How to Fix Backwards Branding (Sassy Brand Strategy that Works) - Teacher : Jason Vana

Brand is the perception I have about you. And that perception is built from the policies, your contracts you put in place, the proposals you send. It's the cold emails that get sent out. 

I like to use this example. If you have a physical location, How full are the garbage cans when I walk into your office, because if I see that your garbage cans are overflowing, what it tells me back of my mind, this is all subconscious, but back of the mind, it tells me if you can't even manage taking garbage cans out, how are you going to manage 100, 000 project from me? 

This is Jason Vana, a brand and content strategist who has created content that drove revenue

and positioned brands as the premium choice in their industry. even before social media existed.

His clients typically see a 20 percent or more increase in their revenue after they implement his strategies.

and in this episode of useful content, we talk with him about brand strategy and how to fix your backwards branding.

And what happens is a lot of companies, they build backward. They build an offer or a product. Then they look and say, who can we sell this to? It's backwards. 

Why you might be wasting money, running ads. 

Imagine spending 100, 000 advertising and making no money from it. But that like most companies, especially small businesses, they're spending money doing stuff that if they had a brand strategy, they would immediately know that's actually not going to work for us. 

And he shares with us two critical questions we must be able to answer. If we want any hope of creating useful content.

you're not going to create content that really connects with people if you, one, don't know 

who it is you're And two, why they should work, want to And most businesses can't answer those two questions. 

and this is part one of two episodes of Jason.

Part two comes next week, but today. Let's make useful content. 

Hello and welcome to useful content. And today we have a brand new teacher. In our useful content classroom, Jason Vanna. Hi, Jason.

Hey, really excited to be here this morning.

It's good to have you on. Uh, I have been following your content for a while now and I can, I could safely say I probably have downloading more PDFs from you. And any other creator, I will library of a folder that should be labeled Jason right now, but it isn't, uh, everything you could possibly learn about brand strategy is in that folder, which is, is really, really great.

So it's great to have you on. And it's good that you could come on to share some of your insights with, uh, the small business owners will be listening to this. So Jason, could you please tell us what you do and how you help your clients make useful content?

Yeah. So I'm actually a brand brand and content strategist. So I run a brand positioning agency called shift. And basically what we do is we work with small to medium sized businesses to help them determine what's their unique value. Kind of answering the question, why should an ideal customer buy from them?

When they can go on Google and find their competitors within two seconds. So what's that unique value? And then how do you live that unique value out throughout the company and marketing sales operations, um, product, everything that the company does. And so, because we do brand strategy, A lot of our clients, the, the way to extend their brand into the, in front of the right people is through content.

And so we also do that content component, helping our clients like dominate on LinkedIn or really any kind of content for a lot of clients we'll do like, um, we'll take podcasts like this and. Make them into, uh, like bite sized pieces, blog posts, email newsletters, basically creating content that their ideal customers want that pulls from their brand strategy and helps answer the question.

Why should I, why should I choose your company to work with? So that's kind of what we, what we do.

It seems that a lot of companies. end up in the space of content, uh, but they start in different places. So one might start, let's just say in marketing or in video production, but a lot of people end up inside of repurposing content, distribution, how you use it, all those different things.

Why did you choose to start in brand strategy?

So we chose to start in brand strategy one, because I have been in the marketing realm for about. I guess now it's like probably 25 years, um, something like that. And in all the marketing positions I've been in and, and help some of these businesses as an employee, um, you know, generate more revenue, get, get found out, out more, what we realized is like a lot of companies, especially in the B2B space, they focus marketing on, um, just trying to get leads and it's all campaigns, it's all like.

Um, even the content, like if you look at most B2B content, it's we landed this new client, we landed this new contract, we hired a new person. It's like all this stuff that an ideal customer doesn't really care about. And so with every company that I was a part of as an employee, and even as we started shift, um, and really before I started shift, I was just creating content.

Um, LinkedIn to find a new job really was the, why I started creating content. And I had all these founders coming to me saying, Hey, I don't understand marketing. We've tried it. We've run some ads. We've done stuff. Nothing seems to be working. We need help. And really what came down to, like, you're not going to create content that really connects with people if you, one, don't know who it is you're targeting.

And two, why they should work, want to work with you. What's that unique value you bring to the market? And most businesses can't answer those two questions. Those two questions are the core of brand strategy. What's that unique value we're going to bring to the market that makes us stand out amongst all of our competitors.

And who are we trying to attract? Who are those ideal customers? Not. Your target market, but who's that subset? That's like, man, if we had a hundred clients just like this, our business would be thriving. We would enjoy it. Our employees would love to work with our clients. Like we've all worked. We've all had those horror story clients where, um, you took them because you needed the revenue.

It was money, but you're like, Oh my gosh, if I ever have another company like this, I just want to shut my company down and be done. Like, I never want to work with them again. We've all had those. And that's the sign that. You don't know who those ideal customers are. And so everything in marketing, especially when it comes down to content, everything revolves around or should revolve around a solid brand strategy.

Who are you going after and what's that unique value that you bring to the market? Once you can answer those questions. Everything else becomes easier. 

Like I get people asking me all the time because I primarily create content on LinkedIn. And so a lot of people will ask me, I've been consistent on there for five years.

So the number one question I get is how do you keep coming up with content for five years? And not get bored. And I'm like, well, one, who says I'm not bored? Um, it, if you actually go through all of the content I've created on LinkedIn, I'm not recycling in way of taking an old post and reposting it, but it's the same topic, it's the same theme.

It's know your ideal customers, know your unique, your unique value. Here's how you find it. I talk sometimes categories. It all comes though. From a deep understanding of my customers, it's questions they're asking me. It's questions that when I sit on discovery calls, prospects will ask me, well, do you guys do this?

Or, Hey, what, what do you think about this? Or when I do clarity calls, which had come just one hour calls with companies to kind of just help them solve one specific problem, questions that come up, I'm like, If you're asking, there's probably a hundred other people that have the same question, but just don't know who to ask or are afraid to ask.

And so that deep understanding of my idea of customers. Is what drives my content. It's why someone like you, like you're not the only one that has said, I've downloaded almost every single one of the PDFs that you put up on LinkedIn. I hear that all the time that my, my PDFs. And really when I look at it, like.

I guess you can't really see it on LinkedIn, but the few that I've shared on Instagram, I can see the bookmark numbers on Instagram. Um, people download it because it's content that was geared towards them. And that's the, that's the key to creating good content is understanding. What actually matters to your ideal customers.

And so that's kind of why we start on that brand strategy side.

Yeah, that's good stuff. I, I, um, I know about those nightmare clients about people who you get that you wish you didn't have. Uh, that, that has happened, but you know, you're kind of thinking that, and that's like a challenge that a lot of business owners, they face where they're thinking, Oh, I need money now.

Right. And, um, okay. What I don't have time to do all this. It's a brand stuff. I just need money. No. Uh, and I, and I can see the conversation probably you've had this conversation where, well, if you do this this way, then it will mean that you have a lot of money, but it takes the, takes time. So how, how, how do you frame that for someone who, who feels like if I focus on building this brand, It's probably going to crash my business.

How do you frame that for someone?

So for a lot of, for a lot of prospects, when they come to us and they're like, Hey, we, we kind of need revenue now, like. Or the business is shutting down. Like I had one, one client of mine. That's like, if I don't start making money soon, I'm going to be eating cat food because the money is running out. So I'm like, like, here's, here's the thing when it comes to brand strategy, a brand strategist is always going to tell you.

This is the foundation of your business. If you know your ideal customers, you know, unique value, like it answers all of the questions for your business. What marketing should I do? Well, if I know my ideal customers, like, let me give you an example. One of our clients, um, they are in the food processing equipment manufacturing space.

So they make equipment for like Tyson foods as an example, in that industry, 90 percent of decisions are made through Google. And through there's like one or two magazines. Like industry magazines that every decision maker is subscribed to. It sits on their desk. They actually flip through it. Now, if you would have told me 10 years ago that the main, their main marketing budget should go to magazine advertisement, I would have laughed at you.

In fact, I've even seen people on LinkedIn say print advertising is dead. I'm like, um, I know a client that makes millions through print advertising because it's what works for their industry. And that's what I mean by like, you have, if you understand your ideal customers, those decisions, should I do Google ads?

Should I be on LinkedIn? Should I do trade shows? Those answers are going to be very, or those questions are going to be very easy to answer because you know your ideal customers. So it is the foundation. But I'm also a business owner. So I know that that state where it's like, I need money. And like that, that is a reality that I think some of the what I call the brand strategy purists, they're the ones that are like, I'm not going to debase myself and say you should do other things like you need to.

So a lot of times for clients, what I'll tell them is, you kind of need to do it. A mix right now, do some Google ads, do some paid ads that are going to capture existing demand. So Google is a great platform where, um, like we run ads on Google. People that don't know shift yet, they haven't seen my content.

If they are out there looking for a brand strategy or brand design, I want to show up. I want to be part of. Uh, I want to be in the results as they're, they're searching. And so, um, I tell people run Google ads now, Google ads will be easier once you know, your messaging and you know, your audience and, and yes.

But if you need leads now, start doing some paid stuff and work on your brand at the same time. There are short term tactics like. Advertising. And then there's the long term tactics, which would be like brand that extends and through content. And what happens is a lot of companies, they build, they build backward. They cut, they build an offer or a product. Then they look and say, who can we sell this to? It's backwards. Um, but that's how most companies are, are done. And so, um, looking at that, really what I would say is when you build that way, the predominant. Kind of strategy that people use is we're going to build a product.

We're going to hire a sales team. We're going to do some cold ads. We're going to do some or like some cold emails We're going to run some some paid ads and they start getting clients and it's like, okay. Well this works The problem is that outbound stuff Outbound marketing outbound emails anything sales does is has diminishing returns Meaning if if your whole business is run on i'm just going to run paid ads You So that I get people to buy.

There's diminishing returns on that. The more you do it, the less results you're going to see. And over time, like all of these platforms increase their prices. So now it costs you more to acquire a company because you're doing paid ads. Where brand comes in brand is the side that says, like, I use this as an example.

Let's look at Apple, this product. The iPhone is not the best technological phone on the market. There are phones that can do far better and far more than an iPhone, but an iPhone continues to outsell every other smartphone. People will line up around the block to buy it. They will wait in line for hours in order to get an iPhone.

You don't see that with the Samsung. You don't see that with a Google phone. You see that with an iPhone. That's the difference. Apple. Double down on their brand and said, we're not going to do, I mean, they still do, they still do ads. You still see commercials, but they're not doing, they're not doing short term gimmicks to build the business.

They said, we're going to double down on the brand. It's why Mac books are aluminum and not plastic because they want you to feel like this is a premium product. It looks creative. Like I I'm an, I'm an eye whore. I have everything Apple except the vision pro because that's like,

Yeah,

I don't even like social media.

I'm not going to do virtual reality. But anyways, everything else of theirs, I

wait, wait. Spatial computing. Let's, let's get it right. Spatial computing.

Okay. Spatial computing, another, another brand tactic right there. But, um, I'll walk into a coffee shop and pull out my Mac book. And it's like, People know, and this is what they've done well is when you pull out a Mac book, you kind of know, okay, that person's a creative person.

They're probably working on some video or some, some design or whatever. Like that's the persona that they've built around their bank brand that like these creative, like game changers, they think differently. Like those are the people that buy Apple. And so it's an identity. Connection. Um, and that's like, that's what I, so kind of circling back to your question.

That's what I tell my client, like prospects and my clients is like, yes, you do still need to do marketing. You still need to run paid ads and stuff and know how that fits into the strategy. But if you aren't doing the brand stuff, you're going to spend more money on ads, diminishing returns, and you won't have that line of people that are like, I want to work with you.

Because you resonate with me. You're the brand I want to buy from. You're the person I want to work with most of my clients, especially if they've come through my content. Now I do have clients that come through Google, so they are looking at other competitors and they're vetting it out. Cause they don't know us yet.

They don't know us until we get on the discovery call and we do the sales cycle. Um, so that's a little different play, but when they come in through like my content, they come in inbound, um, I don't have to really sell them. Really what they're asking is, okay, show me your process. And I put all of our pricing on our website.

So we don't even have to talk pricing. They know the pricing, but we talk, here's the process. When I say brand, this is what I mean. When I say you're getting a brand guide, let me show you what's in that brand guide. So you get a better understanding of like what all this is. And they close. Because when they think brands, they think Jason Banner and that's who they want to work with.

That's, that's like the goal of brand is when I think I need. You know, like I like to use this as an example. If I say bottled water, what company comes to mind?

Well, for me, Fiji, that's what comes to mind.

So there's a reason why Fiji is the first one in your brain. They have like, and I don't know if they've actually done this, but the fact that it comes to mind is, is a sign that they've done. They know who they're for. They've designed, they've developed a brand that is attractive to you. It's not just the label and the color and the name, it's also the quality of what they do.

It's where it's located. It's how convenient it is. Like there's a lot of things that go into it, but that's the goal of a brand is when I say, you know, manufacturing, what's the first thing that comes, you know, when I say shoes, when I say, uh, like a CRM, when I say. Any of this kind of stuff. What's the first thing that comes to mind.

That doesn't happen through paid ads that happens through brand. And if you want to be the brand that when people think I need this solution, if you want to be the first one that comes to mind, that is 100%. You need to build your brand more so than any kind of marketing tactic. You might do.

That's good. And I, I gladly gave that very comprehensive overview. And that's a bold statement is saying that when people say brand, they have to think of, of Jason Varner. They have to think of, Of shift as a bold statement, and you can make that statement because you're actually doing the work to make that happen.

And that's a very critical thing. And I'm glad that you've admitted as well, that you run ads. It's not all magic that you have to take deliberate steps in order to, to get certain types of leads in, you know, and that's good for people to, to know

Well, and it really comes down to knowing your ideal customers. Like what I've done with researching my ideal customers, the people that I want to work with, the businesses I wanna work with. What I have found is they either don't know that they need brand help yet. Like it's not, it's not a solution in the, that top of their mind.

They think that they need a new lead magnet, a new sales funnel. Like that's kind of the stuff that comes top of mind. Um. When they need help. And so from the LinkedIn standpoint, I'm educating people that, Hey, your business problems are a brand problem. And so I'm showing them, this is how it works. This is like what you need to be thinking about.

And that just kind of creates demand. Oh, I realized that I can't answer these questions. So I need brand help. What I've also found is when they do know they need brand help, one of the first places they go is Google. I'm going to look for brand agencies. I want to look at some stuff that they've looked that they've created.

I want to see that they've worked in industries similar to mine and stuff like that. And so, um, the reason I'm doing paid at like paid Google ads is. I know how I know that customer journey for my ideal customers. And so if you don't know that you can run Google ads. Now I've worked with a client that ran Google ads for a year, spent over a hundred thousand dollars and got 0 return.

from it. Imagine spending 100, 000 advertising and making no money from it. But that like most companies, especially small businesses, they may not spend a hundred thousand on it, but they're spending money doing stuff that if they had a brand strategy, they would immediately know that's actually not going to work for us.

Like our clients don't. Our clients don't spend time there. So why would we run ads there? Or like the example I gave earlier, they might look at it and be like, why would I run a magazine ad? That's really expensive. Like if you want to talk premium ad space, try being in a magazine. Like you're talking sometimes 1, 500 a pop just for one ad.

That's a big, um, and our client. Runs like 30 print ads every month. So like think the ad spend for that. They would not have done that if we didn't do the research and understand this is how your clients make decisions. So you can run LinkedIn ads all you want, and you will get 0 from it, or you can spend more money.

Run magazine ads and you can make millions from it because you're right in front of the right people at the right time. And that's, that's what brand strategy does. Where do I be in front of the right people?

Yeah. That's good. And as somebody who came from a printing background, cause I was trained in print and I did press operation. I know that it gets expensive, real expensive, real fast, especially for the high end magazines. So like if you want spreads or things of that nature, it gets real expensive, real fast.

But if you're making millions from a thousand dollar investment, it just makes sense because you know. Right. You you just know, which makes me think, is there ever a time when it's too late to do a brand strategy when it's like, it's too far gone, it doesn't make sense, or can it always be pulled back?

I don't, I don't, I would say the only time it would be too far as like the business is ready to close its doors. If you don't have the revenue to like, Implement a brand strategy. It's, it's probably too late more often than not, though. I tell people it, it really isn't too late because a brand strategy really is like, in fact, let me say it this way.

Most of my clients already have a brand. They already have a product out there. They've already been somewhat successful with it. They've just, they're either in transition. So new leadership, they're trying to break into a new market. They have a new product line, something that's like, okay, our existing brand, isn't going to work for this.

Or they're, they're like new leadership, you know, those kinds of transitions. Or they are stagnated growth. We've been, you know, like, right now I'm, I'm meeting with a, uh, industry leader. Um, it's a SAS product for, um, yeah, the medical field. And they're the industry leader. They were the ones that pioneered this.

This kind of product never existed on the market before. Now they've got competitors because they blazed the trail and stuff like that. And the reason they're looking for a new brand strategy is they've been the market leader for so long. And when you are the market leader, it's very easy to stagnate and just kind of rest on your laurels.

And now you've got some of these upstarts that are coming and it's like, If we don't do something, they're going to knock us out. So we still have to innovate. We still have to be unique. We still have to, you know, be the ones that lead the charge. And so, um, we're putting together a package for them to like do brand strat, like a brand audit, brand strategy, some new brand design, some new materials and stuff like that, because they realize if we don't change.

The competition is going to overtake us. And so even a category leader, it's never too late to do this. Um, I even down to, we've worked even down to solo preneurs that are like, okay, I've got some clients, but this isn't really the business I wanted to build. I need, like, I need better clients. I need to go up market.

I, I like, I'm working with clients that nitpick every single thing I do and they don't trust you and they, you know, They see you more as a vendor than a partner. And like, how do I change that? That's all brand strategy to change that perception. Cause brand, and I think this is where most people struggle is they don't know what a brand actually is.

They think it's the logos, fonts, colors. They think it's something you build. It's not a brand is the gut feeling that people have about you, your business or your product. It's something people own. You don't own, you can influence it. So if I want to come across, uh, like for me, for our clients on almost every single discovery call, one question they ask is, are you the type of agency that's going to kick back on us?

And force us to like, get out of our heads and challenge us, or are you just a yes man? And I'm like, I'm freaking sassy, Jason.

sassy.

tell you, I will tell you that you're making a dumb choice. Now, I'll be nice it, but yeah, I'm going to tell you which, so I know that about my ideal customers. This is kind of how brand works.

In order to build that perception that Jason is not just going to be a yes man and be like, okay, I know this is going to hurt your business, but I'm going to tell you to do it because I don't want you to like, take your money away from me. You take your money away from me, whatever it's your money, your business, make that stupid decision.

Um, and I'll say that, but, um, what I've learned is that. With my LinkedIn content, why sassy Jason is a thing is that sassy, sarcastic, like call out the stupid stuff people do. It builds this perception in people's minds. This is a guy that is not scared to say when something isn't right, even when the majority of people believe it.

So I will get marketers on my content all the time being like, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. This is backwards. And I'm like, I don't care what you say. This is right. You've been trained incorrectly on how to think about brands. Like I did a post, this was probably a few years ago where I said, most companies should have a chief branding officer and that chief branding officer should sit between the CEO and the rest of the C suite because brand is not a marketing tactic.

It's not a, well, let's just pick some colors and some nice messaging to put on our website. Brand is what product are we developing? What are our policies? Like if a, if a client, I use state farm as an example of this. It's not B2B, but, um, state farm, everyone knows their jingle. The brand strategy they're trying to build is like a good neighbor.

State farm is there unless you have. Three strikes then they say we can't insure you anymore get the hell out and we've seen that like it happened with my mom Her house has been insured by State Farm since 1960 There were zero claims on the house except in the last five years. There were three and State Farm said we can't insure you anymore imagine Like, you can say all you want, you're a good neighbor.

To me, State Farm is the most unneighborly dick of a company for doing that. Like, three, in, in, what is that, 60 some years, we've had to pay out a little too much in the last few years, so we can't work with you anymore. That's not a good neighbor. Their policy created a perception in me that does not match what their marketing So when people say brand is a marketing tactic, I'm like, you don't get it. Brand is the perception I have about you. And that perception is built from the policies, your contracts you put in place, the proposals you send. It's the cold emails that get sent out. It's the, um, I, I like to use this example. If you have a physical location, How full are the garbage cans when I walk into your office, because if I see that your garbage cans are overflowing, what it tells me back of my mind, this is all subconscious, but back of the mind, it tells me if you can't even manage taking garbage cans out, how are you going to manage 100, 000 project from me?

You can't even take garbage cans out. You can't handle what I need you to handle. Everything you do brand. I love this brand is more about what you do than what you say or what you look like. And that's the piece most people get wrong. And so kind of circling back to what I initially started with, that's why I do this sassy content and why I will share like, Um, hot takes, if you want to put it that way, like marketing or branding is not a marketing tactic.

And it pisses, it pisses off so many marketers because they're like, well, I own the brand for the company. I'm like, well then your company is shit. Like it shouldn't be, it shouldn't, you should not own the brand. The brand should be above marketing so that it can influence finance. It can influence every department operations, you know, everything within the company.

The reason say that is my ideal customers want someone that says. I know you think of it this way, but that's going to lead to this, this, and this. If we think about it this way, it's actually going to get you where you want to go. So that personality is an extension of the brand strategy. I know my ideal customers.

I know the unique value and brings the market and my personality backs that up. It's a, it's a, it supports. All of that. And that's kind of how all of this works.

That's good stuff. I agree with everything that you said, and I think that people do get it backwards. In fact, I like when I talk to people about, I don't refer to myself as a brand strategist, but when I talk to people about brand, what I say is that a brand is the thing that people don't forget about you.

And, um, the reason I say that way is for that very reason is that if you come into the office. The garbage bins are filled, uh, the trash is filled and it's falling out onto the floor. People look around and they remember that. And then they go away with a perception that they can't even organize the internal stuff was going to go on with my contract.

And so you're, so you're very right. Is that it's, it's not the, okay. And that's one of the questions that I think that has to be answered. Like people put a brand marketer on a brand strategist in the same category and they're supposed to be different. Yes. Not yes or no. Yeah. That's true.

Yeah. So a brand marketer is more someone who takes the brand strategy and in my head anyways, and other people will disagree with me, but a brand marketer is the one that kind of sits between the brand strategist and the marketing team and kind of creates marketing that. The goal isn't leads. The goal is I want you to, I want to build the perception.

So Airbnb is doing this really well. Like, um, they built out a new brand strategy. This was back in 2019. Um, and they've, they switched their marketing from, uh, performance marketing to brand marketing. So instead of like, Hey, book a time with us, all this, like it's chasing you around the internet and crap.

Um, most. Excuse me. Most of their ads now, like I love the one they're doing currently, or at least the most recent one I've seen where it's, um, it's kind of animated, but it's a husband, wife, and a kid in a hotel room. And they're like, you know, if you share a hotel room, your kids bedtime is also your bedtime, but.

If you, if you rent an Airbnb, they can go to bed and you can still be up and that's it. That's the ad. And it's like, and obviously it's like, you know, it shows Airbnb and stuff, but. That is telling a story of like, yeah, if I'm, if I have a family and I don't want to go to bed at the same time as my kid, like that's a feeling of like, man, there's freedom in that vacation time where my kids can go to bed and we can still be up and active.

Like that. Is brand marketing brand strategy is okay. We're going to figure out what is that unique value you're bringing to the market? How does that unique value change your offer? And that's the piece. A lot of people don't like is a lot of businesses come in. I've got a good offer and it's like, Well, if this is the value you're bringing, your offer needs to change.

And I did this recently with a communications company. Um, they are a communication strategist for, uh, a strategy company for nonprofits. And it was just like every other communications agency out there. Like they provided the same stuff. Even, even some of their website, like sounded the same. And I'm like, we need to figure out why people choose you.

What we discovered was. What makes her unique is that she has a lot of connections to take these nonprofits and get them connected to an individual or an organization that can elevate. The nonprofit. So for example, two of her clients, she's connecting to Kamala Harris, like, okay, tell me if I'm a nonprofit that, that deals with like voter rights and stuff, being connected to the vice president of the United States, isn't going to just elevate your nonprofit exponentially, none of her competitors.

Can do that. So what we did is we looked at her offer and said, look, you've got a decent, like you're doing calm strategy, decent offer, but what if. We highlight the fact that, and we basically, what we did is we restructured her offer and said, you're not doing comms strategy anymore. You're selling the connection.

And so your offer, you don't need to do a full comm strategy. You don't need to do content creation. What you need to do is figure out what information do I need from my customers in order to connect them to the right people and, and everything on her website. Like. We still haven't redone the website yet.

We just finished this like a week ago. Um, but like we're adding a section on her website of like, these are the. Like connections. These are the people that I can connect my clients to. And we're going to put logos in there of like Kamala Harris's logo is going to be on there. And some of the organizations that she's, she can connect you to her on there.

Just reiterating and standing out. You're not just a comms. Agency. You are a connector. And so we had to revamp her whole offer to fit around that unique value. Most people, most, most business owners, most founders, they don't like when you try tinkering with the offer, but your offer is probably the biggest brand.

The biggest piece that influences your brand is your offer. If your offer is crap. I don't care how great your marketing is. I don't care how great your messaging is. People will walk away and be like, they're liars. Like, I look at State Farm, I don't care how great that jingle is, how awesome your ads are, you're a crap insurance company and you will always be a crap insurance company in my mind.

Now, is that going to hurt them that Jason Vanna doesn't want to work with State Farm anymore? No. Let's be honest. They're a big company. But if you're a small business, one or two people that go through your product and have a very bad perception of it. They talk, I'm talking about a bad experience I had on a podcast.

People do that. You are, you are a hundred times. I actually forget the number, so I shouldn't say that, but you are far more likely to talk about a bad experience than a good experience. This is why brand is so, so important. This is what makes a brand marketer is more. How do I take the brand and apply it to marketing?

Where a brand strategist is, we have to look at your offer. I've, we look at like hiring practices you've got, if this is your unique value, you've got the wrong people. So for some of our clients, we've, we've even said, look, if you want to be this premier. Like we had one client that was a software company.

They develop software for, uh, manufacturing, uh, machines, um, to tie everything together and make your, your operation like run more smoothly. Um, and one of their key differentiators is we understand the business. Behind the software. So we know like, we're not just going to give you a nice piece of software that looks pretty and works well.

We're going to have it tied to your business goals and have it understand like how, how, if we install this, is it going to impact your bottom line? And how is it going to make things flow better and make your operations better? So what they do is we said, like, you're only going to hire. Top level developers who understand the business side.

Now that means you, they're probably going to have to pay far more for their software developers than a startup that can like outsource and be like, I just want it to look like this. Yeah. They're going to be more expensive, but that perception of any one of our developers can sit down with your team, figure out exactly based on your business goals, exactly what needs to happen and build.

What needs to happen. That's a brand perception. And that is a hiring thing. That's not a marketing thing. And that's people don't understand about brand is it isn't just a marketing thing. It is, who are you hiring? What are your invoices look like? Um, what is your offer? What is your sales team doing?

Do you even need salespeople? Maybe you don't. One of our clients, we took their outside sales team from seven down to two and said, you don't actually need outside sales. Because the way people buy, they want application specialists, they don't want a normal salesperson that's like, here's the widget, do you want it?

They want someone that can come in and say, here's the real problem in your business. Here's the full solution. Now I can get you a proposal and get that sold for you. They want someone that comes in and solves the problem for them before they buy. Well, you don't want a normal salesperson, then you want an application specialist.

Who happens just to do sales. And so that's, that's a brand strategist and a brand marketer is how do we market and build brand awareness? Huge difference between the two.

I realize Jason that we, I don't know how much time you have, but,

a

mean, you've been firing on all cylinders, for real, for real, no, no, no doubt. Uh, I may have to split this into two because I know we, we, one of the things we came in today to talk about was differentiation. And, uh, well, I know we'll be talking about brand strategy, so we haven't got the differentiation yet, but it's, it's, it's fine.

It's fine. I love this. I love this. I love the fact that you, that you're giving, uh, so much insight into how the thing works. Because a lot of people don't know how it works in the vast majority of people. You ask them about brand, they think what you can see, what you can hear, what you can touch, they think all of these tactile visual things.

And they don't think about, you know, what, what was my ICP? They don't think about the things you're talking about there. So this is good education for small business owners so that they can put themselves in a position to say, okay, I really do need this. This will make a difference. In my business, this would actually move the needle for me.

If I'm not getting enough, uh, leads, revenue profits, et cetera, this will make a difference. I'm glad that you're seeing this so people can really get behind it because a lot of people think they need more ads or they need a better product or they need, you know, Uh, the, the, the marketing, marketing team is not working hard enough or something of that sort when that is may not be the core of the problem.

So this will help them reposition their mind to say, well, maybe we need to look at our actual brand and see what needs to get adjusted there. So that's, that's good stuff. That's really, really great stuff. So, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you, can we, can we talk about differentiation and get into some of that?

Is it possible?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Great. So, uh, I don't know, this is the first time this has happened. Actually, this is the second time this has happened where, but the first time was planned where this is a whole show and then we're going to probably do a smaller show, which I'll release separately. So I'm going to have two Jason Valens, which is great

Woo. that.

overload of Jason. 

Thanks for staying to the end and I hope you enjoyed the discussion between Jason and I. And in case you missed it, this is part one of two with Jason. The second part on differentiation is coming next week. See you then.