Sharan Srivatsa (0:00)

Hey, this is Sharan Srivatsa. Welcome back to the Business School podcast. And I want to tell you this. Rich brands have enemies. Broke brands. Try to please everybody. Today I'm going to show you how to choose your fight and win. Meaning if your marketing does not have a villain, you are totally invisible. And I'm going to show you why. Picking a fight may be the smartest business move that you can possibly ever make. I'm going to break this down, how to do each one of this step by step, without losing your soul. All starting right. One thing is for certain. Just because it's tried and true doesn't mean it's working right now. So the big question is this. Where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology, and the exact how to. How to grow your business, how to blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth. That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharan Srivatha, and welcome to Business School. I bet you've heard this before. When everybody is your target market, no one is your target market, right? But today is gut check. Because here's the truth that I've been thinking a lot about. Nobody follows a business that tries to be everything to everyone without you knowing, without you thinking about it. People follow a cause. People follow because they're connected to something. A movement, a mission of some sort. You're doing it because without even thinking about it. And the fastest way to build one is violence. The fastest way to build one is to pick a fight. Now, this episode is called the enemy makes you rich. Because if your marketing, if your messaging, if your positioning doesn't have a villain of sorts, you are leaving loyalty, you're leaving profits, and you're leaving growth on the table. The reason is most people don't want to pick a side. I had one of my friends tell me, hey, Sharon, if you are a middle of the road, you are guaranteed to get hit. And a lot of people don't want to pick sides. If you're in the middle of the road, you're guaranteed to get hit. That's crazy, right? So today I'm going to show you how to find your brand's perfect enemy. I'll show you how to frame it the right way and how to turn, you know, casual browsers and followers into buyers and clients for life. Now, all of this without being a jerk and without selling your soul. Because our job is to work hard and be kind and to make more money, right? So if you Are if you sometimes feel like you're an overworked founder and you're like, man, I've been putting out a lot of content. I'm trying to do a lot of messaging, but it's not hitting. Today is the day to fix it. And I think if you just nail this and if you have a little courage, you will win big time. So let's actually kind of get into it, right? So the main part, the big part of what I want to share with you is that there's a few big pieces to the puzzle. So I want to give you part number one, why picking an enemy works. Now, I'm going to explain how to pick an enemy before I answer. Don't worry about it. But picking an enemy is really important and I want you to stick with me while I explain this. Most businesses stay stuck, right? Because they are afraid to offend somebody. I think they think that, hey, if I just show my value, if I just show my value, if I just do a good job and if I'm just helpful, people will buy from me. Well, why is that not happening right now? You're probably thinking that why is my, quote, competitor, who is down the street from me, why is she doing better than me? Is it because she has a better brand? Is because she has a better logo? Is she. Because she has a bigger social media following? What is it? And people. It's wrong. I'll tell you why. People don't just buy solutions. They join sides. And you just want people to join your side. And recently actually on social, I was trying to, you know, push the button and stir the pot to see what side of people, what side of the fence people are on. Like, I wanted to see politically what other people are on. I wanted to just see it. I was just stirring the pot. And man, did I get a bunch of hate, but I also got a bunch of love, which was insane. And like, I will tell you, there's crazy. I, I did some research for the episode because I. Stats, there's stats that back this up. I found that brands that create a movement, like a clear us versus them type culture, have 3 to 4x more loyalty and lifetime value. By the way, lifetime value, Lifetime value is when you acquire a client today, how much value do they have over time with you? So let's say, did you know that something like Starbucks lifetime value of a client is like $17,000. Like, that's crazy. You think you're spending, you know, $5 or $10 every week that the on average before a customer switches when they start and acquire a customer. Starbucks's lifetime value for a customer is like $17,000 or something wild like that. So think about sports, right? You have Yankees versus Red Sox. You have Anaheim Ducks versus Calgary Flames. You have Anaheim Ducks versus LA Kings, you have, I, I'm just going to keep using the Anahem duck analog. You have the Lakers versus the Celtics. You have the Bears versus the Lions, right? And the fans aren't just cheering for their team, they're cheering against the enemy, right? And it's the same with brands. Think about, think about Apple. Apple didn't just win by being good. Yes, they're good. They made the PC world the bumbling, confusing, boring other guy. You saw the ads. It's like, I'm a Mac, I'm a PC. It's not just like I like a Mac, it's just I am not like those PC people. You saw Android and iPhone people just make these ridicule jokes about, oh, you have a green bubble. That's identity, that's loyalty, that's money for you. Because people pick a side, right? So given that, let me give you part two. There are three types of enemies that you can use. Now. Let me explain how this works. Every business can just bash a competitor directly. But no, you should not do that. You should not bash competitors directly, right? That is, that's not cool. And here's the best part. You don't have to. You don't have to and you shouldn't. That's just not cool. Here are the three types of enemies like you could really use, because I wanted to kind of break this down idea for you, but this is all based on your market, of course. The first one is the frustrations. You want to attack what's already pissing off the customers. That's what you want. You want what's already like turning off the customers. For example, my friend is a marketing coach and you could say, hey, you could go after the whole the endless fake gurus selling 90 day magic bullets, right? You're like, hey, if you. I'm not. You don't want to be like the endless fake guru selling 90 day magic scripts, right? If you did that now, you know you're throwing shade on the, on the fake gurus. And that means naturally you're not one. If you're a real estate agent, you can throw shade on the average agent. Hey, the average agent will just take your listing and take pictures with their iPhone and list it on the, and put it on Zillow. You're taking the Average. And throwing shade on the average. That is totally okay. And you want to frame it, like in a very thoughtful way. You want to frame it like saying, hey, are you tired of $10,000 masterminds that deliver just a PDF and a prayer? Me too. Now think about that. Oh, somebody has gone through that. Someone has pitched that. Even if they've not bought that, they've been pitched that. And now you are not that. Just because when you throw shade on something, you are not that thing. And you automatically get people on your site, right? So that's kind of number one. Go attack the frustrations. Number two is there are a bunch of outdated models everywhere, right? You want to attack the old way of what's holding people back. So, for example, take Starbucks. Starbucks didn't attack any other brands. Starbucks just attacked the fast food coffee culture, right? What was the Dunkin coffee culture? They're like, hey, grab a donut and grab a coffee, right? And what did they say? Hey, this cheap coffee that is under a fluorescent light and that's in a pot that was made seven hours ago isn't coffee. That's just terrible caffeine delivery, right? Or some version of that that they attacked the outdated model. What did keto do? Like the keto diet or the Atkins diet. When they came out, what did they do? They didn't attack anything else. All they attacked was the food pyramid. They said, hey, the food pyramid was made for, you know, one of the crazy presidents. And now no one should be eating 43% of their diet in bread. And as soon as you realize that was true, you automatically believed in keto, which is super interesting, right? So the second is you want to attack an outdated model in a lot of ways. Outdated, Outdated. Attacking outdated models is easy way because it also shows that you're new, you're novel, you're cool, you're front facing, et cetera. But you have to do a little bit of work because you got to use the same version of talking about this over and over and over in your messaging because that's what resonates with people. And the third I think about is like these, what I. I wrote down called the impersonal forces. You know, you want to attack the big machine that nobody likes. For example, like, I always attack the rat race. I love entrepreneurship. And I was like, hey, if you want to be in the rat race and you want to keep doing the nine to five and you want to do the rat race, that's fine. But the only way, like nobody ever. I only know one person that has gotten rich of earned income. Like, I actually know somebody who's a billionaire who made it on earned income. Like that is. I know one person, I know hundreds of people, many personally, who made a ton of money. But, but not on the rat race. Right? So, so, for example, financial advisors have built brands against Wall street insiders. Right? My, my friends Russ Morgan and Joey Murray, who are my money coaches, they believe they have, their entire brand is built against Wall street like it says. And by the way, I went on Wall Street, I, I'm, I'm, I love them. I work with them. Why? Because they, their brand is wealth without Wall Street. Like, the impersonal force is so powerful in this because they're like, listen. And then they explain why. They're like, hey, why you're invested in your 401k. They sell you the dream that today that you're going to put $10,000 in your 401k and it's going to be tax free. But do you think that, you know, 30 years from now when you take it out, it's, it's grown, but you're, you're going to pay less taxes today? Do you think taxes are going to be lower 30 years from now or higher? Of course they're going to be higher. Right, because we're not managing, you know, our taxes are not going down. They haven't gone down in a very long time. And you have no access to any of that, those 401k funds. So. Russ and Joey make a really good point. They're like, the Wall street machine was built to make Wall street rich. I was on Wall Street. I get it. I mean, I made, the bonuses I made were sick. Like, you have no idea. Like I made sick, sick bonuses. Right? And it was insane. And yeah, cool, I made good money. But then when I now I'm on the outside, I realized that that was just insane. And so we want to find a different way against this. Marketing agencies have positioned themselves against like algorithm changes or like the pay to pay platforms. You want to attack the big machine that nobody likes. It's a really good thing. So, and mainly the idea here is you want to tell people that, hey, you're not losing because you suck. You're losing because this big tie in tech giant changed the rules, because Google changed the rules, because the Instagram changed the rules, because the algorithm changed the rules, because, you know, the government put in subsidies, whatever it may be. When you tell people that now they're on your side, you're attacking this impersonal force, you're attacking the big machine. So the key here is to pick one and I'll give you the three again. The first one is to attack a frustration. The second one is to attack, like an outdated business model. And the third one is to attack a big machine. And the key is to pick one and own it and beat that drum over and over and over and over until either people love it or they leave and it's okay because people that love it will refer you, will work with you, will recommend you. People don't realize this. When you are a middle of the road person, you will feel like you're liked, but you will be poor forever. Right? And I don't know how else to tell you this. You already have opinions, just own them. Now, I'm not telling you to walk around and say, hey, I'm pro Trump or pro Hillary. I'm a Democrat or Republican. I'm pro life or pro choice. I like money or I don't like money. I like the Yankees or I don't like the Yankees. I like the Anaheim Ducks or I don't. If you don't like the Anaheim Ducks, I'm not talking to you, by the way. But my point is, the point is very simple here, which is you already have certain opinions. Now, you don't have to broadcast them in a. In a deeply highway, but you can use an enemy to throw shade against that which you don't believe is good for your ideal customer. Now you must be asking, all right, Charon, I understand all of this. Now give me like a framework, a formula on how I can actually find and break down find my villain, find my enemy here. So I built something called the fight method. F I G H T I had to think about it for myself. So that I'm going to give this to you as well. The fight method looks like this. The first one is F for fight, the frustration. What specific frustration makes your customers or your clients blood boil? Not vague, like super specific. So if you are helping your customer get out of, you know, get out of debt and get out of the rat race, you say, hey, the 95 rat race is a terrible thing. You see it over and over and over again. So you say, hey, I wasted $20,000 on a, on a, you know, a traditional Facebook agency and I got nothing. This is why we're different, right? So when you do that, it is, it really nails a frustration. So F for frustration. The second is I, the I for identity. Can you turn that frustration into a person or a system or a thing that they can picture. So like for example, I've been using this a lot and I say, I just started, by the way, if you are on YouTube, go follow me. I just started posting on YouTube. I've got like, I think like 10 videos, 10, 12 videos that I posted in the last few months. And it's starting to gain traction now almost at like let the podcast market. I'm almost like 10,000 subscribers, which is kind of fun to see it grow. So I'm going to crush it. I'm going to do a lot more YouTube content. But I talk about this where I'm making like finance or personal money. Personal finance based content. I'm like, hey, this is how a finance bro would explain this. So the finance bro who drives a Lambo but never delivers, right? What am I doing here? I'm turning their frustration into a person or a system or an identity. They know that person. They know the person that is a quote ad bro online who's driving a purple Lambo and you're like, man, I like, I hate that dude. Right? That's super interesting. When you turn that in identity, people start to make that person the villain. The third is G so F I G H D fight. So F I so F is for frustration. I is for identity. G is for gu Guide. G for guide. You want to position yourself as the guide, not the hero, right? When you say I'm amazing, I can do this for you. Look at me, I kick ass. Like I, you know, I'm the best. Like, that is terrible. You want to be, you don't want to be the sage from the stage. You want to be the guide from the side, right? You don't want to be the sage from the stage. You want to be the guide from the side. You're not saying I'm the best. You're not saying I've. You're what you, what you are saying is I've walked this road. I know the traps. I will help you. That's what you're saying. That's the cool part in all of this. And so when people trust somebody who has already been there. But to show that you've already been there, you either have to show that you had the success and you've learned this lesson, you have a blueprint along the way, right? People don't want a king. People want a Sherpa, right? And it's your job to be the Sherpa and not the mountain. That's the cool part here. So F I G H T F for frustration. I For identity, G for guide, H. H for honor. You gotta kind of, it's a big word. You gotta honor the customer or the client in some way, right? You don't want to make them feel dumb for getting tricked, right? So if you're in the real estate business, this is very interesting. If you're not in the real estate business, I'll tell you about this. I always use real estate based examples because people find it very easy to understand, like buying and selling of a house, right? And that's why it's super easy to explain this. So there's a marketing campaign that you know, if you, if you list your home for sale and it doesn't sell, in the real estate business, they call it an expired listing. Mean you had your listing for six months, it went on the market and it expired, meaning it, no one bought it, right? And so there was this campaign created by several gurus out there called we have succeeded where they have failed. So real estate agents around the community will send you postcards and flyers and messages and say things like, we have succeeded where they have failed. Which is terrible because you're not honoring your customer. You don't, you don't want to make them feel dumb for getting tricked or having a bad experience because they chose somebody else. You want to frame it differently. You want to frame it as, hey, you are smart and you've just been dealing with a broken system. You want to blame the broken system. You want to tell them that they are good but their system was broken. They had the right intentions, but the system didn't work for them. And that's what builds instant trust. You want to separate the system from them as a, as a person and that decision overall, right? So that is H to honor them in some way. I get really, really irritated when I see folks like, you know, make you feel dumb for making the decisions because now you're going to make a better decision because this new vendor is much better. Like, it's just total bs. And so I give you the if I G H, T So F for frustration, I for identity, G for guide, H for honor. And now T, you got to have T for some kind of tactical victory in some way. You got to, we got to give them a fast win. Even if that win is in the thinking, even if the win is in the clarity, even if that win is in the inside, even if the wind that just makes them feel better. You got to show them that one simple adjustment that they can make today gets them a result. You're like, hey, do this, you know, put this. Put a penny in this place, and you will get this. Or change your tie your shoelaces this way. Or, you know, put a pinch of Himalayan sea salt in your water, and you will feel better. Whatever it is. You want to have some kind of tactical victory. That's why taking your ideas and sharing them freely online is a really good thing, because you're deploying goodwill into the marketplace. So when you say, hey, here's a free checklist of five investments that founders can use to beat inflation without spending 20 hours on researching now, again, totally. It's a mouthful. I made that up. I can't even repeat that. But when you say that, hey, here are the five mistakes that I made and the things that I did to solve them, and it will take you one minute to do each. That's good because you're giving them a tactical victory up front. Most people online are doing these lead magnets. They're like, hey, opt in and I'll give you my free investing masterclass. Or, opt in, I'll send you my home buyer guide that's 97 pages long. Or opt in and I'll give you a free quote like, you don't want any of that. We are in the world not of a lead magnet, of a micromagnet. You can say, hey, use this prompt to write your next best email subject line. Not. Here are 25 subject lines to swipe from. They want something right away that they can use right now to do something immediately. We're in the world of a micro magnet, not a lead magnet. That's why you want that tactical victory right away. So that's the little fight overall. F for frustration, I for identity. G for guide, H for honor. T for a tactical victory. You want to make this memorable. You want to make it repeatable. You want to make it actionable. You want. This is really good, right? So. So let me give you part four in this process. I want to give you. You're like, shaun, is this really true? Do people actually do this really? Like, well, yeah. I want to show you some real brands who got this right now. You're not making this up. You're not following a playbook that is, you're really following a playbook that's worked forever. And most people, you do it without even realizing it. So whether you're political or not, depending doesn't matter where on the aisle that you sit. Trump has created an insane, feverish fan base, right? He's built all. All this loyalty by saying what he says. What did he say fake news? He's literally branding that side. And so whoever believes in fake news, whoever sees one, you know, one example of that instantly are now on his side or that he talks about career politicians. What is he doing there? He's putting all of them in a bucket. He's making them. He's labeling that avatar. So now he's not that. And that's why he's getting a lot of people that are on his side, right? My friends Russ Morgan and Joe Yumura at Wealth without Wall Street. What did they do? They built this exact brand. Their brand is wealth without Wall Street. Like, how much clearer can you get about saying, hey, this big machine is not helping you reach your goal of financial freedom? Or you take Apple. Apple literally built loyalty against the boring PC guys. They even made these ads that says, you know, Mac and PC. They had like a stuffy, you know, dude on the PC and like a really cool, hip dude on as a Mac and talking to each other, right? What did Starbucks do? They really built loyalty against cheap and soulless coffee. And they created this what idea? What they call, like, the third place or the third home, where, like, the third place, right? It's like you got work, you got home, and the third place is Starbucks. So literally, they're like, man, if I left either home or work, the only third place I go to is Starbucks. Or like, when McDonald's, when they launched their premium coffee to compete, what did they say? The Emmy? The air enemy was Starbucks. Their enemy was the overpriced, complicated drink that Starbucks makes, Right? Which is so fascinating if you think about the best brands always have someone or something that they are fighting. Maybe something conceptual, maybe something that is a frustration. Maybe something the big machine. You don't have to call out your competitor. None of these people called out the competitor. They called out the idea, the frustration, the institution, the machine, the system that's holding them back from achieving their goals. Now, I never feel like I have to say this, but for the amount of hate I've been getting, I feel like I have to say this for a second. So here's part five. We need to have some ethical guardrails around the things that we do. And so here's my kind of last piece, which is, you want to fight the forces, not the faces, right? I don't turn around and say, you know, so and so is a terrible person. No, I just say the average agent is a terrible person. Or I say the fake gurus are terrible. Right? Or I say someone who has never actually Done. This is teaching you what to do. That's terrible. So you want to fight the forces, not the faces. You are not here to ruin someone's life. That is terrible. That karma will. That is that the world is in karmic battle balance and you will get destroyed for that. That is wrong. So you are not here to ruin someone's life. You are here to rally around people, around a better way. You're here to, like, organize a cause that get people in your corner so that you could serve them in a better way. You want to attack broken systems, not individuals. You want to attack bad methods, not people's character. You want to attack problems, not personal brands. You want. Here's like a quick gut check. You want to ask this. Would I be embarrassed showing this to my kid? If yes, don't post it. Just ask that. That's a really quick gut check. You want to stay classy, you want to stay savage, and you want to build movements that support you. You don't want to build mobs. That's not what you want to do. So here's kind of like the big takeaway from me today. Number one, people don't join products, don't buy products. They join fights. And for you to have a great fight that you can win, you can win. This rigged game is to pick your enemy, to plant your flag to. Really kind of watch how fast your brand starts pulling in. The right people, the kind people, the loyal people, the rating fan people, the people that will are clients for life, that will refer happy ones to you. So today, not next week, you gotta name your villain. You gotta own it, you gotta frame it, and you gotta let your marketing finally start working as hard as you do, because I know you work your face off. So I hope this was helpful to you. Probably. I'm gonna include the entire show notes here and the entire transcript of this episode. Show notes. So, like, you can go rip the whole thing off, drop it into ChatGPT, which I think you should do, because it has the entire playbook here, and then use it to ask you questions to build your own brand, literally. Here's what. Here's what I would do. Go to the show notes, copy the entire transcript, put it into AI and say, hey, use this as a format for me to. And help me build my villain, help me build my enemy, and ask me questions one by one about me and my business. That will help me do that. And it'll ask you questions one by one, and it will use this framework to help me. You define your enemy. Or your villain. You don't even have to do it yourself. I really hope you do that. And if you do it, as soon as you do it, send me a screenshot that you did it. Hey, listen, I have no idea whether you like this or not. We've been doing this. I sit here thinking about what would make a great episode for you. So please do me a favor. If you like this, can you take a screenshot and post on social and tag me? That way I know you like this and I can make more like this for you. So just do me a favor. You don't have to go leave a review or anything like that, which is too irritating and boring for you. I know. And I don't. I don't really care If I get 100 reviews or whatever. I just care that you're listening. And I want to know if I can make more like this for you. So please, if you like this screenshot, this episode, post it and tag me. That way I can make more like this for you. Till then, remember the seven magic words. Work hard, be kind, and make more money. Hey, Tron, I have a cool gift for you since you like this podcast. I actually have an ultra super secret private podcast that I make just for my partner companies and the CEOs and influencers that I advise. It's called 10K Wisdom. Because I try to wrap $10,000 worth of value in every single episode in just under 10 minutes. That's why it's called 10K Wisdom. 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