Branding your business on the Copychat Show featuring Austin L. Church.

[Music]

hey everyone welcome to the copy chat show my name is todd Jones I'm the

founder of copy flight and on this show we talk about copywriting and content

marketing and today I have a guy I've been following for a long time he

probably gets tired of me emailing replying to his emails but and he's not too far away you're over national right

I'm in Knoxville so I'm a little bit further from you but still you're kind

of in the south I mean you working so I'm definitely in the south yeah I refer

to myself as a redneck coffee snob so anyway we have Austin metal Church today

he is just kind of like me does a little bit of everything digital marketing copywriting content marketing and Austin

you mind tell us a little about yourself happy to so went to school for creative

writing quickly learned that they were not hiring poets in 2009 when I finished

my Master's got a job at a marketing agency fell in love with it was very

confused that I liked it so much because I was supposed to be some pure-hearted

artiste right but eventually got laid off

it wasn't eventually it was six months later worst economy got laid off started

freelancing sort of the circuitous path since then got into mobile apps which

was awesome I got in and a great time built up a portfolio got into digital

products because of the apps started packaging up the source codes and

selling those to other app developers was way more successful with that side of the business then with the original

apps parlayed that into co-founding a tech startup called close-up FM we made

touring ticketing and communication software for bands so that was cool did

that four years but the continuous thread has been writing and strategy and so these days

I run a branding and marketing studio called bholaram I have a team and we

love helping founders build authentic brands and make their communication make

their contribution to a better world we work with a lot of people who really

care and want to make a positive impact and it's fun to help them do that yep

and and we you know just start a little discussion before we got actually start recording I could probably talk to you

for hours we got a lot of similar thoughts and ideas about all this stuff

so let's do the getting-to-know-you lightening round section and yes no

don't think too hard just answer the question so okay cake pie cookies pie crust pie

crust okay what's the fruit just give me this sort of flute infused pie crust

okay favorite TV show ever Simpsons Simpsons

okay favorite holiday Thanksgiving okay

favorite author Roald Dahl okay all

right what is your go-to karaoke song if

I probably the last one I saying was a whole new world aladdin and Jasmine on

the carpet in Aladdin okay yeah not sure I familiar that song but okay I did a

duet with my best friend and we actually won the karaoke contest there you go

video somewhere okay it should be maybe

we like that I don't know secretly you mail your wife and ask for that give me

the good if you could live anywhere where would it be I love Knoxville if it weren't Knoxville

it would probably be Vienna Austria Austria okay have you been the Vienna I

did a study abroad there in college okay and fell in love with it and learned

enough German to get by and it's centrally located in Europe it's

incredibly clean and modern but yet so much history some of the best coffee in

the world so actually what coffee all the coffee

culture in Turkey made its way to Europe Wow to Vienna yeah that that Turkish and

Armageddon coffee is just different than everything else that's right my brother went to our many a a couple years ago in

a mission trip and they brought back some coffee and it's totally different it's very much like Turkish so definitely a lot different in that vein

what influencer would you like to meet for a cup of coffee oh wow that's a good

one I I wouldn't I would consider Nathan

berry a friend I would love to catch up with him he had a new baby he's working

on a tiny home it's if we're talking about somebody I didn't know at all

I think I'd enjoy talking to Brene brown or maybe this guy I heard on a podcast

his name is Jim death merr he was interviewed by Shane Parrish on the

knowledge project podcast and I think Jim is fascinating and it was I was

listening to this interview and it was one of those situations where I thought I might need to pull the car over I'm

not sure it's I'm okay to be driving right now because so many things that

Jim was saying we're going so deep just about self awareness and self

septons so I'm not even sure he's considered an influencer but would love

to have a conversation with him he's just seems like a very wise person well the original question was celebrity I

think it changes the influence or the one of the last podcasts and our shows and Sagi to be either celebrity or

influencer but influencer is really somebody who's an influencer to you right so it could be you know somebody

really influencing or somebody who just you know maybe influencer to you so mm-hmm

favorite sounding in school English or literature for sure do you have a

personal motto oh man

love fiercely okay excuse me do you have

any famous distant relatives or friends I don't think so

a bunch of people are on the edge and the more influential and wealthy people

that I know are people who prefer to fly under the radar so even though they have

money and power a lot of people would never know that yeah there are a lot of

people like that out there and and that's you know yeah it's kind of a different a different group of people I

guess you might say I wouldn't say that I know anyone super famous though yet of

you know had this day during one time that Kanye West asked me to be his

chaplain which was one of the oddest dreams I've ever had so that's gonna

happen eventually very well yeah I mean

hey you never know right he may watch this actual show and then call you up so there you go it was

packed it was back during my close up days and he and Taylor Swift were feuding in public and I had this idea

that kanye west could go on a house show tour

driven by a lottery so all of his ferns could enter a lottery and you'd pick 30

people and but this happened after he buried the hatchet with taylor swift and

all of the sales from these tickets went to the charity of taylor swift's choice

and all of the songs that he's saying were Taylor Swift songs his covers of

them halfway through the tour Taylor Swift would join him and they were

performing as a duo only Taylor Swift songs and then at the very end Ryan

Adams came in because he did a whole album of cover of Taylor Swift cover

songs so this was how involved my dream was and it just was one of the weirder

experiences I've had and your subconscious didn't think to bring it sure and into that he should come in -

yeah I mean and maybe that's like the grand finale and then they do like a real tour and go all the arenas with

these four like mega stars right I just prefer the old classic rock man the 80s

was the era that's still like I heard

Tom Petty the other day when I walked into a store and like I immediately felt

better you know when he came on on the harmonica and I was like yes perhaps one

of the one the most underrated Superbowl halftime shows right there well I loved

his album wild flowers cuz that was one of the very first albums I ever even

bought and owned and I understand why when I was growing up my dad just wanted

to listen to the music he listened to in the 60s and 70s because I'm like I bet same deal it makes him feel a certain

way yeah he likes that nostalgia yeah absolutely I watched

documentary actually a movie I'm sorry over the weekend about the band The

Runaways the team girls from the 70s Joan Jett Lita Ford somos and I didn't

know much about them I knew you'd lead I knew Lita Ford in Joan Jett work because they were big in the 80s when I was a

kid and it was really fascinating to me and and Kristen Stewart from the girl

that played in Twilight series yeah and Dakota Fanning played the lead characters and they were fantastic in

that movie I was very blown away and new newfound appreciation for The Runaways

of the band even though you know I didn't know them as much and recently I saw a documentary on Netflix about ZZ

Top and even more of a fan now and I was before so it's fun when that happens

instead of the opposite because sometimes you learn more about like writers performing artists and you're

kind of like those girls and their

manager they were definitely wild and certainly you know not the kind of

things that you would do or be appreciative of in church

what they did they you know and they were kind of considered punk rock and

they had at least one song it was it was very risque stuff for sure especially

Cherie Currie I think it was a girl that did Dakota Fanning played and she was very provocative on stage but you know

right after that course you did have heart heart was a it was not an all-girl band but the two front people were

ladies sisters you know the Wilson sisters they kind of went all throughout the 70s and 80s but right after the

runaway she of course Joan came out and did her thing and then you had the go-go's and he had the bangles and those

two hit big and I think the runaways kind of served as a precursor that an all-female band could play in that space

and be successful and I think the pioneers and that yeah yeah some degree

I mean you know so it was just and I'm a huge bangles fan and I'm a huge pretty big go-go's fan

and course it goes back to when I was a kid but in the bangles are fantastic and

of course anyway we can go on forever about music stuff I loved it I loved the

story telling and that's what I really appreciate about ze top some

documentaries can be very boring but

this one wasn't they did a great job of interviews and storytelling and it wasn't very long like hour and 40

minutes maybe so wasn't really very long and you know like the Tom Petty ones four hours long and I watched like an

hour of it maybe an hour and half of it it's just too long you know break that up in a series if you ask me but anyway

I love storytelling and I think it's a crucial part of branding and that is one

of the reasons I brought you on to talk about branding I know you're big on branding and you were talking about some

of the reasons you got into branding and helping people with their messaging before we got on the thing so talk about

that you know I'm actually gonna skip my first question there I may get to it later but based on what you were talking

about before we got on you said people would hire you to do the tactical stuff but you you you were missing they were

missing the strategy part and that's kind of where you got into brand messaging and strategy yeah so I think

anyone who has done copywriting anyone who has written content for a client has

been in that position where a client asks you to improve or recreate you know

whether it's a sales page whether it's just web content whatever email series

and they know that there's something lacking and they want you to fill in the

gaps but they don't give you the right stuff to fill in the gaps hey could you just fluff it up a little bit right and

I remember this one in particular client national Brande I won't name them but they their

headquarters is near Knoxville and they had launched a new restaurant concept

and they're like hey can you write the the story

well the story was a bunch of executives in a boardroom sat around and decided

that there was an opportunity in the fast casual seafood market and maybe we

should spin up a new concept to go head-to-head with Red Lobster or whatever right and so there was no story

so I was being asked to like manufacturer fabricate the story but

even though the writing was fine it's like there was no soul like there was no

heart in this and you know that's sort of what launched me into brand strategy

because I realized it's a lot easier to write sales copy web content if there's

a an obvious value proposition here and you know I will say that people's brand

sophistication has grown over the last couple of years and so I do have clients

now who say well we need help with our brand story or you know we need help

with our messaging because it's not unified across all of our platforms or we do good work that's just not coming

through clearly in the words that we use to describe ourselves like the way they

diagnose the problem is varies but the crux of the matter is that they don't

have clarity around what their brand is and that sent me on this journey of

saying well what is a brand and I think

a brand is the complete expression of an

organization both externally and internally I think there

are a lot of brand strategists out there that would tell you your customers own the brand i flatly disagree with that

because the best brands are leaders in

the sense that they take people somewhere they they make people feel a

certain way or they say hey if you think

this and this and this and if you believe this and this and this then come

stand with us because of what we stand for right so as I learn more about branding I

realized that brand strategy in particular was what a lot of companies

lack a lot of brands lack and the reason

they don't come across as authentic and the reason it's actually hard for people

to know the value that they create is because they don't have clarity in the

first place around what is our mission what do we exist to do how are we what

are the tangible ways that we're serving our target audience our customers what

are the tangible ways we serve them and make their lives better okay and then

what is the mountain off in the distance like what are we walking toward marching

toward that's the vision right what do we want to exist five or 10 years from

now that doesn't exist currently then meanwhile okay

how do we approach what we do what are the operating principles that guide our

our day-to-day functioning as an organization your your brand values

aren't just posters you put up on the wall because we're both children of the 80s you know these posters the way I do

right like they have a mountain or like a serene alpine lake and then like an

nice sentiment your your core brand values those should be your operating

principles they determine how you make decisions like one of Bellaire gnomes is honor like I want to be honoring and the

way I communicate with my team members with our strategic partners like if you

and I were to team up and we were to tag-team a project together my clients vendors and freelancers that

we work with right and so that core value of honor means if

a client says something that I think is unfair I don't get to give that client a

piece of my mind I instead take a step back and say what is the most honoring

response now I'm still human and I make mistakes a lot but you'd better believe

that being like armed with those brand values I should say being armed with

clarity and knowing what my my brand values are has helped me make better

decisions more consistent decisions right and so it's like you have an

organization that's been around 30 years like one of my clients right now they've been around for years they've made a lot

of money but they're changing they're becoming more of a technology and

content company than a pure consulting company they are looking to create

scalable solutions that can deliver their content to more customers more

quickly so as their business model morphs what is what is the overarching

brand right and so there are many different like times or triggering

events that cause founders and business leaders to take a step back and say okay

what what is on brand even mean for us like because they're like how do you

make an on brand decision or as we were talking about at the very beginning how

how does a copywriter produce a sales

page that captures the brand voice and

the appropriate tone for that context because just like people where if I'm

correcting one of my kids my tones gonna be very different than when I'm catching

up over coffee with an old friend it's appropriate for a brand voice to have different tones right sometimes your

tone may be more lighthearted than entertaining sometimes it may be more didactic and educational right but

anyway one of the reasons that our clients yours and mine struggle with

creating compelling messaging or even copy that converts well there's because

they don't have clarity around their brand let alone their brand personality

let alone to that personalities voice and the appropriate tone for this

particular piece of writing I I spent some time explaining to one of our

clients that we will use one tone for web content where the goal is educating

prospective customers about our product its features and benefits and the good

that it's going to do them if they buy it right our tone is totally different on Instagram because the expectations

that our audience brings to Instagram are totally different they're not looking for many billboards from us

they're looking for more conversational more punchy interactions right because

like our client was confused he was like I don't like some of the I think he

called them captions right I don't like the captions you all are using on

Instagram it's like well it's not quite a caption you know it just is there's been a lot of Education but we had to

explain a brand voice can have different tones and that tone should change based

on where the brand is interacting with people right yeah so I think that sort

of gets to the heart of your question like why did I get interested in branding well having clear brand

strategy having not only a strong visual identity with logo color palette

typography lockups illustration iconography but having a

clear verbal identity for a brand really simplifies and clarifies the copywriting

side of things Oh what is your brand voice here is what

our brand voice is here are the attributes here's what it's not we are not cheeky we are not weird

we are not whimsical what are we we are thoughtful we are X we're experts and

what we mean by experts is we show evidence right so it takes work but I

will say that when we sell brand strategy to clients they're like ah I

finally feel confident in talking about

what we do because a big one of our big exercises is listing out as many of

their differentiators as we can and then force ranking those into the let's say 5

to 10 that will be most in to the audience based on the type of

value of the audience wants to receive from the brand the company the nonprofit

the organization right and once we force rank those differentiators and we start crafting

the elevator pitch the brand positioning statement the different forms of the

value proposition short medium long basically you have a founder who's

finally able to say succinctly instead of in 30 minutes here's who we are

here's what we do here's how we do it here's why we do it and here's what we

would like for you to do next and as a copywriter you're like imagine if every

one of your clients brought to you that brand strategy and said here's who we

are and and here are the lane here's the lane you need to stay inside up you'd be

like well my job just got a whole lot easier you know as a digital marketer and a content marketer you know having

all that in place makes things a lot easier yeah so when you were doing more copywriting did people come to you

without all that information and you have to like make it up on the flyer you just have a harder time doing the

copywriting here so I used questionnaires a lot I mean you know if

we want to get tactical down the process stuff I do think a lot of writers sort

of they're put between a rock and a hard place where they really want to produce

great great riding or great copy but what happens when you try to get a sense

of what the brand voice is you figure out okay what are your differentiated or

your unique selling points or hey what are the biggest fears that your ideal

customer brings to the table in a sales conversation and you just sort of get

that blank look from a client yeah the other thing is you've you if you do the

questionnaire in in terms of a form the answers are

not really very good very rich and on top of that sometimes they just really

don't know but they're giving you something we really think the pain points are this but when you go look at

what the customers say you realize that's not what the pain that's why so

many conversion copywriters will do their own research because you can't trust the research that the client has

done it may offend cursory surface level to actually go and interview some

customers and you may figure out and like and honestly I don't enjoy

confrontations I have really great clients I mean really great clients

especially right now just people who trust me let me lead that's nice but

from time to time with a new client if I'm trying to explain the importance of

something like brand strategy or I'm trying to explain that we might need to do some more competitive analysis or we

might need to can I interview some of your best customers to explain that hey

we're only gonna get smarter we'll come up with new insights that we can layer on top meanwhile I need to go meanwhile

I don't my boy said it buddy meanwhile I

need to go gather some evidence to support my hunches which are I've been

doing this 11 years so when it comes to the writing stuff it's pretty easy for

me to have a couple of conversations with a client and be able to pick out the true differentiators pretty quickly

right like even if it's like Oh Patsy she's our tech she's our secret weapon

and then when you find out that well one of the one part of the secret sauce of

this company is they've got really healthy culture and they've got high retention and

people want to work here their whole lives and the continuity of the team is

really attractive to the customers because they like being able to talk to Patsy very single time yeah because

continuity often translates into better customer service paying more trust right

and but to say that they have good customer service is about the most banal

and uninteresting thing you could possibly say but to instead say you'll

be able to talk to somebody you know and have a relationship with we typically

respond to communications within 24 hours and we keep a file on each one of

our customers so that you're not going to have to repeat yourself constantly yeah it's not really you've got my

number oh wow that's what if that's what I like about my banker I like having somebody I can email and he already

knows he already has the full context right so I will do some customer

interviews all email founders people are always more interesting than they give

themselves credit for sure yeah and so to talk to the founder and be like what

I mean this can't have been an easy road to walk why did you do this or hey if

money were no object what would you be doing with this company I had one client she was like I want to start a

scholarship fund for underprivileged girls and I was like holy crap why

aren't we talking about that on the website exactly so you when we when you get into

the heart when you get into the brand position that's when things get really

interesting that's when I get inspired that's when I want to bring my best work

right yeah so just being air-dropped in and being asked to do a little bit of tactical work just really isn't as

interesting to me anymore as how do I help you reconnect with your

transcendent purpose as a founder or a business leader and

then let's infect your team with that transcendent purpose and then get you

all all rowing in the same direction with brand strategy and then sure enough

when you do encounter the right people you're like hey here's where we're headed you want to come with us you have

customers that are like that's when they want to wear your t-shirt that's when they want to put on your hat that's when

they become superfans because you stand for something beyond profitability or a

transactional relationship and like brand has really evolved over the last

50 60 years I think as some of our bigger narratives have broken down it

has become easier to wear a Yeti hat than a hat with an American flag on it

because the idea of patriotism it is more complex perhaps than it used to be

media has changed that technology has changed that but if I put on a Yeti hat

I'm sending out a signal about how I want you to perceive me right so

interestingly enough brands can be leaders no you have to dig to get that

information it doesn't come with a simple servant I mean surveys are great

but you want to get really answers you have to interview and you know he it's

and maybe that's a hang-up for some people because I'm you know if you're doing that kind of work

you got a account for it which you got a card for yeah exactly and I mean but but

the the result on the back end after doing that and getting some real clear

differentiator some you know some values as company holds on to something people can get behind those kinds of that count

those kind of benefits or just how hard you measure are hard to get across that a company

needs to do this because you know does that make sense it makes perfect sense and I have

encountered that in sales conversations where there are always going to be some people who are like yeah

that sounds great but I still just need the stuff and that's when I have to decide whether I want to say yes you can

have the stuff and sometimes I do sometimes I'm like you know I've said my

piece I don't think the writing will be nearly as effective as it could be if we don't

do the foundation level work because I think about brand as having four

building blocks Foundation strategy identity and experience each of those

blocks has four corners found and say again Foundation strategy identity

experience and so our brand workshops

the hope you talked about digging deep I agree and we've even realized a a

workshop where all of the stakeholders basically time out their usual

responsibilities and they participate in a workshop for a day and a half with

basically their phone's turned off that's a big ask but that's where the

gold comes from because I will like it's really cool to see all these tough

business guys get misty-eyed when they

talk about how passionate they are about paying all their people minimum wage and

the sorry not minimum wage a livable wage and they're like the reason we want

to be more profitable is because we want to provide more benefits right and I'm

like yes yes yes like and then here's

the thing it can be expensive but what happens on the other end one of my

clients we did the workshop in January and then so within probably about we can normally

turn around if we do a workshop and we get everything we need we can normally turn around the strategy in five to

seven business days um we've got our process really buttoned up at this point

but he went out and within a month had

closed a million dollars in new business so I have seen how powerful and

energizing it is to know here's what we're all about and I just don't think

you can do that very well without interview type discussions whether it's

with the founder or with their customers it's not scalable and it is hands-on and

you are rolling up your sleeves and kind of getting in the trenches with your clients but the fact is if you do it

good brand strategy can like I said it is your operating manual for your brand

out in the real world and how do you put a price tag on carrying that with you

for the next five to ten years now granted your brand strategy is a living thing because as you actually meet some

of your brand goals and your business goals as you approach that mountain that

vision often the distance well guess what you're like well we just sailed

past our revenue targets guess we need to set some more ambitious goals right

and that's a really cool conversation to have to say our our brand strategy needs

to be updated because it did such an effective job at galvanizing the team

right and we grew the way that we wanted to grow so in honestly this type of work

is so much more fun in beings than being asked to say like hey here's the table

of contents of email templates we need can you write them and I'm like yeah I

can write that stuff in my sleep I would actually instead like to figure out what really

makes you eater to get out of bed early and go to bed late like what positive in

fact do you want to make mrs. founder or do you want to make CEO and if you can

pull that out I mean the emails write themselves it goes back to the why

question right the the simon Sinek you know your what is your one circle yeah yeah so this is great certainly if your

company has the budget you know some of the people you work with at the budget to bringing your team in to do this kind

of stuff but yeah and i know you have a course of freelancers but if you're a maybe a smaller business and solo you

don't have the budget to bring somebody in what do you say to them how does how do you help them at least get moving in

that direction so google ventures

documented their three our brand sprint process and it actually incorporates the

three concentric circles the golden circle exercise from simon Sinek that you mentioned that's one of I think

there are six total exercises that you go through 30 minutes each in six hours

but I think that's a good place to get started if if a client either doesn't

have the budget or even if it's somebody who's like just getting started and they're just floundering and trying to

find their way I kind of think that the three most important things are

understanding the demographics and psychographics of your target audience

ideally a real person that you can interview and the psychographics are the

the motive motivators like what are the desires needs fears goals objections to

buying your thing or working with you and even like the consequences of doing nothing all right

if you can get clarity around those motivations emotional drivers and then

turn each of those into something positive that you could do for that

person so for example a lot of clients

actually don't have confidence in their brand so the emotional end benefit that

my team at bholaram brings is will will

give you a huge boost of confidence not only in what your brand is but in your

own ability to operate and grow your brand out in the real world right but

you can never get to some of those statements to some of those bold promises if you're not clear on what's

keeping your what's keeping Jane in your target audience what's keeping her up at

night what's causing her heartburn she feels like she's sort of wasting her time and spinning her wheels because if

she's asked she's actually not not clear

on why Todd should give her money instead of the other designer down the

road like why should you be able to charge three times as much as another

designer can you really justify that you know so getting very clear on the

motivations and emotional drivers fancy term psychographics of a real person

ideally three or four but a real person in your target audience crafting your

value proposition based on insights that come from that what are their pain

points awesome now that you know their pains and fears and needs are flip

those turn those into things that you can and will do that's your value

proposition how are you gonna make their pains go away how are you gonna take the

thorn out of their foot right people really want to pay for the disappearance of problems period yeah

and so if you don't know what problems you're actually solving or if you

promise to solve problems that aren't important or if you're like we'll build

you a beautiful visual identity that's great but Tim he isn't confident in his

ability to make on-brand decisions so by

getting deep into that like ideal customer profile into those psychographics you actually get a lot of

clarity around what are the problems were really solving and if we're not really solving them what do we need to

change to tighten up our value proposition right so psychographics ideal customer profile translates into a

much stronger positioning statement I would say that positioning is sort of

the high-level thing and then underneath positioning you'll have your value proposition various forms of it that

you'll use in everything from like a face-to-face conversation you're at a networking event or pre kovat when

you're at a networking event I and someone said what do you do well you

don't just describe yourself as a copywriter you're like oh well I help outdoor brands hunting fishing and

adventure brands gain more confidence in their brand tell great stories and get

new customers to join their tribe or whatever right those the actual

messaging is just part of the brand position that comes from the insights

from you know psychographic research right finally what are your values

what are you gonna do what are you not gonna do like how do you draw a line in

the sand is it ever okay for someone on your team to lose their temper with a

customer to show attitude and now we're all going to make mistakes

a lot of teams a lot of people make

mistakes that injure the brand's they're representing because there's never this

concerted effort to say what kind of behavior is okay around here and what

kind is not do we use profanity that's

kind of a verbal identity question but what's how generous will we be when

people are upset with us we said generosity is a brand value but what

does that mean right so getting really clear on brand values and shoot and

limiting yourself to six okay yeah so I was wondering about how many values five

is even better right because your team will not remember more right sometimes

it's easy for me to forget my values even though they come straight from our

hearts yeah chances are even if I couldn't remember what was on my list I'm still practicing practicing it but I

go back to my brain strategy at least on a quarterly basis I deal monthly just to refresh myself

and say we said that bholaram believes that we do our best

work when we're working on an island of calm island of calm is one of our brand

values because I do not believe that people can do their best creative work

when they're anxious yeah so it's up to

me as the founder and de-facto leader

even protect my team from city

patience and certain clients who would

mistreat someone on my team and actually

hurt relationships and make it hard for

people to do their best work people cannot do their best work when they resent the people they're working for

yeah so I have to make choices all the time am I willing to have a difficult

conversation with a client to protect my project manager restore a relationship

create some new boundaries and so for a

brand new freelancer for a digital marketer for a direct-to-consumer brand

for a services company everybody across the board getting clarity around the

five to six values or operating principles that you know come hell or

high water we do our very best to not deviate from these because if we deviate

from these we're not who we say we are yeah I like how you link operating with

the values you're so you're operating from the value said I mean because if you're not operating from the value said

then it's just a token thing you put out there well these are our values you know

yeah yep I like how you put those together this is an important point and

I'm glad you brought that up because I'm like ah when I forget to say this I get a little bit irritated with myself

building a brand is simple but not easy yeah this thing way building a

reputation is simple but not easy you build a reputation

when you consistently show up in the same way so if you are consistently

patient kind generous thoughtful and you do that

20 times in a row with one particular person your reputation with that person

the perceptions of you that reside in that person are of those qualities right

so this idea of building an authentic brand well first of all you brand

strategy is how you say here's what I entik is for us right but then with the

actual brand building the reason you need a brand strategy is so that you've

keep showing up in the same way and over time if you keep showing up in the same

way that's how you strengthen your brand if and you may have had clients like

this or friends like this for family members like this where you never quite knew who you're gonna get there's a Jekyll and Hyde situation yeah one day

he was a raving fan and then the next day he was going for your throat and

you're like whoa like what happened right like mercurial I always love that

word it's like people who are just like

there are brands that are mercurial and that you never know what you're gonna

get I thought it was really funny years ago when I think they were

so-called Comcast and not Xfinity at the time but they ran a Super Bowl ad where

they talked about how excellent their customer service was and I just laughed and I'm like I'm laughing with millions

of people around the country as we think just because you sit in a Super Bowl ad

doesn't make it true no wonder well yeah that's right and not

to mention we've all had a dozen experiences that were frustrating where

we couldn't get the answer where someone refused possibility where you broke a promise

where you and so that is what your brand

is to me no matter what you say in a commercial your brand into me a we're

too big to fail so we don't really care whether or not we're honest with you and

we actually fix the problem we don't care there's a disconnect and having done

customer service for a large company I understand you know there's a disconnect often between the you know the people

whoever makes the decisions made way up at the corporate level and then and

oftentimes the customer service reps have their hand side about what they can and can't do I know that yeah I mean I

had an interaction with QuickBooks yesterday where they one of my clients

paid an invoice twice didn't direct deposit and then they used a credit card

and thinking that I was helping them out just with their bookkeeping i refunded

the credit card charge well the refund fee that QuickBooks charged me was higher than the original

credit card processing fee and I was not

even able to find like the fee schedule or the pricing for issuing a refund I

was like I tried before issuing the refund to even figure out is this gonna

cost me something if so what there was zero transparency around what the fees were going to be and then so I issued

the refund get slapped with like a hundred and seventy dollar fee one hundred and seventy bucks right and so

I'm talking to quickbooks support and i'm like hey you all certainly didn't make it easy for me to figure out how

much this was going to cost before I did it I did it found an ugly surprise the rep that I

was talking to was nice enough they're like okay well let me submit a request

and we'll see what happens well the what came back was a paragraph

about that law and I was like so basically they're saying no they had to use a hundred and

fifty words to say no they're use the word like remediation you're hiding

behind words like remediation but the fact is you don't care what my story is

you don't care how long I've been a customer and you really don't even care

that you didn't make this information available to your customers can you

imagine if you were I charged a client

without telling them what the price was first yeah so it's it's weird when a

large corporation treats their customers

in a way that if you run a small business you could never get away with that right but that being said brands

die from a thousand or a million paper cuts yeah and so if you have an

interaction with a rude customer service agent or a very pleasant customer

service agent who shows you just how little empathy is built into the

organization when they come back with this boilerplate language which is so

obtuse it's ridiculous you're like okay I've learned something about your brand

today and anyway keep showing up the

same way and you can't help to build your brand agreed very good conversation

think we're up against our limit you hit the first question without me even

asking so that works one thing and I might be back on the show just to talk

about positioning so that would be a good conversation to have but I think

we're gonna have to go in close it down for today I do appreciate

you being on the show you brought it I told you to bring it you brought it so a very thing for that

and so I appreciate you guys tuning in and listening to the show today and hope

you guys keep on going and net