← The Art of the Brand
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- [00:00]
A
Well, that's not dollars in the bank. That is a legacy. That is a position. What is it worth to you to be seen as number one in X in an industry? And that's what people are missing. These are the kinds of conversations that people aren't having. They're like, I want this, I want this now, but I don't want to pay for it. I don't want to do the work, and I don't understand what it takes in order to get there. Now, what a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty good brand. Say it again now. What a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty good brand. The key to not wasting money is to understand the difference between branding and marketing. And I'm sick or I'm no longer discussing ROI when it comes to branding because branding is an investment. Branding is the difference between keeping a sustainable and viable business for the next 10 years versus versus being beaten out and having to file bankruptcy in the next two. But branding is hard to quantify when it comes to roi. And I'm no longer justifying ROI when it comes to branding. To me, ROI is an intangible benefit to good branding. But it's not something that you should be benchmarking or tracking because that's not the point of branding.
- [01:22]
B
It's kind of like when you say marketing is a purchase. When you think marketing, you're. You think spending. I've got to spend to get a purchase. Right. But when you think branding, you're investing right in something in the future. So you don't ask for what's the ROI on my mutual fund. When you said that marketing was. Was about the sale, to me, marketing people should consider that as spending to try and get the sale. But when you think branding, you can't think roi. You have to think, I'm investing in my future.
- [01:51]
A
Totally. Marketing is an extension of branding. It's just more focused on sales tactics. So marketing is your sales arm. Right? Branding is what keeps the beast alive and worth buying into. Right. And branding is a bouquet of flowers. It's a symphony. It's all of the moving pieces. It's not a logo, it's not the website. It's not the box or the packaging. It's how every piece works together that connects with your community and maintains relevance within the industry. Like a brand is kind of so much more than marketing. What's interesting about the branding and the marketing piece is that even though marketing should be more tied to a sale, my. The way that my brain sees well Done marketing is. It's not a quid pro quo. Here's an ad, here's an roi. Like, sales isn't is a result of marketing. But where we are today is that there's a lot of randomness. It's very difficult to track. It's very hard to quantify what resulted in the sale. So, yes, you can track an individual ad and it's clicks and how many products was purchased from that ad. But it wasn't that ad alone that resulted in the sale. It's what the brand represents. It's how it's. It's a ton of different pieces. Like, for example, I was on Instagram this morning and one of my favorite influencers did kind of a recap of all of the things that she's loving this month. And it was like, brands, it's skincare, it's restaurants, it's things to order on the menu. It's a kind of facial that's not branded. It's like an amalgamation of things. On the list of, you know, 20 things she bulleted, I researched one of them and I bought it because it was $20, my kids, 20 bucks. I'll try it and let me order it to my house. They got an order and they will have no idea why I bought that product. And they've got marketing that's happening. I may be served ads after the fact, but the reason why I bought that is because of somebody else's brand that I trust, and they're recommending this other product. And whatever that brand has done with this, this person I follow is obviously strong enough for them to organically put it into a comment.
- [04:05]
B
Yeah. I think this is where the frustration comes from. Often we deal with people who kind of use business school lingo.
- [04:12]
A
Yeah.
- [04:13]
B
So roi, if you say roi, it's like, I know what I'm talking about from a business perspective.
- [04:17]
A
Yeah.
- [04:18]
B
But ROI is very linear in terms of how to track it. And your example is perfect. So you're like, I want to know what my ROI is. It's like, I'm an important business person who wants to make my marketing person. And then so you actually get suckered into wasting money when you as a business owner say, I want to know what my ROI is. Because then you're. The agencies just feed you information that's not really as movement. Right. And it's all this activity, whereas the purchase can come from anywhere. And that's where the brand investment comes from. That's why it's like a boulder.
- [04:50]
A
Yes.
- [04:50]
B
You have to kind of and when people come to us and say, I want to build a brand and we're three months in, they're like, I don't see any roi. I'm like, okay, Hammerhead, it takes a while to get that boulder moving. But once it's moving and you've got a strong brand now, you're getting sales from all over the place.
- [05:05]
A
Totally.
- [05:05]
B
And so you have to think nonlinear. You have to kind of think as a three dimensional purchase environment that results in revenue.
- [05:13]
A
Well, I had this conversation the other day with an individual that works with individuals in extreme high net worth. So, so like really rich people. And we're talking about branding. And her piece was like, okay, well based on this investment, I would need to make $20 million in the next four months. Based off of her math. I mean, my fees aren't, aren't, aren't even in the millions. So I don't know how she got to this number, but that's beside the point. And so she's, and she's saying, I need you to guarantee this. This, this is the potential revenue for getting this. Like, of course I can't do that. Of course I can't guarantee that you're going to get that level of roi. And I'm like, but, but that's not what this is about. And I don't work with people that, that's what they're, that's what their benchmark is for interest. If you're coming to me and you're like, hey, I want to be seen as the best X in this country, well, that's not dollars in the bank. That is a legacy, that is a position. What is it worth to you to be seen as number one in X in an industry? And that's what people are missing. And it took me two years to get to a point where these huge brands are picking up the phone and saying, I only want to work with you. There's a, there's an amount of money that's signed on the check that they're paying me for, for the work that I'm doing. But, but what is that worth? What is that position and brand worth in these, in the brands that I see as the biggest in the world? Like, that is an intangible amount of money that I cannot quantify.
- [06:44]
B
It's interesting. It almost kind of comes down to cash flow in a way, because there's an opportunity cost for everything. So if you put all of your money into point of sale marketing, yeah, you'll have revenue, but you might not be building a Brand, you're not. Right. And if you need that cash flow, and that's why they say, hey, I want a personal brand because I want to be special, but I can't sacrifice my cash flow. But it's like anything, if you spend less when you're a young family and you invest down the road, you're in a way better spot. So if you're looking to be number one, you have to be able to make a sacrifice to invest in branding, which you're not going to get any ROI on in the first year, but two, two, three years down the road, you're going to be so thankful you started the process.
- [07:28]
A
And that's why I say branding. Is it like the ROI is an intangible benefit. Like money comes like, obviously money comes like if you're seen as the best and the best are reaching out to you and they're paying you what they think the best is worth. That is a transformational change in an amount of time that I would have never been able to get here if not for the investment in my brand. But when a big, when a huge magazine company reaches out and is asking for me to write for them, what is that worth?
- [07:57]
B
Yeah, you know, it's almost like the universe or the system recognizes the pedigree of intelligent choice. It's a mouthful, but if you're tied to cash flow and all you can do is focus on, give me an roi, I need more sales. You're actually not the best.
- [08:14]
A
No, you're just not cut out for this either.
- [08:16]
B
Because the best people understand they have to invest and that involves a sacrifice. So it's like, okay, I gotta go without. I can't do this. But if I double down into a brand and I make sacrifices, that's how you kind of cultivate actually being the best for your brand.
- [08:31]
A
Totally. And that's. That's such a great point. It's. It, it really is. Like, if you're thinking that way, this actually isn't for you, because where. Where the intangible and the personal brand and why you just need to keep your head down and keep doing it is it's for people who want to leave a legacy who, who are excited about the unknown opportunities that come by investing in a personal brand. And I talk about this all the time. It was a lonely road for the first eight months before the first video of mine went viral. And it was this embarrassing, shameful road of, like, posting content. And it would get like maybe a few hundred views and everyone I know would be seeing these videos. That weren't really getting any feedback. And some people would be kind of nice and supportive, but most people weren't because you're operating outside the box that they're okay with you operating outside of. And then after the first viral video hit, you know, I'm kind of there twiddling my thumbs like, you know, waiting for the phone to blow up, and it didn't. And then I'm like, you know, maybe this just happens for other people. You know, maybe this just doesn't happen for me. And I, we kept at it, and you were integral in this. Like, you were. You were. You were hard on me. You kept me. You told me to keep doing it. We. We were paying videographers to show up, so I didn't have a chance.
- [09:46]
B
Money we spent with no idea and not getting the results and with no plan.
- [09:51]
A
Like, we weren't spending money because we're like, hey, you know, like, we, you know, this is a child star. You know, let's put, you know what I mean? Like how they, you know, parents put money into, like, pageant kids. It was like, we think that this is worth it. And regardless of what comes out of it, we're learning. And it's. And it took. It took a year.
- [10:09]
B
It was an investment.
- [10:10]
A
It was an investment. It was totally an investment. And what's so interesting about it being an investment is that it's continuing to pay off, but it also continues to cost money. Because if I just turned it all off now, what was the. It's not compounding. And that's the whole point with personal branding is it's. You're creating a compound value that's perpetual forever. It's investing in tomorrow. People reach out every day that are like, I've been watching your content for eight months. I look up to you. I finally decided to reach out because everybody X happened. And it wasn't until this X happened, which is the part of the variable of time that I was unable to connect with people where my marketing worked. And that's where the ROI on branding and marketing, when you're talking about where the digital age is, it's about providing value. It's not providing click to sale.
- [11:03]
B
It's the success stories that you hear from people are the people who kind of actually put every penny they could into their own professional development.
- [11:13]
A
Yep.
- [11:13]
B
Right. And when somebody says, I want to be advisor to wealthy people or luxury people, but they're fixated on ROI on a monthly basis, they're not communicating an energy to wealthy people.
- [11:24]
A
Yeah.
- [11:25]
B
In the end. But it's, you know, but. But by. But the people who are willing to kind of scrape together whatever they can to, like, take the best course. Not just a course. They know that their personal brand grows if they go and talk with the best people, work with the best people.
- [11:38]
A
But it actually is a different mindset. Yeah, right. Like having that. You can't. You can't teach someone how to have that mindset. And what I will say is that individual that I'm speaking about and other people like that, it's not that you're not going to be successful. And I think that's another important piece to touch on. It's. I say this all the time. You know, people want to talk about the personal branding piece. They become crippled right away about putting their personal shit online. And the answer is, like, you don't. You know, the. The. The baseline isn't where you are versus Kim Kardashian. You know, like, there's. There's a massive variance between there. But also it. The question that you need to ask yourself is, what do you want and how fast do you want to get there? Because that. That individual I'm speaking about, they're gonna be successful, but it's gonna take them 25 years to get there, versus. If you went all in on it now, it can take you two years. And I was speaking with this top cosmetic dentist yesterday, and we were kind of bench some of his competitors, and his competitors are in the hundreds of thousands of followers. And when I analyze what he was doing versus what the competitor was doing, the difference wasn't great. And I'm like, you know, it probably comes down to time and, like, for how long this guy's been doing it, because people do need to get to know you over time in order for you to be seen as one of the best. And he's like, you're right. He's doing the exact same technique, but he actually started two and a half years before me. And he's like. And I'm actually okay with that. Like, I'm okay with getting there in two and a half years. And I'm like, these are the kinds of conversations that people aren't having. They're like, I want this. I want this now, but I don't want to pay for it. I don't want to do the work, and I don't understand what it takes in order to get there now. And it's posting four or five times a day. It's not having a massive roster of clients. It's not being able to take two days off to be with your kids. Like, these are the questions you need to ask yourself based on what you want and how fast you want to get there.