Big Business Branding Advice

why is it that some companies can charge two times five times or 10 times as much as their competition think about fendy think about Chanel think about Apple they can charge two to five to 10 times for the same product as their competitor and why is it that those companies also can get their customers to buy anything they release immediately think about Kylie Jenner think about skims from Kim Kardashian why is it that people buy immediately every drop they have that is branding in this video I want to break down the principles that make a powerful brand listen I don't want to discuss the fluffy high in the sky stuff when I was trying to learn about brand five six seven years ago it felt very amorphous like there was no tactical this is how you do it and so this is my attempt at giving you the Tactical how to build a brand brand is the association between two or more things in order for a brand to be successful the audience that the product is being presented to must know one of them an example of that would be I wear a Chanel outfit ironically I'm wearing Chanel right now see I meet somebody off the street they know Chanel they don't know me they associate Chanel with expensive luxury now they meet me I'm wearing Chanel they associate me with expensive luxury another example is my husband Alex so he talks about Business Marketing sales offers and so then what happens is when he's talking about these things he's wearing an acquisition. tank to even though acquisition. comom does not make content about business Alex makes content about business wearing an acquisition.

comom shirt and by proxy people associate acquisition. comom with being an expert in business you see it works both ways which means if suddenly everyone that wore Chanel looked like they were homeless but wearing a Chanel coat you would no longer associate Chanel with expensive luxury and some luxury Brands actually change this way they open up a line that may be less expensive so they can get to a broader market and what you notice is that sometimes their top tier products suffer because people no longer feel that when they wear Chanel they are wearing a premium brand and this isn't Chanel specifically but this is an example of sometimes how luxury markets work the reason that I became so interested in brand is because when we were building our first business gym launch did not understand anything about brand at all and in fact the entire time that we built that business nobody knew who I was uh people barely knew who Alex was if anyone did see him they're like you're this guy with a mustache I sometimes see an ads and so we built the entire business off of paid ads off of cold outbound off of all different types of paid media we never invested in content we never invested in brand the whole time that we were doing that all these people would come up and say like you guys should really make content you should really invest in brand you should really do all these things and it got to the point where we sold the business and did so successfully and we hadn't yet created a brand and so when we decided what kind of business we want to create next you know we were looking at what was going on in the marketplace and both of us had a theory that if we created content it would make lots of things easier and the way that I see it is that brand is almost like a lubricant for everything else that you do in your business or everything else you do in life depending on why you're trying to build a brand so the question is how does one build a brand so I want to walk you through four principles that have helped me build my personal brand and business brand in less than two years the first principle to understand is that brand is a series of associations think of a brand like a bouquet of flowers so if I show you this bouquet of flowers it's colorful it's cute you might think oh Easter my friend's birthday I'm sending to my girlfriend just to tell her she had a great day if I I show you this bouquet of flowers you might think Valentine's Day romance love expensive is there really a big difference because if you look at these These are roses and these are roses and actually the only difference in this bouquet is that one is all red roses and one is colorful roses but red roses have been so heavily branded with love and Valentine's Day and gifting that they are associated with those things and so when you give them to somebody there's a different Association made say you're not feeling well and you're at work and one of your male co- workers sends you a bouquet of red roses what's your husband going to say but if he gave you these roses do you really think it was going to be that bad your husband be like oh that's nice they sent you flowers all because of the color of the flowers now imagine you have dandelions you have roses you have daisies you have all these different types so even one flower if I were to throw a daisy into this mix of red roses it would change the entire bouquet so what do I mean by this think of a brand like a bouquet of flowers let's take a few examples and let's listen I want to say there's nothing good or bad there's just the brand and then if you have associations that you make that are neutral positive or negative so let's look at one which is Kanye West so for a long time Kanye West's brand was like he was a legend he was unique he was a star and then some things happened with him personally and now there are some associations made that are like off-the-wall erratic crazy just based on a few things that have happened for him how did those couple incidents change his brand it's not that we say it's good or bad but they have changed the brand is it that he's less famous now no maybe he's more famous for those things but the brand itself has changed another example of this would be his ex-wife Kim Kardashian so if you look at her beautiful feminine you might think business celebrity but then if you knew her from 20 something years ago you might think you know porn star video like all those things and so if you took out the porn piece how would that change Kim's brand not saying it's good or bad but it's different and so again one single flower or one single incident can completely change somebody's brand what if I removed the crazy incident with Kanye what if I removed porn from Kim Kardashian what if I removed celebrity from Kim Kardashian what if I removed lips from Kylie Jenner just think about how one piece of somebody's brand identity can change the entire brand itself what if we add it only fans to Kim she's done all this work and she has all this volume in creating herself as a celebrity as a businesswoman she has a private Equity company but what if all of a sudden she released least only fans because of the volume of having the history of the porn and now this now her brand is stronger in a more sexual way and on the other side so the question to really think through when you're thinking about associations is that associations don't necessarily mean that you're going to grow or kill your brand it might mean that it's just going to change strengthen or weaken your brand so for example there's a lot of famous people that we can think of who had very strong Brands the brands might be trustworthy loyalty hardworking and then you find out that person cheated on their wife had 17 girlfriends how does that change the brand when the entire bouquet was red roses hardworking disciplined this person is very consistent in building those associations and then one day out of the blue this thing comes out of nowhere how does that change their brand so logically speaking you don't end a brand you just vastly can change it through one or two incidents another example that's really interesting is if you think of somebody like Michael Jackson he was so good at music and all the things he did that even despite all of the things that happened afterwards that were very controversial down the line when he got towards the end of his life people still celebrate him today there are shows in Vegas happening every night celebrating Michael Jackson and so again how many flowers did he have in his bouquet for how many years was he consistent in doing this one thing very very well building a very strong brand and so what you have to understand is that when you think of associations the more strong on brand associations you have the more you can withstand a negative blow versus somebody who doesn't have a very strong brand and doesn't have a lot of I would say like Goodwill in the tank they're not going to be able to withstand a negative blow nearly as much and when I say negative it's negative if it hurts the brand or shrinks the brand but it could also be different it could be that the way in which an incident affects the brand changes it to a degree that now they cannot any longer do business sell the same products or services or service the same audience because that audience has lost trust and so if you want to build a strong brand you want strong consistent Association so the less consistent you are with the associations the weaker the brand is the more consistent you are with the associations the stronger the brand is another example would be the rock if you look at the rock look at the things that he posts he's not posting teramana tequila one time he's not posting his workout one time he's not posting himself with his daughter and his family one time over and over and over and over again and so for a lot of people what they don't understand is they think if they make an association one time that they have built their brand but the reality is that the brand is not just about the associations you make but how many times you make those associations and reinforce it to your audience and so what that means is putting things on repeat the second principle is that if it doesn't build your brand or grow your brand you don't do it think about this building your brand is a constant tradeoff which means you are in the process of trading the brand you have today for the brand that you have tomorrow and the goal is to trade up rather than to trade down so just like if you have a business you want to make sure that all the activities that you're doing are to grow the business because we only have so much energy or time in the day and so if we are going to spend time on our business we want to make sure that we're growing the business we're not killing the business and we're not just like remaining the same and so the same goes for brand we want to make sure that when we are working on our brand we are growing the brand rather than shrinking the brand or keeping it the same and so in order to grow something it has to change but if you look at a flower when it is first bloomed it's like this tiny little flower with these tiny little leaves this tiny little and then you look at it a year later it's this beautiful large sunflower right grew but it also changed and so what a lot of people are scared of is they're scared of change because they're worried about ruining their brand but if you're able to understand that in order to grow a brand you have to continue changing the brand it's just making a tradeoff this means taking bets on what will grow your brand the most so it's trading your brand today for what your brand could be tomorrow so an example of this is actually long da Silvers this was a case study I studied like six years ago I grew up next to Long John Silvers and I remember always seeing people going to the place and then after a while I felt like it kind of faded like I wasn't seeing advertising for it I wasn't seeing what was going on and then I read a article about how Long John Silvers couldn't figure out how to grow their brand the reason that they couldn't figure out how to grow their brand is because they were scared of losing what they were so Long John Silver started off and they actually didn't really know if they wanted to become more of a Red Lobster or more of a McDonald's and so they kind of sat in this weird middleman land where it was like we're kind of in the middle we're trying to like pay prices that are like a little closer to Red Lobster but the facility when you go inside of is more like McDonald's and so they had a choice to make they said look at our audience look at our goals what makes more sense do we go all the way and we become a fish McDonald's or do we become a fish Red Lobster they made the choice of becoming a fish McDonald's and what happened is that sales grew by 30% now what did they do here they grew their brand by making a trade because they realized they were stagnating they were stagnating because there wasn't Clarity around what the brand was and in my opinion you grow a brand by continuing to get clearer and clearer on what associations will grow it will match with your audience and will target the people that you want to reach and so what did they get clear on that Their audience didn't want Red Lobster pricing Their audience didn't want Red Lobster experience Their audience was more of a McDonald's audience they wanted something fast something easy and something cheap and so they catered to that audience rather than trying to sit at this weird spot in the middle and in my opinion the reason a lot of people don't grow their brands is because they're so afraid of losing what feels like the many in sacrificing that for getting more clear like building stronger associations that they're afraid will repel other people what did longone Silvers do is they didn't just repel people they attracted more of what they needed and wanted to grow their brand the more clear you are with your associations the more easily you can trade up and grow your brand another example of this is Taco Bell so Taco Bell years ago was actually declining I don't know if you guys remember this cuz maybe my age is showing here but the the saying that they used to have was like y Taco Bell like it was on all the advertisements it was what everyone would say people be [ __ ] around they'd be drunken I be like y Kido Taco Bell like that's all I remember when I think of Taco Bell right but the funny thing is that when I think of Taco Bell now I don't ever think of that why is that so Taco Bell actually started plummeting in sales and so what they realized is that their slogan was amusing and it was funny and it got people's interest but after a while the cheap Mexican fast food chain realized that they were declining because they didn't have a strong brand that was attracting the audience they needed so what happened is that they competitors popped up who had stronger brands with better messaging AKA better associations for the audience they were targeting or the audience they were both fighting for some of these competitors you might know you might think of hudoba Chipotle so what's the difference between Taco Bell and those competitors the difference was that Taco Bell was not catering to Showcase upscale Mexican food a lot of times you might think of Taco Bell you might think of like diarrhea in the bathroom or like not clean at all stomach ache felt like I was going to vomit ate it when I was drunk but what they did is that they actually took a risk in opening upscale Taco Bell Cantina locations these were an urban restaurant design an open kitchen a custom menu sharable appetizers right and even alcoholic beverages so they did menu experiments they refreshed their branding they revamped their interior design and what happened the next year they grew by 16% why is that because they realized that in order to grow their brand they need to make stronger associations with different things what happens when a competitor takes more of your market share they've created stronger associations with things that the audience likes more than yours and they have done it more times than you so if you want to take the audience back from your competitors you create stronger associations and repeat it more times volume negates luck the third principle is that brand to you and to your company is essentially gasoline to fire brand makes everything easier if you build a strong brand it pulls the right people towards you and pushes the wrong people away again like I said earlier the thing is is that most people are afraid to do that strong Brands especially when associated with a business are more profitable because the brand does so much work for you so let's think about this if there's a strong brand okay you're watching my video for example say I post a job opening and you've been watching my video for 2 years how much effort does it take me in my business to get you to want to have a job with acquisition. probably takes me a fourth as much effort as it might take a company that you've never heard of and so what the brand does is it provides you with leverage which means that you can get outsized returns as a company if you have a strong one it lubricates marketing it lubricates sales Talent acquisition customer acquisition it makes everything easier if you do this one thing well it provides your business with more leverage than any other department can and here's the thing to build a strong brand it doesn't necessarily mean it's a positive brand a brand can be strong in either direction so for for example I'll say a few names I just want you to think what's the first word that pops up Donald Trump Andrew Tate Kylie Jenner maybe you love them maybe you hate them but you're very clear on what their brand is and that means their brand is strong meaning they are crystal clear about who they are for and who they are not for and so for any of you that are watching this thinking I'm going to be too polarizing and my brand is not going to be able to grow because I'm not catering to a wide enough audience I want you to think of those three people and think how polarizing they are how strong is your brand when I was growing gym launch and I was trying to bring on top level Talent it was probably one of the hardest things I had to do in fact what I had to do is because my brand wasn't strong I actually had to borrow brand Equity from a company so I could get Talent so what I had to do was when I was trying to hire for my Executive Suite which is all like C Level CFO coo all those roles I couldn't get them on my own I wasn't getting the kind of talent I needed and so what did I do I engaged with a firm they're one of the top firms in the country have a very strong brand they're known for only representing very good companies and they went out and tried to get talent for me and what did I get I got people from Google from my fitness pal from Nike from some of the biggest gym franchises in the world I would have never been able to get those on my own but I was able to because I paid them to borrow their brand Equity when they reached out on my behalf and they said we work at X firm and we have a company we think you might be interested in people associate X firm with only good companies therefore now they associate my company with being a great company this is why at acquisition.

comom for our portfolio companies we recruit for them now why do I do that because I think they can't recruit no I do it because I know that my brand Equity is stronger than theirs and so I allow our portfolio companies to borrow my brand Equity to acquire talent because for a lot of people who watch my Channel or watch Alex's Channel they have strong positive associations with business with leadership with management and so this lubricates the process of acquiring talent for a company and so I know that if somebody on my team reaches out to somebody who is a prospect that person's more likely to respond and it will probably be an easier process if they are familiar with our brand because now we take our brand acquisition. comom associate with our portfolio company the fourth principle of branding is that repetition reinforces brand many people don't have a strong brand because they are unwilling to repeat themselves in fact writing this video I was like oh my gosh if I am weakest in one of these principles this is the one I have to work on because I feel like oh my gosh haven't I said that before I'm telling you people are busy think about how much you have going on do you remember every piece of content every person you watch has put out do you remember every post that Kim Kardashian has made that The Rock has made that Logan Paul has made no but if you do go and you do look at their messaging what you will see is patterns you will see them continuing to make the same Association over and over and over and over again let's give some examples of some companies how many of you guys have heard Geico can save you 15% or less on car insurance I can't even like the amount of times I've heard that over the last 10 years of my life since I was like I remember sitting in my parents house when I was like 12 years old hearing that slogan but they continue to say it because it continues to work and it continues to get them customers and build their brand so easy caveman can do it I even remember that part what about this one just do it how long has Nike been saying that did they stop or they like oh you know I think I've said it enough times everyone's already heard it I don't need to say it again no that's their brand slogan they're going to reinforce it repeat it put it everywhere what about this one Red Bull gives you wings how many times have you seen a commercial of Red Bull with somebody flying around some like little cheesy outfit or whatever it might be Red Bull gives you wings they're not going to stop saying it they're going to find as many ways on as many Platforms in as many mediums as they can say it as possible and they're going to hone in on that and once they find a message and once they find a slogan and once they find an association that clicks with their audience they don't stop they hone in on it the strongest Brands repeat the associations for years once they understand the associations that attract their ideal audience and their ideal buyers they are Relentless another example of this again is Alex right he wears the acquisition. comom merch is he ever going to stop wearing the merch the answer is no he's probably not going to because it works in reinforcing the brand am I ever going to stop talking about acquisition.