How to Build a Brand That Actually Lasts (Ep. 286)

0:00I'm not a fan of the traditional networking method because you are just that's all you're doing is coffee beers and lunches and Nobody refers. It is the most as-and-i-n type of marketing I've ever seen because your local people do not think you're the expert It is getting better that I have clients in North Dakota and I have quite a few now But I've had to prove myself for 16 years that I deserve business in my own state Your own family thinks that you're an idiot because you're dressed in arms all the time. They don't get it A low low low and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you very much for being here today We are gonna talk about marketing and so many of you that listen to this channel I'm talking about business all the time. I'm talking about money all the time But so many clients are starting businesses and I talk to you guys all about cash flow all the time But you get stuck on how to get that business started and a lot of that is marketing

1:04So Mike brevick is here from cyber dogs marketing You've heard Mike before he's been on another podcast. He is my marketing guy. How long? Five years now five six years. I think it's longer than that. Is it 29? Well, I don't know you keep trying seven. Okay Seven years And so we've started from here and we've accomplished a few things in seven years. Yeah But I just wanted to have Mike come in and interview him because I want to break this down for you Where we're going from zero to about five years and we're just starting in business and then we're kind of in that middle range And then we've got some long term stuff kind of where you should be what you should expect all that kind of stuff So I really want this to be educational because not everybody needs to be working with a marketing guy Not everybody is in the position to do that not everybody understands What they should be doing from marketing. So I want to break it down today. Yeah, I'm right. So I don't usually start with people telling us about

2:07Like who they are and all that kind of stuff But you know as I say you're not the best at bragging about yourself And so tell everybody a little bit about kind of where you started and who you've worked for and your resume a bit Yeah Well after so I started at a small ad agency right out of school I was there for a couple years and that's been 10 years in printing which was huge because I learned all the back-end stuff All the stuff that goes into actually designing stuff the right way for print and kind of seeing it through to the actual output Which was a huge education and then from there I started at shields where we built out Basically their e-commerce social media departments and that's really where I learned a lot about branding But also the difference between branding for somebody like Nike versus branding something a lot smaller and kind of everything in between what all goes into that Inecting all the dots the strategies all those different things when I left shields I spent about another year at Acme tool, which is another big retail in the Midwest kind of doing the same thing

3:08And I guess at that point in my process I just had kind of come to realize that I wanted to do something bigger And I wanted to do something that possibly left a bigger impact for the people I was working with and I started My own business in 2015 and my whole goal was to go out and you creative things do marketing and and kind of make impact with business But I wanted to do it from a relationship standpoint And I wanted to build a brand of my own along the way And so I think what's interesting is when you was like when I did my second book life without the bank You're like, yeah, I know how to do that. I'm like, what do you mean? You know, I publish books. I'm like, what? Like how do you know how to do that? There's you have such a resume of everything you've done Can you share kind of some of your bigger clients that you serve as well? Because I think that that is important for people to know Yeah, to your first point I just want to mention that like I just got really lucky Like I got into a agency out of the gate and most kids out of school They have to kind of kind of earn their stripes and a lot of times they're doing black and white ads and all those different things

4:09Not that I was too good for that But I got thrown into the deep end of the pool immediately So I got I got to work on all the good stuff right away Which really accelerated my process and then from there learning all about printing and then all the sudden Doing a lot bigger things. It just expedited the whole process for me and it made my resume kind of unique in a way But I don't if it was luck or right place or a time or whatever it was but it kind of worked out Yeah, and now yeah I mean, it's interesting that I first started cyber dogs. I got to work with house of Harley-Davidson out of Milwaukee I've worked with Milwaukee tool. We've done things with blaze pizza and five guys locally with space aliens I've so like we're working with everybody from you know the lawyer the dentist the the construction outfit all the way up to some major brands and and doing a really Wild things like you know the collaboration we did with Janice motorcycles in Milwaukee tool a few years ago where we actually went out and built custom bikes Which was crazy, but you just kind of pull on that string and you follow it and if you guys notice

5:10He's very good at branding. I don't know if you can see his shoes on camera But they're orange to match the rest of his branding So if your marketing guide doesn't know to brand himself well, you know Yeah, right and everything Mike has orange cars. Yeah, Mike has orange motorcycles And that was like when I first started the business that was something like I mean I like branding too, but it was something was a commitment Like if I'm doing this I'm going all in and I'm gonna wear my own brand and I'm gonna like I'm gonna drink my own Coolade with two hands and like that was the whole commitment and white orange Well, I never asked you that question. I'm genuinely curious why orange? But I what I kind of did the discovery process for my own business I wanted a color or something that exuded optimism because I left the corporate space and I just I kind of wanted to move away from Carpentery so I found a color palette that kind of broke down colors from from kind of a feeling type standpoint and Orange just kind of reeked of optimism So that was kind of my first kind of decision as I really want to chase that

6:14Direction and then when I really got into the colors of orange The most recognizable orange in the world is Harley Davidson So that the orange I picked and I just stuck with it So let's talk about that that leads us into the first question of I'm a new business and I did not come to you as a new business. I was already established. I already had farming without the bank stuff You've obviously reworked my logos. You did the life without the bank cover You've done a lot of stuff, but I already came in and had some momentum However, I know that you have worked with friends of mine starting businesses and Mike is not the cheapest person in town. Okay, so I look at some of your prices and go what he's charging that to get a business name But then when they come back with the business name and all the options the amount of time and effort You put into a business name the meaning of the name the strength of the name the font the colors Like if I'm a new business and I think that we like want to name our business after ourselves

7:19Which is the biggest mistake ever? But what goes into all of that like I just want to start a business And I don't even know where to start But why is the name and the logo and the colors like what are we doing to do there? So this is one of my favorite parts of the process But it's also kind of like one of the frustrating ones because Everybody coming in they want to minimize it simplify it. It's almost like what's the absolute least we can do and For me, that's the frustrating part because it's like guys between your wife and your kids and your house and your family and whatever Your career and what you're building is a major asset. It's a it's a major life of that And you want to put all the work into trimming it down to be the most minimalist approach you can which makes no sense So you have to invest and take the time to stand out because that's the whole point If you just get quick follow your neighbor or kind of take on this monkey see monkey do approach Your white noise the day you open your doors

8:20And you as you know when you start your own business and phones not ring in and you check in your bank account It's like I need to drum up some business I need so why not use that opportunity to create as much leverage for yourself as possible So it doesn't have to cost the moon either but right out of the gate You need to focus on how do I stand out? How do I lean into my superpowers so to speak and how do I make sure there's a distinction Between me and everybody else So when we're picking a business name like let's get that basic We're going to pick a name to our business are there certain things we should be looking for I look at different things like What if I'm a plumber? Yeah, so I look at different things that first of all what names are out there what's common what's recognizable Not necessarily that I want to follow that But I want to avoid certain things and then I also want to lean into like the customer behavior because if there's like a if there's a schematic or a way that they kind of Name businesses within an industry. I want to take that in the consideration and I might factor that into my business name

9:20But I just want awareness of who all is doing what so that when I go searching for names or I try to create a name that it actually makes sense And the other thing is you want it to be easy to spell you want it to be unique You want it to be something you can build on so like one of the things I do a lot with my customers is I take them through a discovery process Where we talk about you know if they were an animal what would it be what's your attitude like so that we can extract pieces of them So if there is a mascot or an animal or something that can come to the surface Well, then that's obvious because then that connects the dots to who you are and how you're going to operate your business So like I go through this whole thing to try to find pieces of uniqueness that I can bring to the surface so that what even when I do is like the name generations I can come back with something that they never heard of would be something that's uniquely going to stand out in the In the industry that they're in because I'm with you like you have to have a pretty cool name or a pretty unique name And easy to spell name if we're going to put your name in the business

10:24Otherwise, it's just a liability and you want words like my real business name is fiscal bridge Yeah, everybody thinks I say Cisco And so we spell it all the time F is in Frank I S is in Sam see is in cat like nobody knows how to spell fiscal They don't know what it means. It's a horrid business name But I just I knew I didn't want it to be my name But I just didn't put like I put some thought into it But I didn't think either about how it's going to lay out when it's stitched on Jacket I didn't think about the horizontal the vertical of what it looks like as a logo So as you have it or what if it's initials can I initial it like there's so much and if your business is new You can still change your name like that's not a problem right but my business is so old There's no changing the name it just is what it is at this point and you just deal with it But if it's new and you're trying to Figure that out on a dime because you don't have any money

11:27You don't know if the business is going to be successful and so you just throw something out there That's not good either like where do I put my money? Do I put it into having somebody help me figure out what my business name is There's only so much money to go around when I'm a new business I mean, I think one of the priorities when you're starting a business One of the first priorities and it does you don't have to spend the moon But where you need to invest is coming up with a name a logo and kind of a the foundational pieces of your brand So that you get off on the right foot because the worst thing that could happen is you pick some name and you think it's going to be A temporary thing and maybe I'll just change it later. Well, if you come out of the gates successful Now you've got a rebrand you've got a backtrack you've got to retie people You run the risk of the confusion you possibly have to rebuild and rename a website Possibly the URL that you wished you had is now not available It's a lot more work five years later than it is to just do it right up front But AI can do it for me Mike. No, it can but it's a dangerous thing with AI too because

12:29It's not going to factor in all the things that you need to factor in and again, you're running that risk of Somewhere along the line. There's Bobby more businesses or AI didn't do a thorough enough search for you That you're going to put yourself in a bad position I mean, I've seen it with clients where maybe they came in with a semi-generic name that they came up with on the fly to get the business started and three years after the fact They got a cease and a cease from some other company that's been that for 20 years And now all of a sudden they're legally bound to change their name Which is not a good position to be right you actually looked up a business name for an agent that works with me And I was surprised to see that there were so many businesses with that name because I had never heard it in the Western industry I'm like that's crazy But I would have not even thought to just look that up because I'm like oh, I haven't heard about it I'm in this industry. There's no reason to look it up But you come across that a lot or I've seen you work with clients where the logo is very similar to

13:33several other logos and It's like somebody gets stuck or I don't know how you end up with the same logos all the time But you know if your business name has certain letters people want to do kind of the same logos and you really have to look at that stuff Yeah, because most people migrate towards cheap and easy and a lot of times that's canva templates It's something off fiber. It could be stock logos, you know that they hold from i stock things like that And the problem is is if you're doing it so is a million other people and somewhere along the lines Whether it's the acronym of your business name or maybe it's just the name of your business that you didn't thoroughly research You're going to overlap and intersect and all of a sudden you're in a bad spot And not only in a bad spot from a copyright infringement standpoint But a bad spot in the sense that you want your brand again to be unique and not white washed into what everybody else is doing Standing else the goal. That's the goal. How crazy do we need to get to stand out though? Like I see people with just terrible business names

14:35They want to stand out so bad their business name is so outrageous That you're not going to remember it. Yeah, that's where like it. It has to be easy to spell Yes, it has to be easy to pronounce. It's got it. There's got to be some logic and it's got to make that It can't be too long for the URL either But that's why like when I do it that's why I do the full And you don't have to do it my way, but like that back story and how we get there That's all foundational to tell them the brand story after the fact So if I come up with a name for a business that ties back to like we did one a few years ago that tied back to I don't know how we got there at the moment, but it tied back to a commota dragon and With the back story that this person gave me and how they how we got there It not only made for a really unique brand and an interest in an industry that didn't have names like that But it laid down the foundation for a brand story and the attributes of Commota dragon and all this different stuff baked into it and like it it made for a story that made sense

15:39So once you actually went out and branded herself and told her story People could go that makes sense that's so you in the minute they say that It's like you know you did it right. Yeah I think it's important to to have the right person going through that Because just with my farming without the bank life without the bank like I have a coaching program like you've tied all of that in together Even the next book for You know our blue collar people like that will all be tied in with the same colors kind of the same Like I don't know how to do it. I'm not a creative individual I'm creative business-wise like I can think of a business for you to start in about five seconds And why you should start it and how big it's going to be and how to run it But I can't think of the prettiness of making things look good and cohesive and those sort of things and it's important Like I've used chat and I've gone in and asked it questions and and that's great But then I have to bring that back to you and say okay. This is what chat told me what are our thoughts around that Right, so you still need the human factor for some of that stuff

16:42Yeah, what AI chat GPT Claude what it's missing out of the gate is the context So it can do amazing things. I'm not saying it can't but if it doesn't have the context It's not going to be able to fill in the gaps in the same way And I always look at like you know your business as I always look at those businesses Not only from a creative lens but from an entrepreneurial lens in the sense that if you're creating a universe of brands And you're creating a collection of assets that maybe someday you want to sell or you want to branchize or you want to like do's more with the more dialed in the more connected the more consistent you are amongst those brands You're asking price is going to be even higher You know, that's so interesting because you're looking out. I think as a new business owner You're just hoping you make some money and we're coming in You from the creative side me from the business side and go ahead. Well, it's going to be successful Why wouldn't it be like we don't have any doubt that it's going to be successful and they're doubting it So they don't want to put a bunch of money and time and thought into it until it's successful

17:47But you're already doubting your own success So why would you be successful if you're doubting your own success you jumped in all orange and I mean all orange like rarely do I see you without orange It's book it's crazy like this and I embarrassed to say this a little bit I've been wearing my own brand every day for over a decade like there's not a day that goes by that I'm not and I Part of it is you know, I like my own brand and whatnot, but what happens if you have to go to a wedding Do you have something that's not orange? Yes, but I'll sometimes find a way to go I'll even throw a hat and I truck or whatever But for me, it's like it's a reminder because even when I'm not working to look in the mirror and see my own logo and stuff It's like oh, yeah, like it's really just a it's me kind of brainwashing myself or gaslighting myself to focus, you know Yeah, that's so interesting and I find to do to that like I don't do that like I'm not obviously I wear something different all the time

18:48I love CD it is But I think it is a and you and I have talked about this before I find that it's a little bit easier for men to brand with clothing than it is for women Like what am I supposed to wear a man's polo shirt with a logo on it like it just harder that way And so I tend to do the earrings or though whatever, you know Like you kind of make a statement one way or another, but if I was really amazing at branding I would have farming without the bank logoed earrings and yeah, you know But I was but so all my clients like even you do with a book placement and the different things in your office Those things are representing who you are Like the books on on your shelf and stuff they say something about you Which is kind of a low-key branding thing and it's people need to think about that like I go into clients with Into client meeting sometimes where you know, they're doing it from a rental office or they're doing it from somewhere that contains no Personality personality or remnants of their brand which is which is fine

19:51We all get to start somewhere but as you continue to cultivate your own brand You have to start bringing those pieces in because it's a subliminal thing People might not notice it right away, but you keep doing it over time They're gonna start to associate, you know, maybe the color orange with cyber dogs Which is a huge compliment what they do So if I'm a new business I've picked out my business name We've talked about the branding Where does the logo fall into all of that because people are out there on fiber trying to get logos like I've tried Fiber I've never gotten anything good out of fiber, but people do people use it And so or now they're really using chat GPT a lot to kind of figure out a logo And I think chat's a great spot to start Like I used it for my new book cover and then I'm like oh, that's pretty good might can tweak that You and I would like to kill one another when we do anything together design wise because I don't know what I want You have ideas. I don't even know how to tell you what I want or what looks good because I have zero creativity

20:53So it's nice for me to go to chat kind of figure out hey that looks pretty good Can you just tweak that and make it more aligned with a brand but people try to do the cheapest logo I did and I've redone it so many times that it's cost me more in the end Then if I would have just hired somebody correctly to begin with So we've got the business name. Maybe we've got the color down Now what do we do with the logo? Yeah, I mean I think using chat or something like that to brainstorm the concept to get it closer At least to the direction you want to go is is a good first step But I think the logo itself is one of the most important pieces because it's foundational to your brand And it's how you're going to make that first introduction like everybody knows that The first introduction is the most important that first impression all those things You need to do that for your business too and you need to invest in it so that it's done the right way Personally and kind of psychologically I think you have to love your brand coming out of the gate because that's the gas that keeps you fired up about it

21:56Like whenever I meet people that are like yeah, this is my this was the logo I went with the start with I don't love it and to me I'm late then why did you use it? Because you're you're starting off on the wrong foot and you're going out there and marketing something You don't even really love That energy and when you they can tell you know So if you're fired up about your brand and you're committed to your brand and you're all you're fired up about your own logo Because you're wearing it and that's a confidence thing people can sense it Here's what I've experienced from the logo side is if the logo is not done correctly It can't be embroidered it can only be printed at specific sizes my very first farming without the bank was Beautiful logo like meant a lot to me it had our brand in it But the row crops I couldn't get it small enough everything had to be super super large the files That it was sent like the first time I had mine done the person that didn't didn't have the files correct So when I sent it off to be digitized for

22:56Embroidery it wasn't done correctly to be digitized and the layers or whatever However, she had built it was not correct And so I don't think that people truly understand that piece of it either I don't think they think through like like we talked about you talked about like when I sit down and I think about your business or even Other clients businesses. I'm always thinking through of what if she wants to sell this someday How do we connect these assets all these different things you need to think five ten years beyond where you're at? To make sure you're thinking about how do I build this correctly for the long term? It's the same for logo so even when we do logo lockups anymore Everything's mocked up on a vehicle wrap a billboard the side of a building and I do get clients that are like Well, I'm never gonna wrap my vehicle. It's like that's not the point The point is is that we've created something that's so versatile that it works on any application You can think of and look up cool. It looks right We're trying to get you fired up about it and show you how flexible it is

23:58And I think the other thing that's key is when you guys do a logo Then I get a whole sheet that shows all that but I also get a sheet that I forget what you call it That's like I get all my colors and I get all the numbers for the colors and I can take that anywhere and have anything Printed and the color is on there when you do something with Somebody else that you got the logo you also need to understand that when you get your logo You may not own that logo There are some designers out there that will say I'm sorry, but I own that because that was my creative brain You what I paid you for that and so I think that as we're starting to We need to understand like we need the colors. We need the logo and needs to be set up correctly You need to be working with somebody that knows that if you want to go someplace else and do something else You own that logo It's yours you can get the file and go to Vistia and print your own business cards if you want

24:58Yep, and I learned that early on first of all that like if you just Ship your logo off to different places to whether do it embroidery or printing or maybe you took out an ad and some local publication If you don't have a brand style guide which is what we're talking about That completely maps out the right colors the right tones Somebody's going to get it wrong along the way and then that's damaged to your brands integrity And it's always just a problem So to just piece of mind if you have that brand style guide and that can just accompany Whenever your logo gets sent out it makes your life a lot easier and anybody who gets that brand style guide They love it because it's clarity. It's like man these guys are dialed in so that was something even early on We used to kind of offer it But everybody would opt out of it because they didn't know what it was so they didn't want to pay for it And now it's just we're doing it whether you want it or not because I know you're going to need it So you're welcome. Yeah, that's just the way I do it now and But you had mentioned to about the intellectual property thing Yeah, that's not even something I truly understand because I think it's so ridiculous

26:01But there are creatives out there that maintain ownership because it's their intellectual property They believe that it's still theirs They themselves can send you the cease and to cease even though you paid them to create it where What's anything we do? It's like anything you pay me to do is yours I don't need it like what would I do with your logo anyway if for some reason we were working together So you got to watch out for that kind of stuff and really ask those questions going into any relationship with a creative to make sure that what you're paying for is yours Mm-hmm, that's huge and here's a thing though Mike people will say oh, yeah That's yours when you leave that's and then they'll hold it and so make sure you have something in writing When you start working with somebody that says that's yours when you leave yeah, and even accesses You know whether it's to a dropbox folder or your Facebook page or whatever it is Make sure those tangible assets are in your possession But also any access that you need to get your stuff if something happens I mean we've had a death on the team in the same, you know

27:04Nobody did anything intentionally, but it was still a process to get accesses and get everything figured out Yeah, okay, let's see what we also got here. I've got my branding. I've got the logo Now who is my ideal customer? How important is that to figure out who the ideal customer is and why is that important? I mean at least having a sense of is Paramount in the whole process because you need to know what you're chasing and who you're going after I think most people out of the gate It's like if your money's green you're probably an ideal customer And it's like I get that to a point because when you first start now you have to get the machine rolling forward But you also have to over time start to dial in who the right people are not only financially But who really needs your service understands your service appreciate your service Because those things put you in the position to benefit them And then that's how you have success stories you get referrals all those different things So having who do you want to work with?

28:05Well, that's a huge part of it too and being honest with yourself about it You know, but then it's here's kind of what I'm trying to lead up to is people want to just serve anybody that can fog up a mirror Right, you're breathing. I can serve you But then how do I market to you? So even people within the infinite banking community for the most part They're not listening to the advice I'm giving them But they want to be at the success level I'm at but they are not niching down And they just can't quite figure out why they're having such a hard time finding clients Well, you're having a hard time finding clients because it's hard to market to the masses When you don't know exactly who your clientele is so figure it out from day one Are you going to be starving? Yeah, you will it's part of entrepreneurship Like there are really good days and then there are a lot of really bad days and then there are days You don't know how you're going to buy groceries like it is part of the game

29:06But if you know who you're talking to that marketing message is so much easier Because one of the questions I have is okay if I have a thousand dollars where do I start marketing? Well, that thousand dollars is going to get spread over this many people or it's going to get spread over this many people Where do you think it's going to be more effective? I always use the analogy with people like so they understand the impact that If you set out today like I'm going to start going to the gym and you just go to the gym every day And you have no plan and you don't focus on muscle groups and you just one day or there an hour the next day or there three hours You're going to get 90 days in see no results and and what a quit If you go there with a plan and you focus on certain muscle muscle groups certain days and you really plan it out So it's measurable not only will you be able to measure and see your progress after 90 days But you'll be able to know where to apply pressure or where to ease off on something that clarity is huge Especially from a business owner standpoint but from a business that's starting a brand from scratch

30:09Like you said, where do I put that first thousand? Well, it totally depends on where you're at in the process But be intentional with it if you're intentional with it you can measure and if you can measure it You can track it and if you can track it you can leverage it and do something with it I'm a brand new business. Do I need to be Pain for ads on Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok or whatever in most cases know because You don't have all the foundational pieces in place to run successful ads If you don't have all the foundational pieces in place and you choose to run ads You're fishing in a bigger pond and just hoping to catch something and then your ROI is not good and the The metrics themselves will tell you that it was unsuccessful and you're not going to know why Okay, we skipped a step website So and I was just thinking of that as you were saying that like okay You can advertise but you don't have a website. So the website is also very important. I did this all wrong I did all these I did all these things last one we have been

31:10So So how much should I spend on a website should I build the website myself how nice is the website have to be like we've talked about the marketing Peace right we've talked about all the other stuff what about the website the whole website game has changed a lot in the last few years And I get clients at different levels that ask different questions about it But for one, it's about where do you see yourself in five or ten years? So so you're again building out that foundation for the future But also where do you stand or where do you plan to put your efforts like I've had clients come to me saying Do I really need a website? I've got Facebook and it's like well Then how active are you on Facebook and you better be good at Facebook? Because if you're act if you're expecting Facebook to do what your website could then you need to approach it that way Or if you're in an industry where you need to do some kind of lead capture or there's some kind of a a downloadable or whatever that you use to to get them in your funnel Then where are you planning to do that because Instagram can't do that tiktok can't do that

32:11You know, you need to look at that as well or who's your target market? Are you looking for 50 year olds or 40 year olds or 30 year olds or what is it? So really where you position your brand Website versus social media whatever you need to answer those questions first I don't think it's even a question I'm surprised by your answer because I always tell people don't build your business on rented ground and Facebook Instagram all social media platforms YouTube is all rented ground They can shut you down your website you own that's not rented ground You should be getting as many people off of social media on to the website as possible But what people don't understand on the website piece is they're like oh, I can build that I can buy whatever program and build it Okay, you could but do you understand the SEO the retargeting pixels all the stuff that you're going to need Like when I came to you guys there were so many things I did not have in place I was already paying for Facebook ads

33:11But I didn't have any of that stuff in place to start following people around and maximize my dollars And so building and being legit I had a guy yesterday that posted on one of my ads and he said Oh, so here's another person that's just going to be around for six months and then disappear And so I responded and said I've been around for 16 years We have people answering the phones of hundreds of podcasts like he said something about I don't remember what he said And I'm like there's a link to the website go do the due diligence But we're in a world where so many people are scammers and people have gotten scammed once off of Facebook or social media And they don't think you're a legit business and now you've got AI Doing all the crap and you don't even know like I can tell that's an AI ad That's not a real human being that's not a real person that's AI So now you don't trust it because of AI you have to have the website

34:14Yes, I always explain that first part first because nobody has that stuff built out to even argue the point of the website So I always kind of explain that first because that's where they want to go because it's free Like why would I build a website when I have Facebook kind of like because you don't have any foundation there It's a credibility thing like there's a lot of reasons why you should But then when we get to the point of well, what do I need then for a website You need something that represents your brand that you'd be kind of proud to put your name behind because we're all Kind of creepers in a way where when you meet somebody you're gonna go look them up Yeah, and when they land on that website it needs to be a credible representation of who you are as a business Because if it isn't the next the impression they're gonna get and they're gonna bounce out of you Or if they can't find you then that even looks sketchy And if the website looks like crap that is a representation of how you're going to do the job for me It's like I always talk about this and I'm gonna get heat for this But if you're a trucker and you own a trucking business and your trucks are dirty all the time

35:15I just judged you by your semi Why is your semi filthy? That guy driving down the road with the shiniest semi and his chrome is like Reflecting I'm like that guy takes his business of driving very very seriously, right? Your website is a hundred percent representation You're not an attorney going to work in pajamas hoping that somebody takes you seriously It's the same level. Yeah, I think a couple things I think the milk eggs and bread of what do I need to get my brand rolling? Is that I definitely think you need a website of some level you need to get your hands on the the social platforms That you'll choose to be engaging on so that that's feeding like you said your website And then how you build that can now be Framed up with what your budget is what you're trying to do all those things because on the website side everybody thinks You know, they jumped is it was a 20 30 40 thousand It's like well, it doesn't have to be but it depends on what your functionality requests are You can get by with a wick site or a square space site or a shopify site or if you need something more complex

36:21Then we got to take you to webflow WordPress or maybe even something custom But it's all it all is depending on what you're trying to do with that website And it should be built from the beginning to be added on to correct And so if we don't understand really where we're going and that the big vision of the business Are we going to have affiliate links are we going to sell stuff are we going to have a storefront like storefronts are a huge Animal and people don't truly understand that but like in my industry They say oh well, how am I going to sell Nelson's book? Well, you're going to send those people to Amazon or you're going to send them to infinite banking.org Instead of fulfilling that book order yourself and capturing that person's name So you can be building a list So when Facebook turns you down or when YouTube shuts you off you have a list of people Email addresses names that you can send cards to you can do post office or postcards You can email them you can call them whatever

37:23You've just completely given up access to any of that information Which is why I don't even like to sell books on Amazon because I lose those contacts are my books on Amazon Yes, would I prefer you not buy them there? Yes to do it properly Yeah, I mean your website should be the hub of your whole kind of your ecosystem of your business It should be collecting leads it should be you know, there should be website traffic and analytics that you can pull from It should be promoting other things in the business That's kind of the part at the beginning I was getting to with the clients is that you need to know what it is So you don't have to rebuild it every three or five years if you start out with the right and you don't think it through and you just try to be cheap You're probably gonna have to redo it in three to five years, which is another brand and business setback that you don't need It's just another expense right if you do it right you can progressionally add on bolt on and keep it going down the same path without extra expense It's just evolution at that way. Yeah, but you have to have somebody that thinks that foreign advance that you're working with and chat's not thinking

38:27Where do I need to be and all these other places aren't thinking that Again, do you really think your business is gonna fail or do you think it's gonna be successful and you mentioned it earlier But like the stuff you don't think of as well the SEO the ad all the different things even building out a Google business profile all those little things that don't seem like a big deal A business a Google business profile is enough to put you in the insane asylum like it is awful And here's the thing that people some people maybe don't understand either is like you walk me through all that stuff And you kind of hold my hand because you know I don't have patience for it right like I could hire somebody else and go do But are they gonna do that probably not like understanding Having that relationship when you do get to the point and we'll get there, but I'm gonna say it now Having that relationship with your marketing guy to understand that is key like you have to be committed To that person for a while as well like that you can't just like start and stop marketing people all the time

39:33Because you you don't like they did this one thing wrong or they did that one thing wrong I get people don't mesh I 100% understand that and then you have to move on But when you understand Somebody's personality is just makes it so much easier like you just knew when I went on tiktok I'm not dancing like you know the limits of what you can ask me to do for my marketing I don't have to explain it those raw leverage points as well like the more you get to know that client and better understand What they do what they don't do what their superpower is what they're not good at That just helps you fill in all the blanks and and find the gaps of what we then need to do with that person And that then steers into their uniqueness because my thing is if you just did all the tiktok dances Everything would run out of steam And we'd be starting over all the time Instead of building layer by layer, which is kind of what we've done in seven years If you just keep leveling up So there's something I thought of that I had not thought to ask I'm a brand new business We've gone over all this stuff and people will start with they want to start with no money

40:36But ideally let's say ideally I listen to this and I want to start a business How much money should I plan to spend to do it right from the get go with a marketing individual I'm going to pay you to go through the website and to do the website correctly I'm going to pay you for the net help me with the name. I'm going to pay you to set up the SEO stuff to do the logo Correctly to pick the colors correctly based on feelings because that's like a real thing right So what if I am somebody listening to this and I'm saying okay, that's great Mary Jo and Mike But how much do I need if I don't want to do it all myself? But I want it done correctly because I know I'm going to be successful I'm going to give you a couple answers there The one thing I always tell people because to me it's like it's like when you donate money right If you donate money to your church or your local nonprofit and you give an amount that you didn't even notice Then you didn't give enough and it's the same when you invest in your marketing If I say what's your budget and you tell me it's $2,000 a month

41:37I need you to be on a comfortable with the number not just because I want your money But it's because I need you to be in on this and I need you to understand that it's an investment And I need you to want to do it because it matters If you just give me the number that is a throw away number and you won't feel it That I know you're not that committed to the whole thing anyway So I do a couple things when I work with clients I try to help them understand the broad strokes of based on what you're telling me I think the logo might be these are made of numbers But the logo process might be 3,000 The website might be 10,000 And I'll kind of give them the broad strokes But then I'll reverse that and say Now what's your timeline because all this stuff is progressional Like we can take a project by project or we could take the lumped sum and spread it out over 12 months Because it's probably going to take that long anyway I'll work with them to try to not necessarily sell them on the idea But to help them digest that it's a process Nothing we do is a light switch

42:38So when I give you the logo that doesn't mean your phone's going to ring When we launch your Facebook page I'm not responsible for what you do or don't do it Like I need you to understand it's a process So that's kind of how we break it down for people to help them understand And I would say just to even answer it further The average you got to have somewhere between I'd say $7,500 and 12,000 to get started To do it right Which to me is an easy lift if you're starting a business And that is it's really nothing If we start with nothing you can do it that way But it's going to still cost you that amount of money or more in the end Eventually So we can have all that money and we can get all that started But then this is what drives me crazy We're never going to post on social media We're never even going to tell anybody we have a business We're not going to put a logo on our car We are going to do nothing Because you have the business but you're so scared to actually tell it You're scared to walk around in orange

43:38Okay, here's what I see People will build the website They'll start the Facebook page They'll do all the things But then they stop And then they're mad that they're not winning And that they're not successful Like you just said You could stick $12,000 into it And you're going to throw that money away Or you stick $12,000 into it And you're committed As my friend Merlin says You're committed not interested And the fact that we're going to do this But you're not the one And I think that new people don't understand this You're not the one doing Mary Jo's videos You're not the one thinking of topics for Mary Jo to do I am doing all of that stuff on the back end And we may in a meeting you may say Hey, you might want to do this Or the marketing team You might look at something and say This performed really good Do more of those type of things And you might give me an idea here and there But you do not know infinite banking You don't know life insurance You are not a life insurance agent So I can't expect you to come up with content

44:41That is 100% on me Then the content goes to you And it's your job to post it Deliver it, snip it, clip it Whatever that happens to it after that Is yours I'm going to create it But then you go do your thing And that's the big thing And I agree with you But like there's a lot of things We can do without the clients involvement But it's way better if they're involved And they participate But I also can't close the deals without the client So holding marketing responsible for the ROI Is like well, but you're not closing the deals Right And I have clients that I know You know what like I do marketing And those kinds of things But as an entrepreneur I know where they're at And I have a lot of conversations with clients about What did you do today? Did you network? Did you like because if you're not out there Chasing leads and trying to close deals Or even working on How you tell your story and your pitch Then you're not doing enough Because that's part of it Knowing who you are and how to kind of sell it

45:43That's part of the process So if they're not committed to that That's a red flag Because it's just not going to work out the way they thought it would Right Because marketing does a lot But it can't close the deal Right And why aren't you wrapping your vehicle I mean, I don't have my vehicle wrapped But that's because I'm a honker And I don't And you don't have I'm a good driver But I like to honk at people that aren't And so therefore I don't want myself low-goed How I would just be a better driver I'd low-go it And I'm because you should Yeah People need to find their version of Whether it's a vehicle wrap or whatever They need to find their version of how they Celebrate their brand But But it takes time It does The awareness takes time The thing that I find with new business owners Is they think they're going The marketing is going to make them rich overnight And it does not matter Any successful business did not happen overnight If you happen overnight You might only live overnight You might have a short-lived business And for those things to live long-term is extremely rare

46:44So if you are the average business You need to expect that five years Of hosting consistently Teaching providing value in your marketing Like so many people And I see this You know they're a new business owner And maybe they're sharing a meme Or they're not like Sharing their backstory They're not building up their credibility To why you should be doing business with them We need to know that you're not a scam And so you need to provide content And I mean I just have the gift to gab So I'm okay providing content But somebody that doesn't talk a lot Somebody that shy in front of the camera What do we do? How do we get them to create content That can build their brand And I think for those who are naturally They're okay being in front of the camera They got the gift to gab It's like that's a superpower That these people need to leverage And they just need to steer into it And for those who don't have it You got to figure it out

47:45Whatever version it is that you have You got to get over the fear Or the embarrassment or whatever Because I'll be honest When I first started doing podcasts and stuff I'm like Oh my god, my friends are going to make fun I mean my brothers are really I just felt like an idiot And I eventually had to get to the point Where if I'm doing this for my business Do I care if I'm doing this for my family Do it doesn't matter Like I need to do what I need to do And it'll just figure itself out It gets more comfortable I the first time I was on Facebook, I was doing Facebook lives I was extremely active in social media for years A decade before I went into TikTok And my first couple TikToks I was like I don't know what I'm doing This is so weird Like it just I didn't know where I was at I just had to push through I had to do three to five of them And then pretty soon people are talking to you And then it gets to be more and more comfortable Yeah And you need to recognize what it is But you don't always have to be on camera either No There are so many things you can do

48:46Outside of being Eventually you will have to be on camera But there are things that you can do To be outside of that That work as well If it's voice over or whatever It's just more editing But I truly believe as a new business owner You need to learn To maybe edit some of your own video You need to take some of your own video And just it's just an iPhone Or a Samsung or whatever I do everything on my phone So I don't think it's bad to learn that stuff Go into CapCut, learn it Because I do think that And I've seen other business owners That don't have the patience with their marketing people Because they think things should be done faster Ben that edits all of my stuff I don't question how long it takes him Because he's doing it for quality But I also understand When I go to do it I want to kill somebody There are times when I'm like I'm just going to make this meme Because I want it right now And it's going to take Mike's team Like a couple days to get it back to me And I want it now

49:46Oh my gosh It may be took me two hours to do it And then I am kindly reminded Of why I pay you in your team Because it takes a long time And then I don't know what I want for a picture And I'm not creative So it takes me much much longer And I so I think that there is some value To people doing some things on their own To begin with So they understand That you know this isn't just that easy I mean I think it's great When people have a perspective of At least generally speaking how it works But yeah I mean And I say this kind of is a joke But it's also 100% true I have never had a client say take your time Everybody wants it yesterday That's just the way it And I get that So yeah we flip everything And I'm sure Benda is two or whoever But everybody's trying to flip it as fast as they can But still trying to lay it in All the pieces we know matter to the client Whether it's quality or branding Or whatever it is Because that's that's the piece that Again, subliminally kind of pulls that together

50:48We've spent an hour just talking about Starting a business And we've maybe made it sound A little bit harder than it needs to be Because I don't think it's that hard But at the end of the day if you don't do any of these things And you do them wrong And your business is successful Then you're back to square one Which is what I did I did it all wrong And then I had to come back And I redid it And then I met you And I had to redo it again And so now we're on a path of just adding to it And everything's going smoothly But even before I met you My branding was just I was doing all my own memes I did everything myself And it was funny because Once I hired you Everything started to look very cohesive Very more professional The website was getting all redone And people were commenting That oh everything will start Everything and looks really good lately I didn't think I sucked that bad But apparently I did But it is people notice it Oh yeah

51:49And you just don't think it's that big of a deal But it's a big deal Even if they don't speak to it There's something that's happening in the brain Where they're subliminally Buying into it Or it's becoming Second nature to them To be able to identify that person's brand Without even reading a word And that's why that matters so much And I'd agree with you I think I don't think building a business Or doing a lot of these things I don't think it's that hard The hard part is the commitment of it It's the Getting out of your own way piece That most people struggle with And I'm guilty of it Some huge hypocrites sitting here Talking about it But But I know that Because I've done it myself And then When I finally And something over Then I feel like an idiot For not having done it sooner Happens all the time It is a financial commitment And we're so scared of saying Okay, we have to have this Financial commitment for marketing But because how are we going to pay them Go post more videos Get more work Like go hustle

52:49I don't ever question How am I going to pay Mike Because at the end of the day And Kevin used to say this When Kevin is our Our other marketing guy That you guys saw years ago But he passed away And Kevin used to say Yeah, I can do all the Facebook ads for you But if you can't close the business Then it's not my fault Because I'm giving you the leads But you can't close the business And that's very true Like feels like, well, it's too expensive Well figure out how you're going to pay for it But you're asking the wrong questions Right, and you got to think through I mean, I'll always tell you this story Because this actually happened to me In the last 30 days We've been working on some new lead generation stuff For my own business And Man, they're They're kind of spending So I'm out there talking to companies And I'm trying to figure out Well, I want to partner with And this one's $3,000 This one's $5,000 This one's $6,000 And as I'm kind of having a Well-as-me moment to a degree Because I'm like, I don't really want to spend all this money I start thinking about, well, what's my average cost per client

53:50What does that look like? By the time I crunch the numbers I'm like, I did all three Because I'm like, this makes no sense Like by the time I crunch the numbers I realize to myself that If I do all three and walk away with one client It completely offsets the cost And now I just move my business forward I made my pipe bigger I did a lot of different things that created positive impact For a long term results But that money is not going to come That new client may not come for six months down the road It might not be a year But the knowledge and the expertise you're gaining You're going to be able to service somebody new That's going to pay for that I think we want this And I learned this very early on From my friend Mary Jo Who sold marketing And she said to me This is you're not basically getting an ROI On this paper ad I was doing She's like, you're just not It's going to be awareness You're building awareness For whatever reason That stuck in my brain And it lowered my expectations Because I never got an ROI

54:52A physical value of an ROI From those ads However, she also told me She was selling like radio and paper ads at the time Because you know this was 16 years ago And she did ads for one of the casinos Here in North Dakota And she said, I will ask people When was the last time you heard that ad And they'll be like, oh just the other day And she's like, we haven't ran that ad in six months And they thought it was just the other day Because when they were running ads It was so hot and heavy That people thought that So she's like, you are building awareness And I am not kidding you Two years ago Somebody said, oh I just saw you in a publication Like I haven't done a paper ad in 15 14, 15 years What? Or I heard you on a radio I haven't done a radio ad in probably 10 years And yet that is exactly what we have to understand Like the more you're posting on Facebook The more that you are putting yourself out there And people are seeing you

55:53I don't care if you post on Facebook five times a day Because if they don't like it They can unfollow you It's free So post, give information And make it worth somebody's wild to do that But to say, hey Mike, I want you to build that website And what's my ROI on that in six months Is ridiculous Yeah, but it's a lack of understanding Is to how it works Because like that ad that you just mentioned That was just the first breadcrumb It wasn't the breadcrumb that And what's my ROI on that breadcrumb Probably nothing But it was the first breadcrumb And the 50,000 that came after that That's what led to all these people kind of knowing who you are So do you think that's like the biggest mistake people have with marketing Or the biggest misunderstanding people have with marketing Is they think that everything they do is going to turn into dollars Right now, instantly Well, for one, it's yes, it's a lack of understanding of how it works And what kind of how those things connect But it's also the way it's sold

56:53So like if you're on Facebook and Instagram You'll see all these people promising this and promising that And all that really doing is promising you the one piece that doesn't convert Like I can promise you 10 million likes or 10 million views on a video Okay, that's great But how many of those can you promise me will convert The answer every time will be well-known Well, then what's it worth And you have to be able to read through that and be able to see it for what it is I'm not saying all those deals are bad But what does it mean for your business and how is it going to convert That's what matters And like you said, it might we might build something that takes two or three years to mature But if on that second or third year The client or the project that you land offsets everything we did Leading up to that point and that was worth it So what about the people that have been in business Let's say five to 10 years They don't have the best website It's the Mary Jo coming to you when I came to you Because I was probably in about five years So what happens

57:54In those scenarios like I certainly want to be sensitive to how they got there What part matters what you know what aspects of that brand or that business Of pivotal and the whole thing So like I'm learning and kind of doing my own discovery to figure out where I want to put my suggestions But then at a certain point in that process I that's what I call like a brand calibration And I try to pick what the lowest hanging fruit to a degree Let's start with this and trickle it into these areas Because I know it's going to be a process anyway I don't try to sell them the whole thing off the get go Because I just know that's going to be a lot for them to digest And sometimes it's like they're giving up one of their kids when you start Polking and changing things about something that they're Well because we might start with a new logo We might change color So I pitch it as a process and it's a calibration How do we get these things back in alignment Or how do we you know explore the areas that were maybe just completely ignored for years Because a lot of times and I do see this a lot

58:57Where they as a business think maybe that marketing task or whatever Whatever that is can be handled by anybody So they have the gal at the front desk do it or they start just bringing in interns Or maybe somebody's kids going to school for marketing So they let them do it And over the course of a decade you've got six, seven, eight people Involved in this thing and now it's a mess And by the time you get to that eighth, ninth person It's like why don't you even know where to start because this is all over the place That's why that calibration needs to happen because we need to kind of clean up What years of you know neglect and almost different people jumping in is done I call it a Frankenstein effect because that's what it technically is Because you just keep bolting on and adding on with different reasons and And different purposes that by the time you get to that say 10-year mark You've got a Frankenstein's monster on your hands and you don't know how to get it back into control So you got to start somewhere So I got Frankenstein How long is it can take to fix Frankenstein? Because my thought is is these people are coming in and going

59:59Okay, I'm at this five-year mark. I'm ready to roll Like we've made some money. I know we're successful. We're going to be around. We've got employees now maybe But now I'm ready to roll and I want this stuff done overnight And I know what that process looks like But now what what are their expectations of time frame here? I mean, I'll just kind of think about a kind of a worst-case scenario I would say we could re-skin and realign visually inside of 90 days But then 90 days is a long time. It is But after that 90 days we need to take it in 30, 60, 90 days And that's 90 days if they are let's clarify I think That's 90 days if the owner of the business is on top of it Helping you pull apart Frankenstein and put them back together as it should be Communications clicking everybody's doing their part like it's an efficient machine Yeah, I would say at least 90 days You know and then after that then it's kind of assessing it 30, 60, 90 days at a time To really where are we making enrods in this whole thing based off of your goals?

1:01:04So easily it's a 12-month process for us to truly evaluate the changes that we made It's a 12-month process I didn't have problems with it but I've heard you talk about clients that didn't even own their website They don't know how to get control of their website Now we have to rebuild it from scratch That's going to take a super long time And so they came in thinking oh great I'm going to hire this marketing guy And this is all going to be fantastic And I'm I'm all going to look like Mary Jo for example I'm just going to look exactly like Mary Jo and we're going to be up and rolling And it is so not like that Yeah and these are like client name stories but like it happens all the time where The previous employee or somebody was the one who registered the domain or maybe they were the only one With access to the website and they left or for whatever reason they're not on good terms And then all the files are gone like once we get in there and start to kind of deconstruct Well, where's this how do we get access to this If the owner of the business or the person we're dealing with has no knowledge over

1:02:08No, how to control over those things Then it's a different thing because now and that's really like it's not the business I'm in But we help them figure it out. Yeah, well here's where I'd look and if go here ask here talk to these guys Yeah, so we help them try to get control back And I'll tell all my clients that that no matter who you work with you need to have control over your stuff Yes, oh my gosh, don't let anybody tell you I totally forgot when I came to you. I didn't own my farm in a thought the bank Facebook page because the gal That was helping me at the time doing my marketing. She made herself the owner And I was not paying attention to it because I said I'm not a micromanager. I am not a control freak in it This is not my territory. Mike has my business. You Control it at the moment like everything's under my email addresses and I have the two Code authorizations whatever but still we learned even with Kevin's passing that there was stuff he was doing That he was using my email address

1:03:09But it would go to his phone for the authorization because he didn't want to wait and those sort of things But she was holding that hostage because she was mad that I left Well, I had to go to Facebook and thank God I trademarked everything and it was insane And as crazy as that is it happens all the time you have more horror stories I don't I've never heard a good story of when people come over Five years in or whatever Three years in and now we want to really do the right thing Again, how much is it costing you in a headache in time time is valuable and now it gets drug out for you to fix it Because they're trying to run their business. They're trying to fix this They're frustrated that they don't own anything but as a business owner that doesn't micromanage We don't want to micromanage that because we need to make sure we own it That's the worst thing that we can do is trust somebody because we need to make sure we own it We need to make sure those two code authorizations come to us. I don't care if you're sharing

1:04:12You know, we use password shares and all that kind of stuff But you're very good about making sure that that ownership stays with me But it's a nightmare. Yeah, and I get it. Why do marketing agencies get a bad rap sometimes It's because of stuff like this. Yeah So as much as we deal with it and see other businesses that operate that way It's just a good reminder for us to be like let's position these clients to be okay without us and make sure they have everything partially Because I don't want the responsibility either but right But I also don't want them to feel like that. I mean a quick story We had one just a few months ago where for whatever reason they had parted ways with their current Marketing company and that marketing company had Set up and created everything so they had all their social medias They had their DNS and URL access. They had ownership of the website and they came to me Saying hey, we want to work with you, but how do I get all this stuff back? And I'm like well, are you on good terms with them and whatever and they're like no Like well, I hate to say it, but you might have to get a lawyer

1:05:15Because that's where it's at and unfortunately. Yeah, that's what that's what ended up happening and I don't Know how it all turned out at this point, but it was crazy because this other agency had kind of common deared everything from the beginning As a control measure and which is bizarre, but and to think that business relationship is gonna be good forever Is silly like I left her those were not good terms because she was upset but my very first marketing guy He's amazing like until just I don't know probably in the last couple years He'd be like hey your website something was going on with your website He was getting notifications or whatever and he was super super super amazing But that is not always the case and so people that are gonna jump from one marketing place to another You're gonna have this mess every single time you go It ultimately doesn't matter if I left you even though I own everything I would still kind of have a mess. I'd be like Mike. Well, what about this? Well, what about this? And it might take you a year to find everything well after a year your sick and tired of me

1:06:18You left me a year ago. I'm not making any money off you Why should I still be answering your questions? You know, it's like somebody calling me and saying Hey, I went I read your book went to another life insurance agent bought a policy. Can you help me use it now? Why didn't just come to me to begin with and do it right from the get go and so I think that people Like back to even what we were just talking about do you want to spend the $12,000 or 15,000 dollars or whatever it takes to do it right from the beginning and then Follow the steps that you have to build your own self like I started my business with nothing or a good idea But if we're coming out of a situation where we have a 401k or we have an IRA that's got a hundred thousand dollars in it Take the 20,000 dollar now. This is not financial advice. I'm not a financial advisor But if it were my 401k I would stick it into that and have everything built and then figure out the free stuff on the back end Which is video content?

1:07:19Which is like that is all free. You don't have to pay for that stuff Like that was not the case when you a nice World that was not the case years ago all that it was not that easy to just record You needed to have a big fancy camera. You needed to have the editing software You needed to do all those things and so I think that to me it's not rocket science Just do it right from the beginning because you do it wrong and you don't even own your stuff You know, it's like well, what would you be willing to give in trade for say a million dollars? Is everybody wants to build a million dollar business? But they're not willing to trade what it would take to build that And what you should I mean the answer should be 100,000 200,000 like it's a huge ass So invest in it and make sure that you're putting that effort forth because Either you're getting yourself off on the wrong foot and it's gonna cost you more later Or you're just delaying the success of your business which neither one's a good thing Okay, so we're five ten years in the business and we're at three

1:08:21100,000 dollars a year like we've got some money to put behind some marketing the websites all good We've done all the branding stuff. We've got all that down What should we expect for marketing where do we go? How do we expand our business on the marketing side? I think anymore the goal is still to stand out in your industry and amongst your competitors I think you have to do that through your creative I think you have to do that through obviously right now short-form video You have to look at AI as it does a huge potential opportunity And just to kind of run the math there Most people don't realize that Google owns YouTube and YouTube also owns Gemini So these dots are being connected whether you choose to participate or not So to spend money and invest and to really pay attention to that piece as part of your business is huge And then I also think you should invest in things that are completely unique to you Like things that other people are going to do because they're not you You know, it was like when we built the the Acme tools are the Milwaukee tool motorcycle

1:09:21Like well, isn't that kind of a waste of money? Depends on how you look at it for the investment that Social media credibility and everything that we got as part of that graphic and everything that we got as part of that process It was worth every nickel absolutely And I think business should think that big they should think that broad Because those are the kinds of things that are going to make them stand out It's going to make you look more fun. It's going to make you look more credible And it's going to make people want to work with you because you're an outside the box thinker So it's a do we at your five at your 10 at your 15 are we sort of reinventing our business? To me, it's always an evolution You know as a business owner you have to be logical and manage budgets and do what you can within your means and there's always like a Like a little ceiling that you're going to run into But as your business grows You got to kind of keep that wide-eyed optimism going and saying you know what I hit this point I'm going to do this so when I hit this point So you keep pushing that ceiling up and doing more fun things because I think based on the general business format

1:10:25And if you were to just Google basic marketing There's all these practical ways to do these different things But to me, that's just the foundational that's the stuff that everybody knows How do you take that make it your own and add this layer of Customize to you on top of it so that you can do something that again stands out in pops like for you Your voice and how you sell and how your personal brand is every bit as much of the brand of Armed without the maker without the main not everybody has that but why because they didn't explore it They didn't push for it like whatever we can do to kind of pull these leverage points out of ourselves to add layers on top of it That's what I would focus on how much does a business owner need to Always be involved in the marketing. I think they need to be aware. I think they need to or be creative about Adding those things. I mean, I don't know if you want a percentage, but I like I think They need to be on top of it from the sense of at least once a week every other week

1:11:29They need to be briefed on what's happening and why so that they're dialed in and and they're aligning their vision of things to what's actually happening How much do you think they need to have the vision because I feel like business owners that are you know Oh, we're 10 years in we're 15 years in we're just coasting we think we're doing okay We don't think we need to worry about competition Like I think we get lazy. I think they need to have a vision as it pertains to the numbers so that analytically they've got kind of got a sense of where it's going But I also think they need to have a vision of Adminimum of what they like and don't like so if they have a creative team that's saying What about this or what about this they need to have a sense of what they like and don't like so that we can pair those things together Like I don't necessarily expect every client to be super creative But they have to know what it what they like and don't like so that they can participate or ask questions I just feel like you see the painter who has a really good painting business

1:12:30And he hasn't rewrapped it. He hasn't put new logos on it. He hasn't gotten a new van So he might have the experience and he might be good at what he does But he quit trying the second he got busy and that happens a lot with business owners I just quit trying. I don't want to advertise. I'm busy and this as you know because you hear me We meet every Friday so it might get a glimpse of what I've been Curitated about that week or whatever But you get these blue color business owners that they don't have the secretary They're busy and they're happy just being busy, but we quit advancing our business We quit trying to be better. We're just content Yeah, because they I mean, I see this all the time with businesses that they kind of think well I'm already making this money which I'm happy with so why bother or they're at their capacity from a time and resources perspective And they think well, there's there's nowhere left to go And then what happens is you'll see one of the sons one of the sons will take over the business

1:13:32They'll rewrap all the vans they'll build a new website and all of a sudden they're growing again Yeah, they've done exponentially better than the years before because they did all the things that dad wouldn't do And I feel like business owners don't want to learn marketing like I listen to Even though I have your team. I'm listening to marketing podcasts all the time It's either a business podcaster marketing podcast and then I'm bringing that stuff back to you guys Would you already know 99.9% of the time? But I have to hear it as well because we're looking every week when we meet we're looking at my numbers And what are we doing and how can we change this and I'm trying to feed you guys information And I think this is important for people to understand we've been working together seven years And I am still feeding you information on a weekly basis of this is the client I talked to This is what we covered this was a question they asked I've never thought about that maybe we should do content on that like I am

1:14:32Always extremely aware of when I'm talking to a client. Oh, they asked that we've never covered that or should we maybe do a PDF of that or should we do a video of that and I'm bringing that information back Marketing is a very high majority of my week and I feel like business owners get complacent The longer we have business, but they just think oh, it's okay. It's just marketing. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing or I don't need more than just My marketing person in the office We don't need a team of Mike's people to do it because we have two people or we have one person That's doing it and they're doing a fine job Yeah, I think that you're kind of rare in this scenario because your marketing IQ not that you have the skill set to execute all these things But your marketing IQ and your awareness is super high because you've been through a lot of it You're digesting content on your own time plus we're having Conversations on a weekly basis. There's probably not much out there that you haven't heard of or like Again, whether you could execute it or not doesn't matter

1:15:33But you've got to wear with all of what this all means and how it connects and the value of it And then there's the guy who says like I got a marketing guy for that Well, then my answer to that is well then you better trust him Because if you're not going to keep up with it and you don't want to be knowledgeable about it or you don't want to participate Then you have to trust the guy that's doing or you're he set up to fail too If it how are you as a marketing guy supposed to even market that guy if all he does is trust you You can't provide his content or you can't you can't create his content You can create a meme Yeah, but if I'm not doing it and I'm not paying attention to what people are doing to have the IQ What are you doing as a business owner? You're slowing down the growth of your business and making it that much harder to succeed. So like That surprises me And it happens a lot again, I think marketing gets a bad rap a lot of the time But it's because most people don't understand how it works or really how it's changed over the last decade even You know, it used to be you'd buy a few radio ads or you'd throw a couple ads in the local publications or maybe a billboard

1:16:38That was really as crazy as that ever got and then websites happen social media happen paid ads happen Going viral became a thing trends are now a thing. There's so many layers in there And again, I I think people should try to keep up with it, but I don't think they did So they're mind you have the opposite to where you have everybody jumping on every bandwagon like oh we can advertise on tiktok We can now advertise on AI you're on chat gpt right so we can advertise there But if we don't know what we're doing there, we're just wasting our money as well or effort Yeah, because we see both extremes a lot of times it's great that they're involved But like you said they're the other extreme. They're flossing on tiktok and they're they're doing the craziest things And it's like well, that's great, but what's it doing for your business? Are you tracking it if you look at the analytics or even hitting the right people And again, not everything's going to be a one-to-one ROI, but the intent should align I feel like if you're a business owner and you don't look at everything as marketing

1:17:42Genius or not genius. What are you doing? Should you even be a business owner? I mean it does not matter You and I were just talking about me looking for an Arabian B that's luxury and everything I look I'm like those pictures are terrible from a marketing standpoint Why didn't you hire somebody with but why are you taking your own pictures for your Arabian B? What is your lighting like every single thing I look at is I can't look at a semi-driving down the road and not think Well, you're marketing your business well today, you know or not or whatever You know the trucker that tries to run you off the road That's you marketing your business The idea of good enough is a huge problem for businesses that don't understand marketing or think it's not that big of a deal And again, it's whether you can add it up and show the score or not It's definitely having a negative impact on your business or at least again slowing down the growth up The over the road trucker that doesn't bother to wash his truck

1:18:43Like I don't know that I could compute the math on how that's hurting him But it certainly is Well, I look at it as competition Like if I were the flummer or the painter Whatever that's been in business for a long time in my van looks like crap But now this young kid comes in that doesn't have the experience, but he looks more professional Like I don't have a lot of competition in this space of farming right There's a lot of competition on this side of it with infinite banking as far as like just the general public of who I deal with whatever There's some competition on that side But I'm not ever watching my competition because I'm always trying to get better on a daily basis and even with our marketing It is a constant like we spend so much time in our meetings Just mark that does our Facebook ads now is amazing But between you and I and Mark we spend so much time talking about how did the ad perform? How much money was spent how much was it per ad what words could be changed?

1:19:45How long did the ad run like all of those things? It's just constant like mark what else do you need me to do for a video? Which then I don't get done because I'm usually the the hold up of the funnel It's like if you're not looking at those things You are going to stall out and I think I mean This is just kind of what I believe but because I'm like you I don't not that I don't come across them from time to time But I don't sit and study the competition because I'm I'm focusing on who we are uniquely and what are offering is what we're doing So I'm in my own little bubble trying to refine my own uniqueness to a degree Which is what we do with like your stuff as well? So Diling it in and kind of looking in the mirror and challenging ourselves is what's evolving things and it's what's moving the ball forward Not trying to chase trends or be like everybody else where Perhaps those things are completely unproven. So why would we chase them? Whether that's the thing right now on tiktok or not Why would you waste money or effort there? It's so interesting because it's like you got to figure out how to get started well

1:20:46And then you better figure out how to just constantly be bettering yourself and without the right marketing People how do you do that? And I I'm a huge Caleb Ralston fan and you know he was the Gary V guy the Alex Hermosi like I really like his content and I listened to a lot of it and he Is very adamant that at a certain amount of dollars and years in business you don't need a marketing team And so I just want to talk about that for a minute because I don't agree with him on that and I could very easily be like Oh, well, I hit all those metrics that Caleb is talking about and I don't need In his team oh You and I have talked about this in great length because you have to like just my stuff How many people do you have on your team touching just my stuff? We have an evolve because we got a website guy. You've got you managing it You've got somebody managing the projects so that they get done

1:21:48You've got somebody posting on social media for me. We've got Ben doing clips We've got Chris doing podcasts. We've got Mark doing ads. That's Seven people and you could probably go that's not all of them. Yeah, I know that's probably go eight to ten on any given day Okay, eight to ten people just helping do my stuff If I hired in house, I would have those same eight to ten people and then a manager To manage all of those people so I would need you anyway because I don't want to learn marketing I want to know it, but I don't want to learn it to the point of I don't want to know how to do SEO I don't know I don't want to know how like I used to build websites back in the day So I am a little more knowledgeable I guess but I don't want to have to put the back in html crap in there I don't want to have to do all that stuff So you still need somebody managing all of those other seven people to make sure that all of these things get done

1:22:50Is there a bonus to me that I have somebody doing just my business? Oh, yeah 100% But at the end of the day the expense of that would be so Massive and that's not even the worst part the worst part is that it's ever evolving So you have to evolve and change and keep up with it like my team 10 years ago doesn't look the same as it does today because of Everything that's happened with social media and AI and all these different things So you have to also evolve that team. So like the Caleb I don't know Caleb, but to think you don't need that support is to say well my business is done evolving It's it's flatlined. It is what it's gonna be well He's saying you hire them all in in house But even that is like I said you still have to keep up with it Well, right you have to have someone like you anyway Managing all of it So you can answer this or not answer this but you work with companies like milwaki and those big companies like that Do they have in-house marketing or are they using your agency as okay? So still they're like I'm a I'm a nobody compared to milwaki tools

1:24:01So you look at even a company like that is still combining You're obviously meeting with their marketing people and they're still combining that to some extent I mean if I think back to my retail experience and whatnot from Nike to underarmored to Browning to Columbia to North Face to milwaki tool to de-walt You can line up the biggest of the big a lot of them have internal marketing departments But all of them outsourced marketing stuff as well from consulting to development to Like not one of those places has a every box checked because it's it's insane You'd never be able to keep up with it and it'd be it takes too many people like too many resources And I think brands like that are really good at knowing what they're good at like we're gonna bring in in-house people that covers This much because our focus is building tools for example Social meet like we're only gonna go so far in some of these areas

1:25:02Because that's not what we're good at and I think that's a huge distinction when you start thinking about brands over a million dollars versus Those who are you know kind of still trying to get started because once you figure that out I think it the resources and you're overall pipe size expands That's so interesting Because I think that when you have that more advanced business and how do I get to the next level And I think that that next level that business owner that's been in business 5 10 15 plus years they've all experienced an ad agency Marketing agency that sucks nobody's perfect. There's not a marketing agency out there. That's perfect I mean, I have my frustrations you have your frustrations with your own team like it happens because at the end of the day You still have to hire people to Help you and not all those hires are gonna be a hundred percent and so either I hired them in faradum or you hired them in faradum And I'd prefer you do it not me And so it's just a matter of that communication, but there are agencies out there that suck and all they want to do is charge you to be in meetings all day

1:26:09Talking about everything they want to do for you and then nothing gets implemented and then you have to pay it on that front So if somebody is looking for an agency because we are into the portion of our Long enough in our business we have enough money. We want to spend on the marketing What should we be looking for to make sure we're hiring the right agency with the right people I might get blasted for this, but like my biggest beef it's okay. I get blasted all the time It's how you go viral my right My biggest beef of traditional agencies is that the relationship is all transactional It's all about the sale. It's all about billable hours. It's all about and the gap that's not being filled There's the relationship part that is the long-term vision of the business and most companies and at least the ones I experienced in my career they're flipping over agencies anywhere from every six months to at least every three years Your ability to be with a company past three years is incredibly rare because they're they're flipping companies to get to the next price the cheaper price

1:27:14Or the leveling up to an agency that maybe has a skill set that your previous agency didn't and there's just a lot of turnover And that was one of the things that I observed in my career people forget if I'm going to do this I want to do it in a way that just I want to stay with these people for a long time Because I know the success is going to be better. I know that as long as I can get inside their business. I can evolve I can keep up with them But they're having to flip because the agency isn't evolving So in order to stay with the same agency the agency also has to evolve correct or they've kind of become okay with the idea of We'll just get a new one every three years But the problem with that is as is a total setback to the beginning because now you got to get to know New people a new team a new agency a new they have to get to know you It's a whole new process So to your question like my thing is find an agency that thinks long-term find an agency that carries As much importance on like basically creative as they do strategy as they do follow up as they do like they should be systematic as well

1:28:20You know a lot of creatives aren't organized a lot of creatives don't have that analytical brain You need an organization that does both because yes We can be highly creative and we can be a little woo when it fits But at the end of the day, it's got to convert to numbers It's got to work And then I would say you have to have an agency that's willing to get to know you because a lot of brands Or I should say a lot of agencies don't spend the time that it takes to get to know Their clients because it's a transactional experience where I don't think you get the best results in that transactional experience If you don't know them getting to know them is a huge part of it probably the most important part of it Like it just makes sense right like you guys very much know my personality So you know where you can go for suggestions of where we need to market what we need to do ideas on things 3 to push back yeah, you know a lot of times yet it's good to know what the client likes so that we can do those things But sometimes it's like wait a minute. That's not what you said last week. Let's talk about that So you can help the client evolve right like there are certain things like I don't like circles

1:29:25There's no time to really like read either. I have never not liked red. That was a thing People go dying down disagreeing on that, but I don't know where I didn't like red but yes I've just never thought about that way that an agency is I just know people leave them I've never worked with one outside of you like I've always had it. I've tried I tried early on to just hire people to do everything and not everybody can do anything And I think let's talk about that for a minute too That I tried to hire somebody to do the website do the Facebook do the tic-tac do all the things But what I am finding out is they are such big animals on their own that you need one person for each platform We get that all the time where the client will say you know, hey my Neighbors kid at the lake is going to school for marketing I'm going to bring her in and have her do nine different things and it's like It marketing is a pretty vague term. What is she going to school for because she might only be going

1:30:25You know to school for mask Communications or something like that and yeah, she might carry some social media skills because she uses it You know on her own time, but that doesn't make her a website developer It doesn't make her a strategist. It doesn't make her and I think a lot of people fall in that trap because marketing is so generalized But if you want somebody to be good at something you got to narrow down these niches and these in these pieces I mean we just hired two new people that are specifically yes, they fall under the umbrella of social media But they're ugc creators. They're creating quick hitting content for youtube shorts tic-tac Instagram reels because that's their superpower Now I know they're smart enough and more capable than that that they could do other things But that's not where they're going to shine and I think that's what's important if you're gonna You're gonna look to hire some of these positions out You have to find their superpowers and maybe maybe one or two skill sets But if you're bringing them in to check all the marketing boxes You're just asking for way too much

1:31:26That is true a lot of people will say oh my friend son or the neighbor kid or Whatever is going to marketing and I have yet to know anybody that's college goal for marketing that can do marketing I don't know what they're teaching in college, but it's not marketing in the sense of what I'm doing with my business I always explain it to people like you know like maybe my brother's a musician that doesn't mean he can play every instrument His instrument a choice might be guitar and he can you know fumble around a little bit on the violin or fumble around on a piano But I wouldn't put them in a concert setting on either one of those instruments Marketing is the same way where it's like yes Somebody who coming in that kid going to college might be able to come in and umble through some of these other things But it's your business. You're trying to measure it. You're trying to keep score. You're trying to grow Like why would you do that to yourself or that kid? And again, it's about that commitment level again And I know you can't do everything at once You at least have to have that awareness so that you can align your expectations and be realistic about it

1:32:30So we know what to look for in an agency like is there a time to start using an agency? I think when the when the cost to the agency like you said like if I was to go and hire these people It would cost x-y and z as a business does the cost of that agency? Make it more convenient or realistic does it kind of wash away this need for me to hire these people and have to deal with them all and Are they able to grow with maybe where I'm at from a budget perspective? Because that's important too like if the agency's super transactional there's can keep selling you stuff Now you want this now you want this and by the time you get six months into it You're going to be like okay now I've spent 20,000 dollars and I haven't seen anything That's what you want to avoid connect those dots and find an agency that's looking for partnerships They want to work with you you don't work with everybody No, and so not everybody listening to this podcast can call my it can be like hey, I want to work with you Because you're very particular about who you work with just like I'm very particular about who I work with and so they're going to have to

1:33:34Get to a point where if they want to work with you and they're just beginning they're going to have to get to a point where Maybe they have to learn to do some of that stuff on their own are they're going to have to work with some other people along the way I don't know that there's a direct stepping stone path of how to get there You know, I'm always open to have conversations with people and I do often But it's really to set them up for here's what you need to do in the next 12 months 18 months and start putting the pieces of the foundation in place so that when you're ready You can invest in it and you can call an agency like cyber dogs and it actually level up at that point because that's the whole point If I'm going to go from doing it myself to bringing in a cyber dogs wouldn't I want to level up? Exactly, but you have to put those foundation pieces in place Yeah, and I think it was good for me to be doing it on my own Because I appreciated when I did come over and we did level up I appreciated that and knew the work behind it like I know that I can just send over a whole list of memes

1:34:35And hey, this is what I want for memes and they get built But I know how long that takes some people don't if they never do it on their own right and Unfortunately, there's a lot of noise out there now too like it's easy to listen to Alex Hermose your Gary Veeer. I mean, there's lots of content out there It's easy to listen to all that and think well, that's that's what I should be doing when it's like well You're not there yet. Start here. Yeah, be sensible about it and just get your arms around this thing slowly Yeah, and I think the biggest thing that people don't do is consistency Like eventually they just stop posting or their content is Not correct like your content in my opinion your content should be educational And depending I guess on what you're selling but no matter what you're selling really like let's just say I'm going to buy a ton of cover for a pickup right it's not just showing me a picture of a ton of cover Why should I buy that one like I want to educate funny video. Yeah, you can make it funny

1:35:36But I don't necessarily want a funny video. Yeah, you can make it funny But I see all these people that are like oh hook them and you got to do this and you got to do that And yes to some extent those sort of things are important in marketing But it has to be a more natural type thing if you're just making stupid videos then great fantastic that works great I'm not going to be able to sell infinite banking off of a stupid video Like it might be funny, but it's not it needs to be Educational there's so much stuff that you need to understand your person You need to understand who you're trying to sell to and then deliver that but be consistent about it My gosh, don't just be like I posted for two weeks and nothing happened I posted for a month and nothing happened. Okay, it post for a year and then talks to me Like I think getting started and consistency going one bucket But that's like the biggest piece to the puzzle and the other thing I would say is people have to stop listening to the marketing myths of the world

1:36:39I mean we hear it all the time when people are like well Facebook's dead. Yeah, and I'm like Well, Mary Jo's killing on on Facebook all the time. Yeah, you know, where do your people hang out? Yeah You have my daughter has a bread business and I'm like everybody with money is a gen extra or or older or an old millennial They're on Facebook. So regardless as a Gen Z you don't want to use Facebook and you want to use Snapchat too bad Your people are on Facebook. You know, you get bought into these different marketing myths and they they go forward as though They're absolute truce and they need to stop buying into that and do what's right for their business like you said and find their people Yeah, and to me it's just consistency. I see so many people who and I'll beat this horse I just see so many people who quit posting. Why? I mean, I'm not I'm to the point where I'm not 100% consistent with it, but Personally, but you guys are creating content on a daily basis that something is being put out

1:37:39There's not a day that goes by that something is not posted on a channel now I will put content here and there because let's be honest Social media is the cesspool of ignorance and I sometimes just have to walk away from my own sanity And be like, you know, I just can't take stupid any longer and so I just need a break Or I got nothing to say that's worthwhile So I'm not gonna post to say nothing, but something needs to be posted Something needs to be posted, but like because you're in anybody who tracks this But week over week month over month the analytics tell you that people are paying attention And that's that's the metric that matters and that's what people need to they find need to find their channel They need to find their people and they need to find something that moves their business forward and understand why You know the other Myth in an all I say this because I know you have both is that people talk about podcasts and everybody in the locals got a podcast Why would I do that and it's like well because they were first of all and second of all it gives you a brand voice

1:38:44It gives you a vehicle in which to kick off all your other content that drives from that and what most people don't understand is yeah There's a lot of podcasts out there, but and I don't have the percentage in for me But a high percentage of them are abandoned yep very few of are consistent and they stay longer than a year Absolutely now when you but it also gives you the ability to have people understand your personality outside of a clip on social media They can get to know you're right on the podcast. Yeah, there's a podcast that I I started listening to and I'll probably stop But the content of the podcast should be amazing and it is pretty good The subject No The subject of the podcast is amazing what they're trying to do is amazing The two people hosting the podcast one of them is so miserable to listen to like some people think I'm miserable to listen to So they're not gonna I get it this individual is so immature and I can't listen

1:39:45I'm like I want so badly to have the content when there is something intelligent to say But I can't listen through all the other Unintelligent conversation that's happening that it is actually ruining their credibility Because I'm like you're talking about something fairly serious that I'm pretty passionate about But I absolutely cannot take you serious that you know what you're doing because you won't shut up You keep interrupting people who Like but it gives people an opportunity to get to know you so yeah people will say oh Facebook is too hard. Is it or is it just that you've not you got to try harder Yes, it's gonna be harder than when I started 16 years ago. You just got to try harder I don't know what to tell you when I first started my business And it was what it was and I went through it But I spent a lot of time networking and and I mean networking in the sense of coffees beers and lunches and after about three years

1:40:45I'm like I am getting nothing out of a fatter Yeah, but I'm not getting anything out of coffee beers and oh I know and then like you said people talk about It takes so much time it takes so much so does hitting every happy hour every day that that takes time to yeah And I'd am not a fan of the traditional networking method because you are just that's all you're doing is coffee beers and lunches and Nobody refers. It is the most Asinine type of marketing I've ever seen because your local people do not think you're the expert Like it is getting better that I have clients in North Dakota and I have quite a few now But I've had to prove myself for 16 years that I deserve business in my own state your own family Thanks that you're an idiot because you're dressed in orange all the time. They don't get it, right? Like I just saw something on social media that your family and friends will think you're crazy Have you seen that little video? I don't remember exactly how it goes

1:41:49I know you're talking what because it's the whole idea of being an entrepreneur because nobody understands it Yeah, but your local your friends and family will be the last they're gonna laugh at you And all the strangers are gonna support you and clap for you And that is a hundred percent what happens so get over friends and family like I don't even talk to them about it I don't know that the majority of my family even really understands what I do on a daily basis and who I talk to Because they're not asking yeah, and so who cares? But business owners that a couple things that I think those who don't think they have time or kidding themselves because I guarantee There's time being wasted some oh absolutely and then the idea of Carrying what anybody thinks is that's the other hurdle of like for what here's another thing that I that I hear a lot is I'm in the business 15 years. I'm in the business 10 years. I'm in the business five years What am I gonna talk about Mike? I mean, I've already said everything Gary V talks about nothing all the time I'm gonna say I say it again. Yeah, I have nothing new to say, but here you are

1:42:50You guys are all listening and I've got nothing new to say that I haven't already said before But to what you're saying then is to this idea that like they're not thinking big enough because what you're saying then is Even though you've got 15 years in the business nothing's ever evolved in 15 years. Yeah, like you're doing it the same way Most people be like well, no, I mean or I can't post more than once on Facebook because they won't like it How do you know they saw it because if you posted at nine o'clock in the morning and I don't go on Facebook till eight o'clock at night I did not see what you posted at nine o'clock in the morning That's already down my feed so far. Yeah post different times of the day different things Recycle things Whatever you have to do it's if if a client has a question that is content The only reason that I continue to have content is because people still have questions Why are you on here today because I am talking about marketing nonstop with my clients who want to start new businesses My potential of what I see for people is so massive and they don't even they don't see it for themselves

1:43:57But I'm like oh my gosh you could do this and this and this and this and this and then you need to find a marketing guy because it's all about marketing It's all about marketing if your business is not successful then you are not good at marketing Plain and simple in my opinion like it pretty much comes down to that It's a lot of it. Yeah, and I think that like because you have the podcast and stuff I think you'll get this but like I think Learning prepping doing the pro just the whole experience keeps my mind sharp and keeps my mind progressing It keeps me learning about my own business because I have committed and tasked myself with this responsibility Where when you don't have those kinds of thing work you want her to fill or you don't you're just I'm just heading to the bar after work You're not generating new ideas or keeping yourself sharp either right podcasts are key huge key for that kind of stuff Yeah, there's a lot of people will tell you I'm not a reader. Okay. Are you a listener? Yeah, because you just do a podcast right There's a question I have here that I think is pretty good. What happens when the owners personal reputation is the company's brand and the owner wants to retire

1:45:04That's a good one I got two scenarios for you. I have one I had a situation a few years back where the owners reputation was the brand and the reputation was Horrible this guy was on the news for certain things and like the guy just had a black cloud hanging over his head And the worst part about it was he was on a polygetic to any of it. He did not care, you know damn the business He didn't care what happened and in that case, you know, we took it It was a little awkward, but I pitched the idea of we need to celebrate your departure Here's why I mean you know, and he kind of side-eyed me you know during the presentation and stuff But that's exactly what we had to do because we knew that his reputation was an anchor He know his reputation was bad kind of what he was so spitefully didn't care. Okay, you know, and so like even though he liked the idea I think right what the way we went about it because it was about him But it's like dood you're leaving anyway like this book needs to be rewritten regardless

1:46:07Let's tell it accurately and let's fix some of these things that have been a problem So that was one scenario and you just face it, you know, we just kind of went at it honestly and authentically and just kind of hit it head on Well, when I'd say on the on the inverse when it's a brand where the brand has been built around the person That's tough because and I I go through that sometimes with my own brand because I am the face of I have to figure out how to get my team involved I got to figure out how to level it up and I have to tell a story that it doesn't end with me You know, I know some people are still going to like to work with the owner or whatever But I'm doing everything that I can to make sure that whatever A leaf system is coming directly from Mike. It's put into the business So I mean, I think I told you this but a few years ago I brought in an operations company to do that so that we could get it all out of my head and into Document form and into brand form so that everything would live within the company

1:47:09And I did that partially to make myself a relevant to a degree But I also did that so that I would be building an asset that I could do something with later So I think that's really important. That's why I'm not a huge fan And it's something we talk about just with my stuff Right, because I very much The brand of all of it or the face of all of it which is what happens when When I want to slow down or hand it over or whatever yeah, there are worse problems But but it is something to keep in the consideration And if you can leverage yourself in the process, which is I think what we're talking about that's fine But you also have to make sure that the infrastructure of the business is your child and it's Derived from you. Well, and just like the guy left You celebrated him leaving you wanted everybody to know That he was going because there needed to be a fresh start in that business On the opposite side you also need to know when you go people have as much face In the new person as they did the old person if that person was liked yeah, yeah, that's a hard one

1:48:13It's almost easier when you're not liked It kind of I mean the leveling the message wasn't easy But yeah, the answer was easy. Yeah, yeah, but when you're liked that's almost harder to step away from that I mean, it's not the end of the world But like that's why I'm not a huge fan of people that name their businesses and their brands after themselves Oh terrible like if it was brevic marketing. I'm like that's so limiting my successor needs to either have my last name over So I think at least having that in the back of your mind is huge Because if you want an asset that you can build or transition somebody else You got to think bigger right this is a good question can be in successful for a long time actually make a company Worse at marketing. We talked about that a little bit But I kind of like tell that question was phrased yeah, I mean, I think a hundred percent like it's interesting because like I've had clients where The key decision maker they'd just been in it for so long and they're so successful the they kind of don't see a scenario

1:49:14They don't win so marketing ideas and even pitching them ideas or trying to help them grow is hard Because they kind of think it's like we're destined to win anyway And it's like well, yeah, but things change businesses evolve. There's competition out there If they think that way then they're not even good at they're not truly good at marketing because they don't understand Somebody else is going to come in and out market them right or they take it for granted where they think They think it's them and not the brand or the legacy of the business or whatever So I've seen that happen before but I've also seen where you get somebody in there is just a natural born leader And they just understand that you got to let people do their job and then sometimes it's just a great experience all the way around and those guys Those guys are probably going to win more times than not because they know how to manage people interesting Okay, I thought this was a good one too How should a mature company use this history without constantly talking about the good old days? I see that a lot especially locally

1:50:14You know a lot of brands or companies are on here like to talk about 30 years 40 years in business Yeah, which is valid which is totally valid and I get how they're starting there But that doesn't necessarily qualify you as a good company. It just means you survived that long So that's true I like brands that if they have a rich history tell the story tell about the times in which they pivoted tell about A one generation handed it off to the next and you know what impact they made in the industry You know, I'll do a shout out to two former companies. Sheels has that Acne tools has that like they have a very rich history where you know, they might have started it like for shields They started as a hardware store You know with one location and they turned into 20 plus locations up and down the Midwest as far as to South as Texas and now they do everything sporting goods and in between And then you take an acne tools where that started as an electrician shop and look where they are now selling tools and they're on their

1:51:15Believe fifth generation I think if you're going to tell a story of legacy. It's not that hard to uncover moments in that process where you can build a story around But I think you got to build that story and narrative brand story how you the voice but not a story of how good we were a story of how we keep evolving Yeah, because it's not really about because I can think of a HVAC company here Oh, it's always oh, we've been in business and we're still family-owned and but you suck You are the ones that are constantly making social media about who not to use because of your time like you suck But I think you say this to me often you say you know, Mike you suck bragging about yourself Right, yeah, but I think my story and my journey of 10 years in the business as cyber dogs plus the 20 That's more interesting to me in telling you about how awesome I am Yeah, but you know, but you're second. Yeah, no, I know But I best my point is I think the story is I think it's okay to tell the parts where I failed

1:52:20Oh, yeah, absolutely the parts where I slam my foot in a door Yeah, I think well that didn't or because that's part of the journey and it's relatable. Yeah, I don't remember what you said earlier But I'm like why didn't know that I didn't know you work there. So there's even a part of the story Yeah, that I'm just getting now. How do you transfer decades of trust from the founder to the next generation or manage the team? I mean, that's kind of more of an entrepreneurial question But I see it with some marketing right you're trusting that like you use that example of that sun coming in Do you see that a lot where they're not trusting the next generation on hey we Need to implement tick-tock or we need to implement an ad or we need to create a YouTube channel I see it from both sides because I I've been on the side where I have to convince at downhill versus convince at uphill and When I'm in the scenarios where maybe it's the sun and he's working with upper management or sometimes it's a board driven thing My initial instinct is to help support that I don't necessarily want to appease to the guy

1:53:23Above him. I want to appease to him and support him in his visions because I know that he's struggling to evolve things because of the The ceiling that's been put above him and sometimes it's the fear of change sometimes it's just that's the way we've always done it kind of a thing Which is a red flag, but when I've got somebody on the inside trying to make that difference my first instinct is to just support them and help them flush out How do we sell this up upstream? You know, and then on the other side you got to let people make mistakes like I'm not a huge fan of mistakes But you have to let them figure it out You mentor them as far as you can and I see this with my own team as I bring new people in and different projects and different things It's like I got to let them solve the problem. I can't always I sometimes I don't even have the answer, but I got to let them figure it out What about let's talk about a board because I never thought about that how hard is it and I know that you and I have talked about this The past maybe not one of your favorite clients, but what happens when there is a board because there's always one person on the board

1:54:28That wants to market and wants to move forward But you might have some old cronies on the board that don't want to and so what's your advice in that situation? Yeah, this is this be like a maker It's kind of like part service, you know public service announcement And if there's a board out there that wants to prove me wrong. I love I love to work again But most of the time yeah, that's the problem is that you've got a board that's comprised of it It's always an odd number So it's either seven nine or eleven people and there's usually A third to two thirds that are Progressive that want to grow it. They're the newbies. You know they've been on the board less than three years And then there's always a couple old seats that are still maintaining their role as devil's advocate or Whatever it is and to get complete buy in it's tough So what we've always done, you know, I'm always like how to come in over the top So my presentations, it's the I mean, I'm always like how do we make this better because I need to blow their minds

1:55:29So they have nothing to pick on and that's just kind of how I do it because I again I'm doing it for the two thirds that are supporting this idea I'm doing it to sway them to sell it to the third that doesn't want to change And change is the biggest part with a lot of these organizations because typically It's nonprofits that are trying to figure out how to grow and that's what I run into a lot It's like how do we grow will you get involved? So if I'm on a board and I want to find marketing I would think that board needs to have a conversation before they even go find a marketing person If you guys aren't all on board, why are we wasting our time trying to find a new a marketing agency to help us because you're wasting their time Yeah, they just in and around themselves need to get around the idea that something needs to change We don't know what it is, but something needs to change because what I see with a lot of boards is that the funding Whether it's a nonprofit or if it's some kind of a farm association or whatever it is Somebody's don't is that green somebody is supporting this thing financially and whoever that is that group of people that are funding this thing

1:56:34They want to see results. They want to see change and they want to see something happening as a result of their donation or are the funds that they put into it And when the board gets complacent That's when the problems start to happen and Dell appease them because I see this all the time where well we started doing Facebook last year and I'm like last year like They need to think how can we do right by those people supporting us by Putting something in place that either gets our message out there Loader and broader and whatever or Start to generate traffic and awareness to our cause where we start to grow audience that we could potentially leverage in the near future If they're still not at that point they need to move on it So when I go into present to boards and stuff and I don't work with a lot of boards anymore because it's got to be the right scenario But when I get that opportunity I'm trying to go in there and help them see the light because doing it the old way or just jumping on Facebook in 2026 isn't good enough

1:57:37Well boards are nightmare. I think for anybody and everybody it's tough But it's usually the older people on the board that are that are not progressive They don't understand. It's like Congress saying we have to shut down tic-tac But they don't even have the app on their phone like you don't know even what's on tic-tac and yet you hate it Like how can you have an opinion as something that you don't know anything about right and it can be I mean Might be reaching here, but it could be a generational thing too because I see a lot of times when the older people on the board They would rather sit on the money than spend it whether that's a security thing or whatever But it's like again, you're not investing. That's the problem. Yeah, and I see it on our side too Like a nonprofit any kind of board. They're not going to start Elephanturance policy because oh my gosh, we don't understand it It's not what's normally done with money and they're actually hurting themselves in the long run And the guarantee is is if you do nothing you're going to get nothing exactly

1:58:38Yeah, the other thing that we've not talked about that is kind of a hot topic for me is YouTube channels And I know we've been like pushing my YouTube channel and doing all that and now we've before Kevin passed away He started monetizing it and so I make you know a couple 250 bucks a month or something We didn't even look at YouTube for years like it is last year Time last load of the game, but we were doing what was working right it was Facebook It was tiktok is nothing but awareness that like tiktok's not actually creating any kind of Revenue that I can see, but it's awareness. It's content. It's whatever. It's the stuff Mary Jo told me about years ago But YouTube has really opened my eyes to the fact that we really can Provide some like you can create income from an income stream from it And maybe you have some insight on this, but I feel like we have this older generation of old gen Xers

1:59:40Boomers that have so much knowledge that's not being shared and they don't think to record a video Find someone to edit it put it on YouTube and monetize that now that doesn't happen overnight It does not happen overnight But that is where everybody is going Scott watches YouTube all night long There is no live TV in our home anymore. It is YouTube of various different things that he's researching and what are your thoughts on like That just kind of that piece of it if someone's trying to start a business Do they go to YouTube? Do they go to Facebook? Do we monetize it? What can we expect when we monetize all the YouTube stuff? I think people I mean you got to prioritize them as to where you're going to spend your time and effort So I mean multiple platform that I think is key But YouTube and where we were guilty or where we got comfortable is YouTube evolved and we didn't evolve with it So we had stuff on there, but we weren't leaning into the best parts of it and like I mentioned earlier

2:00:43But we also didn't have a person Right So as we talked about the people Ben has been instrument like he likes YouTube So he's been the one on my team kind of doing the YouTube stuff where before there wasn't enough people Yeah, and YouTube kind of became its own animal like they used to be kind of just it was more than this Generally speaking they were kind of an image video repository people just dumped a monster and let him sit Well as google got involved and YouTube got more strategy driven and the algorithm got more sophisticated and then Streamers became a thing and monetization became a thing YouTube evolved and it evolved fast and it's still evolving So that's where like if you're a new business and you want to put some time somewhere I would put it on YouTube and TikTok if your chances of getting big and getting big fast are the best on YouTube TikTok and possibly in St. Emreels because it's it's a lot more viral. It's a lot more quick hitting But I think it there's a lot of opportunity there and it being yet YouTube's been around for a long time

2:01:47But it's just now finding it stride which is pretty interesting But it's not I mean I've been a business 16 years and we're finally just really focusing on YouTube in the last year Probably due to YouTube shorts. Yeah, but I think that we need like you can't Me as the old business the old business. I could say oh, we're good like Facebook is great Well Facebook is making me mad. I'm mad at Zuckerberg for taking all this money And so I'm like hey, where else can we go? But it is just open my eyes to the fact that these retirees Like you don't have to be young to start a business These retirees don't know where their income is gonna come from They have not saved enough, but they have all this knowledge and so share it It's such a great opportunity. I think for Gen Z And millennials to work with the old people because these people know the technology and these people know the information and they could So easily together create something and Gen X is it's one of the hottest age groups right now for UGC content

2:02:54Like they're active companies are actively looking for people in their forties and fifties to do Content on product reviews to be spokesperson's uncertain brands like you wouldn't think that why is it because Gen Z X is the one with the money. Yes. I mean, it's I think it's a part of it It's that that age group has kind of been non-existent in this whole thing and because they're the people with the money So it's the combination they're the buyers. They're the buyers, but they're all funny and their content's funny What's it gonna say the idea of having to be supermodel pretty or have six-pack abs isn't necessarily The equation anymore having a dad bod and being funny. It's way more valuable So it's huge and I that's so funny because I'm just sitting here thinking of all the Gen X people I follow on social media And it's a lot of them But they're doing content and they're throwing in the products and they're being they're being sponsored I think that I think that people don't understand we were at a wedding this weekend and

2:03:56Somebody said to me. Oh, I wish I could stop working at the bank and just not and make money and I was like and their daughter said Well, why don't you just groom dogs because you're good at they have poodles She's like you're good at grooming dogs And I said why don't you teach people how to groom dogs because you're not you're 60 already Right, so you're not going to be able to be physically grooming dogs forever And so why don't you teach people how to groom dogs and then you get all these sponsorships From all these different people that now you're making money from the sponsorships or You know, I was talking to somebody that runs like these massive 100 mile marathons and I'm like She's like, oh, I wish I could make money running and you and I at dinner last night We had the whole solution for her running and the sponsorships and all the things and it's like maybe it's YouTube Maybe it's TikTok maybe it's Instagram wherever that lies, but there's potential everywhere finding ways to do things like that and integrate

2:04:57Your personal likes into your own brand Finding ways to associate your brand with the things that you like and the things that come naturally to you It's an easy lift at that point Plus it enriches the story of your brand your bad like people ask me all it like what's with the retro thing or what's with the nostalgia thing or what's with the cars It's like I like that stuff. Yeah, so you just wrapped it all up inside there. Yeah And I think it's an easy lift it adds a unique layer of you know personal Interest put at the same time. It's an easy lift. I don't have to work too hard to connect those dots Mm-hmm. It's so funny. I've never thought about it till we've been sitting here that you created The new farming without the bank logo, which is an American flag essentially and I have two American flags in the driveway As you come in I'm sure you noticed that but I've never connected those dots until just this moment Yeah, I mean like even the new book cover will have an American flag on it I'll have to show you kind of the mock-up of what chat GPT came up with and I was like oh cool an American flag

2:06:01I really like that It's not something that I don't have American flags everywhere, but I really like American flags like I'm very patriotic That's absolutely One of one of your values that you've never said this to me, but anybody who knows you is there's a there's a patriotism thing there So when we did that brand, it's like well, let's hold that piece and connect that dot. That's so funny And you never we've never spoke about that. No, that's what a good marketing guy will know I don't know if I've ever told you that but yeah, but that was part of it. Yeah, that was intentional. Yeah Yeah, that's funny. I've never thought about it But it's like the thing that I like that I just do and it connects Yeah, you know, and it for anybody who knows you can look at that and think well that's so merry Joe Even though I don't walk around with bread right blue on me every day, however All right, let's see where we're at for questions If sales are good what warning signs tell you the brand itself is getting weaker The biggest indicator right now that a brand is getting weaker is when traffic stalls drops off or does not rebound

2:07:05Because if you have people that not only follow you and engage with you there there should be some interaction there always But as you're reaching those people and reaching the people they're connected with there should be growth there It doesn't always equate to sales But but you can see how popular your brand is whether it's trending up down or otherwise just within the analytics and studying the numbers So it's important to look at those numbers Because I think eventually your company then falls. I don't think that your branding can fall with your company staying high I mean unless you're some super local Company maybe and there are people that don't need to market But they're right where they want to be they don't want to expand if you're wanting to expand and your brand is falling You can't have both of those at the same time. Yeah Giving my fitness analogy again on that, but if you quit lifting weights quit running quit doing all the things that kept you at the level you were at You're just going to decline naturally it might take time

2:08:08But it's going to decline naturally and then to rebound that much more harder It's it's way more difficult and I don't think people realize that so when they pause and I have clients do this like I'm going to pause my marketing for six months. It makes me nervous because it's like Like I know you're trying to save for the next six months But it's going to cost you more on month seven to try to recoup that I remember during COVID We went all out man. We did not pause anything We like doubled down and I remember you and Kevin saying people were pulling back And I'm like why everybody is at home on social media right now Why would anybody be pulling back and Kevin and I loved it because Everybody else was pulling back and you put your foot on the gas Which means you just blew past some even faster. Oh, I was awesome. It was the busiest I've ever been But it absolutely a hundred percent sent me years ahead of where everybody else was Now I am years ahead, but that doesn't mean my foot's come off the gas. No

2:09:10Like we're still going we're still doing whatever we need to do because I don't want anybody to catch up But that was the sad part with not to get into COVID, but watching people hurt themselves in that way or you know when I get the brakes and I'm going to slow down and it's like But they didn't pivot. No, I know they stopped There was nothing in their brain and this is maybe the difference between an entrepreneur and Somebody that's maybe wanting to be an entrepreneur and sees the glory of it that I get you had a restaurant And you couldn't sell ice cream because people couldn't come there and they had to be six feet of four I would have been like how are we delivering ice cream like how are we pivoting to make sure that we don't go out of business And some people just gave up it was extremely eye-opening to me It was alarming the fact that they gave up so quick because I saw it in our industry agencies just folding up laying people off left and right and I'm like Because everybody else was pulling back. I mean they didn't really have a choice

2:10:13But pivot pivot your message to why should you be spending that money right now? Yeah, like you're scared it's not going to come in but you're stopping it because you stocked the marketing But it's also not going to come in if you scaled out right you won't have the resources to support it anyway We are not always winning on a weekly basis over here like I might lose 10 grand a week and we didn't hardly sell any books Okay, how do we pivot next week like that sucked but let's hope next week's better like I'm not stopping it because of that I'm seeing it right now in the marketing industry with AI a lot of people want to throw in the towel or run from The competition of AI and it's like well, no you need to figure out how to embrace it how to leverage it and how to pivot Into whatever it is you become after that And you as an AI agency you don't dislike it or as a marketing agency. You don't dislike it You're actually implementing it and using it it heavily Yeah as a tool which is what it's meant for and we're actually starting to build out services that

2:11:19We're going to be taking on AI based projects for our clients because we know what a big animal it is Not and I don't know that I've thought we'd ever get there, but where we're at so that's what we're doing and we're we're thriving as a result I think if your ad agency has stalled you should probably leave Well, you have to because your ad agency is not any different than any other Business any other business is also going to be like oh, I'm good. We're great. We've got all kinds of people I mean, I can think of huge ad agencies that were even here locally that you don't even hear about them anymore Because they didn't implement any of the new stuff the owner just got complacent And so if you're ad agencies are going to get complacent and it's not just let's talk about this It's not just all followers either Like let's be realistic here and I always like to use my numbers as an example What do I have on Facebook for followers? Do you even know? It was dancing around you is almost 20 20,000 tiktok I met about 16 I think yeah when I post something I might

2:12:24I might get one or two if I ask a question Depending on the question and how hot of a topic it is I might get a hundred or so comments right people are trying to get all of these Likes I don't care if it's tiktok Facebook whatever some of them are buying likes some of them are buying followers on youtube They're not authentically there and so let's just talk about do we need to have all these likes and followers and Millions of these people because a viral video doesn't mean crap a viral video just means a lot of people saw it But are they continuing to follow you or did you just get lucky one time? Well, or and I'm not questioning your number But or did you start at a time where getting those lights was easier? Yes, getting lights. Get it lights is not easy for me on Facebook. Yes on tiktok. No Yeah, but it's kind of depends on when you start it too and right now I mean likes are great if you have them

2:13:25Congratulations, but they're a vanity metric at this point the engagement and how people interact with your content is way more valuable at this point in time And I think your clientele I think it depends on your clientele as well Like my clientele are farmers for the most part or blue color business owners None of those people like social media They are there and they may have seen something that I posted But they are not there to social lives because they by nature are not social individuals And so I am not getting a whole bunch of comments and and shares and those sort of things because they're just That's not who they are as humans and I understand my market So I'm going to keep talking to them and they're going to keep listening and they're never going to be like hey Mary Jo We love you. No, never because that's not who they are like you're not getting a kudos from somebody in the blue color world And so people need to understand who their market is too somebody else like in the real estate world

2:14:26I'm so jealous of those people like look at all your comments all your people are talking to one another They're sharing with one another no no not my people They're like leave me alone and you don't deserve no any of my business It's totally different by industry and this can vary but like depending on where you're putting this effort to the value matters It might be likes and follows an awareness or it might be SEO benefit It might be like you have to understand kind of the life cycle and the journey of this content and where and why it matters Because you don't just do it for the likes either right there's so much SEO benefit People think they need all these followers followers mean nothing I had somebody locally Posted something over the weekend and she sells flowers. She has like little flower farm and she sells flowers and she made a comment about It kind of sounded like she was down and out because nobody was like commenting on her stuff and sharing her stuff And I just commented and said who cares if people aren't commenting the question is are you selling flowers? Because if your flower sell who cares if anybody commented who cares if anybody liked

2:15:30Because a person that actually bought that bouquet probably didn't like or comment They just said hey, I want that bouquet or they spelt your name wrong in a Google search and your video came up Somewhere along the line they found you and bought those flowers right that's all you need Exactly and so who cares how many followers you have if you're selling that a flower is all the time it doesn't matter That's the part though the lake That's the part people hadn't need to keep up with because that's the part that matters the most that Evolved your business because is the consistency. Yeah, like even though we do marketing Business is change Because we're changing all the time we're we saw problems. That's what we do It's a consistency if she would quit sharing her flowers people would think she's not selling flowers anymore Or they wouldn't have popped up in her they're their feed anymore because the algorithm would drop her out or It's all of that inherent movement in the landscape evolving at all times that she's got to be aware of and why and keep understanding that that's why it matters

2:16:32Not whether or not I get comments right we've been here so long the dog is stretching All right, I kind of like this question too if you took over marketing tomorrow for a profitable 20-year-old business That had it changed anything in a decade. What would you change first? I mean let me talk through this quick The first thing I would do is try to get myself up to speed on that company and What works what doesn't and maybe were the opportunity's lie and after that what I would change first is I would Implement the things that added the gap so if that was awareness on social media if it was more functionality to their website Like I'll just throw this in and as an example I see so many businesses that have a great online presence, but it there's no call to action They're not capturing anything. They're not asking the client's questions There's no lead generation form where somebody can say hey, I want to learn more about your service They're just letting it be out there and letting the client draw whatever conclusion they want as to whether or not they want to work with them

2:17:36Now you could make the argument well, it's with this far we're profitable or maybe you've left a lot a lot of opportunity on the table As you're talking about that I was terrified to update my logo because it was my logo right I had already at that point sold probably 20 some thousand books and it was kind of I mean as kind of known for that And so we went from green and yellow to red white and blue and it had nothing like the old logo And I was terrified to do it until somebody said to me Well, Coke did it or somebody had some like big huge national brand had did it So what do you have to say to people that are in the business for a super long time and they maybe do need a little refresh I think there's two answers that are acceptable like when co-did it it was kind of a lateral move They didn't blow it up. They stuck with red. They got the same curvy font like Nike's kind of done it before It's a lateral move and there's logical business reasons as to why because they might have Created a whole series of sub brands or that might be for branding purposes or whatever

2:18:39I think if you can justify it then that's okay But otherwise you have to level up if you're rebranding and going backwards That's when people are gonna attack you you're seeing this right now without new Instagram logo. I'm not an Instagram It's all over social media. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Instagram re-did their font and everybody's like why and the reason why is because they were looking to connect the dots and make something a little bit more visually appealing But it's lateral or backwards at best so people are tearing it apart where if that logo would have gotten incrementally better sharp or cooler Whatever nobody would have questioned it like the North Dakota legendary logo. Did you see the big? Oh my gosh It was so nasty bad. I don't know if it ever got changed or not But not only did North Dakota get ripped apart for it But they got ripped apart for spending money on it and why did you pay somebody to do that? It was yeah, I might get bashed for this but look at the fighting suit at you and D

2:19:40When they went from that logo, which is iconic and genius and it's just awesome. Yeah, that was a great logo to the fighting hawks logo It was a step backwards. Yep, and there were Legions of people not just because of this soothing, but Design-wise it was just not as visually sharp and it got out of the pop and they're still living it now So I think if you're gonna evolve your brand you it's got to be in a level up type Scenario. Yeah, especially don't skimp on that. I just think that people are maybe scared to do a brand refresh But they shouldn't be if they do it correctly If they do it correctly and the question they need to ask is is our brand keeping up with modern times and is it still as flexible as we need it to be and In some cases, maybe it is fine and when done right you can also use it as new marketing material And so you're freshening everything or expand the brand to the point where maybe there's more usage for it Like I'm a huge fan of anytime we do a logo. I want to do an icon kind of based thing that could be used

2:20:44You know in a versatile way on clothing and vehicles and all these different things And then there's more of a traditional letterhead one. What's got the name underneath? Well, you do it in a way that creates a versatility with it because a lot of brands especially ones created years ago They didn't factor any of that stuff in and you're always redoing yours It looks like blows my mind because I'll see like little tweaks on the bulldog and I'm like that is Insane that like I just am not creative enough to think of that But you're always even tweaking your own. Yeah, like this is our Coca-Cola classic like that's the one we always come back to But we probably have 2030 different variations that we use for clothing and different things to just to kind of keep keep on ourselves creative Like how can we stay consistent with the core of what we are but still create all these variations that are accurate to who we are You know, it's kind of like testing ourselves, but also showing clients that it's possible. Can you make you have a podcast? I do What's the name of that? It's called the brand retro podcast and we talk about a lot of entrepreneurial ship

2:21:50A lot of Yeah, you did say it right A lot of entrepreneurial topics, but also we talk a lot about branding and kind of what's going on Creative world because again, marketing is one of these topics not everybody understands So as much as we can we try to educate try to get people to understand what it is that we do Any Thing that I've not asked that you think I should have asked I think the biggest thing is that Marketing's always been kind of this vague thing and if you're not up to speed on what it is and all these things that roll up into it I think it's a broad topic and I think to even get started to wrap your mind around what aspects of business Might need or when they need certain things it all starts with the conversation asking somebody You know, I think anybody who's got a little marketing experience even yourself if they were to reach out to hey Mary Joy or something I think that's a good first step because I see far too many people Getting sold a bill of goods from sales people agencies and then they always come to me after the fact and say

2:22:53I just spent 30,000 dollars on this thing. What do you think? I'm like, yeah, I think you wasted your money But it's too bad because they get burnt like that and then that's what feeds this whole idea of marketing kind of being a thing or a scam or whatever and I think it's tough because there are people out there and there's gimmicks out there. There's a lot of them. So Okay, where can they find you? Who do you help cyber dogs marketing.com is our website. We're all over social Cyber dogs look at the dog with a z we just lost a new website actually so you can check that out all our Socials are on the website, but also Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, those kinds of things If they want to reach out to me directly, they can hit me up on LinkedIn, which is totally fine And we help all kinds of different companies. We have clients that are lawyers dentists kind of the smaller clientele so to speak mom and pop stuff But we also work a lot with big business and bigger brands, you know, we work with space aliens locally We work with Milwaukee tool and it doesn't all have to be retainer based or anything you can be project based or even consulting so

2:23:58Okay, awesome. Well, thanks for coming. Yeah, thank you for having me I obviously have been part of the podcast for you, but not so much on this Yeah, it was fun it makes like well the room it looks bigger Yeah, it definitely does Yeah, all right you guys you know if you have questions for me, Mary Joot without the bank.com grab your life book Listen to my podcast if you're starting a business if you need marketing advice is just there's a lot to making the business successful It's not just you buying a domain name and saying hey here. I am people don't know people don't know Okay, let me know if you need anything otherwise you have a fantastic rest of your day