is a game of development. You spend years helping student-athletes grow, hoping they eventually reach their own goals and potential.

And the more I coach, the more I see the same patterns show up when I’m working with clients on their branding and marketing. Coaching and branding both take time, intentionality and a willingness to evolve.

Here are three coaching points that translate directly into brand building.

1. Patience: Are you in this for the long run?

Just like building a solid program, building a strong brand does not happen overnight. It is a long-term process — consistent nurturing, refining and adjusting.

Your visual identity should grow with your brand. Sometimes that means adding new elements, tweaking or refreshing your logotype, evolving your color palette, or updating your messaging. As that happens, your brand awareness spreads through your supporters, fans, alumni and community.

But you have to be patient. Keep nurturing. Keep evolving. The long game always pays off.

2. Culture: When the culture is strong, the identity reveals itself

With any team or organization, culture drives everything. Are you empowering the people inside your group, or holding them back? Coaching means bringing athletes from different backgrounds under one vision. We share philosophy, concepts, technique — but at the core, our culture is family. Our men’s and women’s teams train together, support each other and many eventually become coaches themselves. If I am running clinics or open mats, I usually have a few wrestlers with me, passing on whatever knowledge they have.

We are trying to nurture an environment that helps everyone grow.

Your brand should do the same. When someone encounters your brand for the first time, what culture are they stepping into? What story are you telling? Once you figure that out, the people inside your ecosystem can reach their potential — and that collective growth strengthens your brand.

Think about Iowa. Oklahoma State. Northern Iowa. Penn State. Each has a distinct culture, and that culture *is* the brand.

3. Flexibility: Is your brand identity built to adapt?

Coaching men and women wrestlers teaches you pretty quickly that not everyone learns the same way. The team vision stays the same, but the coaching style shifts based on the individual. When athletes know you see them — really see them — they trust you, and that opens the door to growth.

Brand development works the same way. A strong identity matters, but flexibility is just as important. Markets shift. Audiences change. New opportunities show up. Being open to evolution while still holding your vision keeps your brand relevant and authentic. Adaptation reinforces identity.

At the end of the day, whether I’m on the mat or behind the screen designing for a client, the principles stay the same: be patient with the process, build a culture that people want to be part of, and stay flexible as things grow and change. Branding is not just logos and colors — it’s leadership, development, and belief in something bigger than yourself. Coaching keeps teaching me that. And every brand, just like every athlete, has the potential to become something special when you commit to the journey.

(Based in Oceanside, Calif., Quantal Langford runs Langfordesign, a creative studio helping teams, businesses, and organizations build and develop their brand identities. He’s also the co-founder of Mat Clash Wrestling, a character-driven brand featuring the Mat Clash card game. Since 2018, he has supported WIN Magazine with design and marketing. For inquiries, contact info@langfordesign.com).