Most businesses think branding is what they say about themselves.
Branding isn't about your message. It's about what people think when they hear your name.
“It's the long-term position, the consistency, the trust. And here's the thing most founders miss.”
Branding and marketing are not the same. They're two completely different systems. Today we break down the three part architecture that separates brands people love from brands people ignore. Strategy, identity, execution. And the one mistake that's probably killing your
brand right now, this is Howard Lim. He's rebranded companies that sold for $750 million.
He's IPOed brands. And he's here to show you exactly where most businesses get it wrong. This is the vault unlocked. Let's unlock it. Today is all about the difference. We have sales. We have marketing. And then we have branding. And today we are going to break down what we think branding is, what traditional branding really is, and what people think branding is today and how they see it. And today we have a special guest.
I'm going to call him the branding expert, the master of all branding. And here we are, have him. Howard, how are you? Good. Good. Thank you. How are you doing? Doing great. Thanks so much for being here. I'm just going to start us off because I think it's a big question that that I actually ask. And I know that you have a unique way of answering it. So I want to ask a simple question. What is branding? Well, branding is a very deep and broad subject.
And so most, you can say it's a most complex business language that we have in a arena of business.
And there's actually three parts of branding. But ultimately branding is not about what you say,
“it's about how everyone receives you as a brand. And in other words, what matters most is what”
people think about you, what they're saying. So people have to kind of like a one-way street. They say, we're building a brand, you know, such and such. And they don't quite understand. It's not really what they're saying. I'll throw that influences the outcome. But it's about really what people think about your brand. That's interesting. Because the right there, I mean, boom, let's just kick it off, ding ding ding. I love it. Why just heard you say there is one of the cores of branding where
it almost is like where most people probably get it wrong is you think we think branding is about
what we want to say to the market or what we're trying to say to the market. But true branding,
and understanding where branding actually what it really means is what I'm saying to the market, it's what the market's perceiving what I'm saying. Exactly. And so with companies, what's most ideal, if they understand how to position their product and service information. And so therefore, the expectations is matched to the experience of that buyer, that client, or the customer, or consumer. So, therefore, it was an actual, you could say alignment between what they're saying,
what's been received, and how that experience is actually matched to the expectation,
“which sounds simple, but most companies, every company I've ever met quite honestly, has it where”
there is not an equilibrium? Okay. So let's talk about this. How did you come up? I mean, talk a little bit about your past now about how you've come up with this, because obviously you've you've seen where I know you work with some big companies and you've created this entire, or your business is around the idea of like true branding. Where did you come up? How did you learn all about this? What's the history here? Well, I'm pretty fortunate because I was in school for
years studying different, you could say, different subjects, but overall came out with a degree in applied art and science, but the point being is this, I started off by looking at design and advertising. And the funny thing is a big part of branding is strong designing, because it's all about how to engage people in their senses, especially out of our five senses, we use our eyes 90% of time to perceive and evaluate things. So graphic design is what I majored in applied art and design,
but I also took on some other courses like computer science, for example. The point being, I all came into the work, into my company. So branding is a twofold where it used to be defided when it came to firms. You had graphic design firms, and you had advertising firms, like BBO, shy a day, so forth and so on. They're all about positioning, advertising to all about positioning.
When I was in school, I was studying both, and I said, oh, there's something ...
I started building brands, literally coming out of college, but I used to call it image market,
“because branding wasn't even a category just yet. So I knew we're doing more than just design,”
and I knew that we're doing more than just advertising, that we're actually combining it to, and that's really where hence branding came from, is those two core principles. From, so branding came from the idea of advertising and advertising, you said, was positioning, and then there was design of that positioning, and then brand. So brand isn't been around for a long time. It sounds like it seems like it's more of a newer concept. Exactly.
It became popular, like you could say around 2010, around 28, 2010, we started hit like Ford Magazine,
Time Magazine, Money Magazine, it's all about brand. You know, and actually that was coinciding
with Apple because Steve Jobs was a natural brand, but Brandy's actually even further in that quite an honest day, what I call, what I call authentic branding, which is brandy and a current modern day, it's more than just design, advertising. Now, or including, of course, is the parts to marketing and social media. And so we're looking at now where it takes on a deeper and
“wider scope. And the other thing has to do now, what honestly, with what I call authentic branding,”
what is the back and story of a business, the authenticity of business. So it's evolved to more, you could say, what I call the DNA to build in a strong brand, involve more ingredients than just how it was before. Why is that important? Because it's all about differentiating for your competitors, and you had to be very clear at how you're differentiating. So these ingredients create that DNA of what's going to make you different, look different, sound different, and feel
different. So as you walk in and you've seen, and you're working with a lot of these companies, you said you've a lot of them get it wrong. Where are they getting it wrong? From, like, from them, is it the messaging, is the positioning? Is it just understanding? You said that equilibrium, the whole thing coming together? I feel equilibrium comes from other things connecting so that you get this holistic brand approach that people can. What you're saying is also being perceived
of what you want it to be versus what you think it is. Exactly. So a big part of what people miss is they think that brand is the same as marketing when they're totally two different animals. Brandings about the long term, what is your overall position of who you are, what makes you unique, and why this matters? Marketing is about the tactical side is sending that message out.
Practically meaning through different channels, right? So that's the first mistake people make
they confuse the two and it collapses to being the same. We're totally, are two completely different paradigms. The second thing is that even if you, even if you hire a brand in person, there's three parts to branding. There's those who come out with the strategy, okay? There's they're called strategic, a lot of times they refer to a strategic planners or strategic brand designers. What they're doing is really coming up with a strategy, okay? Now the second component to
this is building the identity. And this is where most people will only go so far because branding and building the identity is an understanding of all media. Because you want to create cohesiveness between your radio spot, TV spots, your social media, your website, your print, your product
“design, your vehicle wraps, your building. So the only way you could build things effectively,”
understand each of those different principles because they're all different. What I see a lot of times that people brand designers are actually designed for let's say a newspaper for like a website or website they think is a catalog. And so what you're doing is they're missing the opportunity to truly engage that person based on that media of how to really engage your emotions. Okay, okay. For the use around quote unquote principles when it comes to the layout. So I
see a lot of people like for example design, something like a package design, but they design the package design like it's an ad. And so they don't those two don't translate when it goes to media to the media. So that's where brand identity, where I call brand identity, we come a brand designer. That's where brand designer is different in a graphic designer. A brand designer is to understand, has it understand of what we're talking decades of understanding these different
media and what media to use and actually how to design for those core principles to your most
Effective when you're using those the media.
we talked start talking about the media is which I would say is getting closer to the marketing probably side of this equation. There's something before this which is really the core, the truth which is you said the identity. What is the identity that you want? So where it's interesting because that alone goes, okay, well, I know my identity. I can go, you know, figure that out. But it's not actually the case because you can think you know what your identity is or you can think you want the
I would say your audience to know what your identity is. But there's a nuance here that nobody talks about. There's the, there's the, there's an expertise that happens in between that of actually really understanding what your identity is and how to actually it land so that your, your potential of customers, clients, whatever it might be actually resonate and want to be part of that brand. Like I mean, you said Steve Jobs was, I mean, yes, he was, I probably one of the top guys if you
“think about what he did with Apple, right? Like what was Apple? What does he even Apple mean, right?”
But when you think about it, you hear it, you know exactly what it is. Some publicity.
Yeah, you're exactly right. So I always say it's about asking or I call you questions.
You get the quality answers. Most people try to do it, it's almost like they try to operate it in themselves without having to expertise on the outside of which really didn't be able to scale and grow that company. So they're doing the same thing year after year, they meant to get their team to get it or board together. We're not having an expert come on the outside to ask the right questions, right? It's kind of like, you know, they don't say, you know,
you can't see the forest through the trees, right? They're only taking one perspective, they're perspective what they need. The outside perspective of understanding how to ask the right questions to get the right answers that are so sustainable, those questions, those answers are so sustainable, they become the foundation and backbone of that business slash brand. How do we ask, so then how do you ask those right questions? How does a business
ask those right? Is that mark a research? I'm thinking a branding research, I guess you would call it,
“but how do you, how do we ask the right questions and know we're getting the right answers?”
We came up with a proprietary process of what those questions should be.
Okay. So I never want to be, just to give you an idea. Okay. If you had to go to jail for a year,
what values should you find so inherent that you would say, I would need to go to jail because these reasons. You know, there's like, that would be a question like, what do you feel like, are your, like, for example, it comes to brand and it's usually five values, right? Those values are like, almost like, people treat them like, what's your personal, I mean, that's not, that's not a strong value. A strong value is what's now actually dictate the culture, what's
going to be so inherent in a culture that your, your business with ceased to exist. Like, for example, Steve Jobs was a natural render. His all about quality. When a board member thought he was crazy, he charged a nine amount of money for a consumer to purchase. They thought there's, they were looking at a profit. They weren't looking at a brand of what's in his super seed or other brands and stand out and stand out and stand above it all based on quality. Okay. So he didn't want to
create any corners to producing the best product. He understood, it's going to take more money, more time, but you know what, it's going to keep him ahead. And not only that, but get the consumer, what the ultimately want. So that's a value, a very strong value was that he wanted to make it a user-friendly operating system or, I should say, user-friendly computer in general. And so that meant that he had to do more programming to make sure that the interface to do interface,
everything about it was in create the best experience. So it wasn't clunky, like a PC, where it was in fighting and allowed people to get more creative. He was not in the bend on that value. If it had been that like, now to say, he would do this or not, but the point being is like, you know, what it mean, like a prison for a year that you felt so strongly about those values, right?
“Yeah. That's a chord. So that's what I mean, like a question, but a pose a question in a way”
that actually seems so deep, it becomes hard to foundation, it's unshakable. See, I like what you said unshakable, but it's interesting because as you say that, from just my experience that I've seen even in that one question, you can get it wrong. Like, it doesn't matter, like for me, it's like, it doesn't matter what I think, you know, what I'm willing to go to jail for, it matters what my clients are willing to go to jail,
for it. Like, what they're going to perceive that I'm willing to go to jail for. Because I could say, hey, I want, you know, X, but X doesn't land with my Y client. So I can sit there forever, right? Thinking, and I'm going to hold and hold, but at some point, there's like a
test that has to happen. And that's what I never understood is how do you, you can't test with
a little brand, you can't, you need, how do you get that in between so that you actually have
Something that could be in alignment to go to the market?
it changes. Well, here's what's interesting. So there's certain current core principles
“that we're always remain true to the founder, to the CEO, the founder, you'd say, right?”
There's two parts of this. There's what's true to that founder, and then what's an arasmating to the consumer, and then building that bridge. Building that bridge is coming up with a statement that resonates with both. Yeah, yeah, I love it. So then that's the nuance, right? Is the bridge, is how do you build the bridge between what the founder truly believes what he's willing to die for, and then the bridge to what the consumer is willing to perceive or go, I'm in or I'm out.
Exactly. Now, here's a killer part. It's like you can't please all the people all the time, but the great thing about it is that if you're really clear based on your love, your passion, your heart, you're in a build. Others have wanted to resonate with that. You just need to best for then, once you forget that part, that's where then marketing comes in place, right? Because not in a marketing, out there and say, here's your view we are, here's how we are available
to you, this is how you can resonate with us, right? So that's where marketing comes in,
but you gotta get these out of the component straight and figure it out first before you get actually
market. So yeah, so it's building your own tribe what I call tribe, and so you create a culture
“and tribe that's so strong. I remember when Apple, I was one of those guides that stood in line”
for eight hours getting the first iPhone because that's my loyalty and that's the ultimate. So there's two parts to this, when it comes to a strong brand, it's building loyalty and building trust. The more that you're consistent to what your values are and your philosophy is, for example, the more, and it consists of you are the faster you're going to be recognized both what I call instant recall and a mind and hearts of your customer. It's when you actually bend those,
that's where the trust goes down and you start to break that trust, that's where the brand is going to continue learning overnight after all years of building up boom. And that could be what the proc, your sound, the message, your the color, like is that combination of all of that, where you can start using the trust? Exactly. It's a combination of all, like, so I don't get a little abstract, but this will make sense. So there's there's kind of a
universe that you're building, which I call the context. So there's certain components that make up that context, your philosophy, your vision, and your values, and your overall core message. You're not tying, you know, you're not telling specifics, but you're actually like, it's
“almost like, you know, what honestly is like, you know, the decoration of independence.”
Yeah, it builds the context of this country, right? Then you fill it with the content. The content, when it comes to product, it could be like a series of different products or different line of products, but they all follow a certain principle based on a context, which is the philosophy. So going back to like Steve Jobs philosophy, he wanted has a user friendly interface, but he also wanted he also believed, and he was a designer as well,
he also believed a minimalist design. Most companies don't even know why they're copying an iPhone. It's the most simplest form you can design for a phone. You can't get any simple goodness, right? Yeah. So you got Samsung all the other companies are copying it, right? They don't even know why they're copying it, but the point being is that Steve Jobs, with all his products wanted bear it down to the simplest approach, which is Japanese design,
influence by the Japanese, which is minimalist design. Everything that design is based on
that philosophy, for consistency, and also for recognition. You could always identify
our Apple Mac product because they had a certain look and feel to it. Absolutely. I mean, even their stores, they have a look feel, you know when you're in one, right? Exactly. So it was interesting as you were talking, I was thinking, so what comes first, the product or the brand, and it seems like the brand really dictates the product? Yeah, so a lot of times what happens is that right now, what we do a lot, majority of the time, 80% of my business is really redesigned
companies. They have to content, like they say, a product, but it isn't positioned properly to their target market because first of all, they haven't defined themselves for a far enough, and second of all, they haven't defined or customer, non-dye haven't defined or customer, for the standpoint of demographic and psychographs, but they also have sub-category, sub-sagments. Okay, it gets kind of complex where you got four generations down to buying powers,
you got a baby of birds, you got an X, you got a millennials, which is Y, and then you got the Zs.
Anyways, the point being is that it all thinks differently.
Are you designing based on one psychographic, or are you designing for two psychographs, or are you designed for three? Should you be designing one product for one psychograph,
and then create that same product and redesign for a second? A second group of psychographics.
And so I say that nowadays, branding be goes beyond a demographics because we're living to go to the market now, it has to do it more generations in their psychographics, for example. It's interesting because now we're getting into the deeper, as you say that I'm thinking, okay, so how do you do that? If you have a product, let's say, or business, they want to speak to all four demographics. It's very easy if you know what your
demographic, your target market, avatar, whatever the name you want to use it, but like it's very niche, you can speak to them. But if you're like, if you're want to be a household name, or a
“product, let's just say, works for all those different generations, how do you do that?”
How do you do that? How do you do that under one umbrella? So a lot of times what we do is we'll create
sub-brands. If we find like, well, first is taking the data. This is where now marketing and sales
comes into place. We'll look at the data from the sales or marketing to find out, well, who's your important coach? Who's your number one clientele from the standpoint of the demographic and psychographics, right? And let's get from marketing, let's get it from sales and look at the data. And then start to look at, well, even words consider, you know, why are Z generation because there's maybe 2% right? And they're like, oh, would you design for all, right? And then they're like, well,
maybe we should scale it to a specific one, a specific demographic, demographic, semi-tech graphic, because that's your biggest buying buyers, right there, let's say they're 80%. So then it gives us an idea, well, this is designed for that market, specifically, there's also looking at two, another set of variables that we look at. Are we going to be price-driven? Are you going to be value quality driven? Okay. Most companies that we work with, I don't nearly almost
over your company that we work with, we tell them to be value driven, because that will set us apart, then price-driven, we're price-driven, you're beaten up on pricey, because you're going to come to be the B to B, okay? Well, how can we get it? We're more than just, we're price-driven,
“more than just price-driven, I said, because you got to create a brand. You have to go through”
your website, your totally commodity. Everything you're talking about is about the features about your products that anyone else can say, but it's not having about the benefits. It's not that kind of about the brand, when a emotional standpoint, how big a benefit from that quote-unquote product, if it's a B to B. So as we're saying that, I'm thinking that comes to that question, I kind of ask, but we didn't really go deep into it is, so when you, what are some of the common
mistakes or the common things that you come into business as you see right away? I know you said the first one was like the equilibrium is not there, but if we were to go deeper, what are some other things that you can just see and you're like, yep, that's the game change. Like the things that really make the difference. So all the time I started with one hour intake or I'm reviewing all the material, like everything if produced to represent a brand or website, social media, if it's a product,
design or product design, everything. And when I first thing I know is they look like they look like civil, like that old classic movie, like a bunch of personalities. Yeah. Yeah. So there's different looks and fails, different fonts, different colors, and different tone as far as the copy and reading the copy and the social media doesn't relate to the actual brochure, just brochures, not related to the website. So it looks like 10, 15 different companies, guess what? You're now
positioned away that you never get noticed because the company that looks like 50 different companies
versus like one company like Apple, guess what? The one company that's going to get noticed is the one company that actually is very clear of who they are with a stand for and has a clear identity. So first thing I look at is the identity and understand a lot of times, where every time I ever work with a company where they're just joined it and there's no alignment, there's no consistency, it's no unification about, and not even there's an unification. I'd say they're already
just saying color saying fonts, there's no unification about still of who they are as an overall
“position. And would you say not even just who they are, but who they actually want to target?”
And I'm very good, exactly. So a lot of clients, they go, well we're talking, you know, let's say X, Y and Z, we're talking, we're targeting targeting Z, but when I look at how their targeting is really to X, and then they're trying to figure out why they're not getting their ideal customer. Because I know when I've walked in cost, you know, as we build sales teams, we need to make sure obviously marketing and brand is on par, or just sales becomes a way harder. And one of the things
I've realized is a lot of businesses that I've worked with, they don't, they ...
but they haven't really done the work on just, I'm talking about their actual ideal target, like their other, you know, some people call it their avatar, IPC, whatever, ICP, whatever it might be. But I feel like in order to get your ICP, there's one even step before that, which is what I'm
“think I'm hearing you say is like that brand, which is before the brand, which is first, who are we?”
So what is this company and what does this company want to represent? Number one, like we don't really even on it. And it's not, hey, I want to make business better. Like it's not like that's, it's there,
there's a nuance in that right there. My question always goes, if you get that wrong, everything
down the chain is off, everything is off, a millimeter, a millimeter, a millimeter, a millimeter, a millimeter, and this is how then you get these businesses, you come into their fragmented, nobody knows what's going on. So the challenges, right, how do you get to that right message, Raiden beginning, and this is what we represent because it's based off of obviously the founder or whatever the found in principle is. How do we get the found in principle that we know is actually
going to land and is going to speak to our target market before we even know the target market. So to me, there's, there's a nuance here, I'm trying to figure out, and I don't know if you're not saying it because it might be given away their kitchen sink. But we can look at it all on silos. I tell people all the time. If you don't even know who your target market is, and you don't know the message, and you haven't figured out the right message to the right audience
“for the right offer. That's what I always say. Stop immediately. You're wasting money. You're wasting”
time. You're wasting energy. You don't have a sales problem. You got a marketing and, in this case, a branding problem. Hey, so the way that we do it, we go through our Sims system, in a Sanford strategy implementation and management. So the first part is strategy. We do a one day, two day and a three day. Okay. So if you work on a one day, two day and three day, the core central is getting to that position exactly what we're talking about. Like,
who are you, what do you do, what makes you unique? The uniqueness is what's super critical. Because
if you're to say, hey, we sell, you know, this widget, you're right. That just becomes a commodity. You have to look at it from standpoint. What are you doing uniquely? That is unique from everybody else that asks you as more value to your ideal customer. And believe it or not, like again, when I work with companies, you know, you see it's repositioning them, rebuilding them, repositioning them, redesigning them. And what I find is that they have all the gems. They're just
all very, they haven't been asked to write questions to unlock those critical hidden gems. Windows got a rot to the surface when I look at all the data points. Then we're like, okay, now we can make this into a brand. So now we got, so they offer all the content. And what I'm doing is looking at, well, let's create now the dots and now let's connect the dots. Okay,
that's a part they don't, don't never get an understanding that comes back to being expert in
the space of branding and positioning. But to point being you right, they have all the answers. They're just been buried over the years and not been asked to write questions. And that's when I get into the strategy to figure out their positioning and even goes further in positioning, those are getting into finances as well. Okay, I was going to ask Thives, because I wanted to
“make sure people, because I think I understand this, but I want to make sure people listening here”
are not confusing what you're saying to like a business plan versus a brand strategy or a brand document. Like for me, I have, I have a couple of businesses and that's the, where's the brand doc? Like with a brand doc tells me, right, what the message is, what the fonts are, what the colors are, how to use those cars, when to not use those colors. Like there's like, so it, there's this common ground that anyone knows and sees, you know, it's one thing. Funnels, emails, we all speak
in this certain language. But even then, that is, you'll see me always go here, because I see it, and I can't get my, my finger on the pulse, even having that, you can still do it wrong. I get still in the whole thing could be wrong. It's not what you, and I love what you said, it's not so much what you like, is about what the customer perceives. Right, it's going back there. So you go in and you do the strategy. This is one of the, you're, now we're talking more about
you specifically, you have a certain way of doing a strategy, which is basically understand the business, the core, seeing underneath the hood where most people are not looking, and then be able to ask or I'm going to say extract the right information through the questions and through this sim system, I like that. To be able to understand, okay, wait a minute, we have an idea of like, here's who we are, here's what we represent or what we stand for, here's where we're going.
We start making a message happening.
what you're describing, which a lot of people get these two confused quite a bit too,
is a style guy in the brand manual. Yeah. So I've seen, now it's become very popular, where I see a lot of designers are creating style guides, like what fonts you use, what colors you use, which is great. Don't give me wrong, but that's great. But it's still on theory, what they're missing is that core content, what's our message, which are philosophy, which comes from what, I started creating new category, which is brand manuals that are deeper.
So therefore the culture, not just designers can understand this in marketing, but the culture at
“whole. So the more you have everyone working in sense and going the right direction, right?”
And that means all the stakeholders, literally. So a lot of people will design style guides
for the greatest, but what about the culture? What about the actual VP? What about the actual partners? So manuals where we do it, we build brand manuals where actually it allows everyone to participate into the brand and see the value. So you'll do this with, when you do these strategies, you'll do this with the whole business, like all the departments, kind of in one. Yeah, exactly. So when I do, well, that's a three day strategy session. You're right, though. What I'll do is any strategy sessions,
a big three day strategy session, even a two day strategy session, what I'll do is I'll look at the business model, look at their brand, but I'll go beyond most business brand companies only
work at the brand level, right? But I like working. The reason why I start with the business first,
“because a business is in a change how the brand should be shaped. See what we're running against?”
But the reason why I like to start with the business, the business model specifically first, is because a lot of times what I'll do is I look at the business model and they'll have, let's say, 10 components that will actually quote unquote, "pray revenue." And I'll say, because I've worked at every single space, I'm like combining my head, what might be a space that haven't thought of that's used in medical, but actually we're working in finances, but it has been effective
in medical, and could be adapted to finances to actually get the company out there even further when it comes to more revenue. So what I'm doing is I'm looking at dots that have not been created, and created a bigger and stronger quote unquote business engine. So therefore, that's an change the way the brand identity is going to be shaped. In other words, if it was only shaped from what the business started with and what it's made currently do, it might be that then it's
half baked. In other words, it might even be the name, they outgrown a name, which we had changed a lot of names as well, but the name itself could only be limited by your business model that they currently have. When we changed some of these components, the name itself contains, like WS, you know, like let's say, "Oh, this containers." There are much more than containers. Containers, when I worked with them, was only a quarter of what they did. They were leaving three
cores of it buried, and everyone thought the only did containers were to look at the name or her name. I said, "No, we guys, we guys just changed the old desk, which we didn't do it in getting by the way." But the point being that that changed my whole thinking about what kind of brand identity we wanted to create, starting a lot of times with the name and the mark. So why I like to do and work with a quarter-income business model, because a bit of small now, we could build something
bigger and stronger, you could say, and then reflect the identity on that. So therefore, the company looks really more valuable than ever did before, and you could grow into their brand rather than outgrow it. Wow, okay. So just so people have some contacts of that. What brands can people that you can put your pinpoint on that have outgrown? 'Cause a lot, something you can grow into, verse outgrow. What companies have you seen outgrow their brand? Sure, 20th century Fox.
Okay. We're in 21st century. That's funny. Yeah. So a lot of names literally I see where a lot of companies will run in a trouble and have run in a trouble. Like 31 flavors, baskets, rock and dry. And that is, you know, passing rock and dry, the BR, they had a, and they did something clever with it, you know, adding a 31 in there. There's tons of companies where they were running in trouble, where they were outgrowing the name in their image. Okay. They're full-light game. They're
“looking to fill. So the name is part of it. Then there's a look of it, you know. That's why if I”
showed you Apple has changed your identity to where they have it were super clean now. I think it's like five times before they got it right. Um, anyways, a lot of companies will outgrow literally
Their mark first.
We're a last forever. A logo is like anybody created like someone's brother. But it misses the
“science into it. Like, can it be reduces the size of dying, the bill, can that cannot mark we use”
to billboard, can it work in black and white, kind of work for embroidery. It doesn't take the size, logos do not take science and business into its approach. It's like, what looks good? But doesn't make sense for an standpoint. How can it shrink down to let's say a thumbnail drawing, you know, let's say like an app. So about logos, how they about grown, a lot of companies have grown, is that now I'm going to say to start creating apps where it can't ever reduce the size of
a thumbnail. Hey, I hear that. I like that. And then as we're going to say, and then if you start a grab, if you start getting attention on a brand, there's a lot harder to change the brand,
once it's moving versus the beginning of it. Yeah, it is, but there's always times to change the
brand when you're actually not creating an maximum value is what I call the full potential of the brand, the maximum potential. So a lot of companies that draw like a 15% at most, most companies will reach maybe 15%. And it like, well, why should we change the brand? We lose all of our followers to add up, and I say, well, the reason is because if you did change the brand, you're again about 10x or maybe 100x, and we actually measure it to 2000x. So that's the best point that the hidden
cost is, is what isn't that you're actually missing out on? Or who you're not speaking to or connecting with, and you might not have to think that step back to take 10 steps forward, but is a business willing to do that. So I know we talked about, before the show you're saying, you're very different than other branding. Like you have a unique, I guess it's your sim system. What mistakes do you see traditional branding? Let's say, you know, agencies making versus you, and where can people
“really connect with you and learn more about how your system, the sim system is different?”
So I just have a potential client that came to me and she goes, she saw me speak because I most of speaker for the last 35 years, the point being that I was speaking at this event, and she goes, oh my goodness, you spoke everything of what's not working about my brand, and she says, we've been working with two brand and companies, we fire both of them, and they did not even come close to what you're speaking on stage. And I said, well, let me take a look at what they've
done, and she had literally a style guy, and it was all conceptual, but nothing was executed, which is 9% of the work. I said, well, they gave you this style guy, but why didn't they ask you you say, what they said it was up to us? I said, why are you saying that's so difficult, they'll get that the client will be given a style guy and leave it to the client to execute, the client doesn't know how to execute, it's a whole different language, and the reason why they did it
by the way, because the company and the brand companies that do that, they don't know how to execute. Like remember I said, execution is 90% of it is understand all the different leaders, get to understand color theory, RGB has color, get to understand the difference between that and scene-wide K and pantone colors. That's like years of accumulation of understand how that worse through practical means, but actually going on the press or being on air and understand
and seeing the colors themselves, that's just color by itself. So that's the biggest mistake I see companies say that they received a style guy, but they didn't have any execution to that style guy, and they paid 30 or 40 grand for that. I said, you got to pay 34 grand without any execution in your back to the drawing board. Yeah, so I guess what the key is, it's not just getting a style
“guy, it's being able to, and I'm assuming that's what you and your agency does, is hey, we're going”
to first find the brand, we're going to find the message. We're going to create the look, the style
guy, let's call it the style guy. Most important, I'm going to call it the nucleus, the core of what
we represent, and then we're going to be able to show that and then you're going to execute that. So is that, again, building the plant, like, you know, the websites and building the online presence and the emails and all that stuff that then the company can start using and understanding. Exactly. So I call them master blueprint. There's positioning blueprint. There's a two-day central and then there's a master blueprint. They're all blueprints, right? You know, right? It's
like a blueprint to a city. You got to start off the blueprint before you start building, right? So you're out to try and she's all about the blueprint and the eyes for implementation, which is 90% of work now is, and they're all equal and components, you could say, but it when it comes to executing, that's where the heart of it comes to-- That's the management. Yeah, so you actually see it coming to life. And then now it's now building and so there's an
architecture to it. I call myself a business brand architect. So everything has a similar looking
Feel and tone to it.
The colors relate to our position and differentiating from the competition.
So there's a lot of research R&D when it comes to the implementation. The M, by the way, is done for management. It's a lot of my clients. They want to actually grow as a franchise. They said they want to go IPO and several have gone IPO. And a lot of them let's say they want to go and start building new offices. Okay, so they have one office, they want to build multiple offices around the U.S., and they wish to get to around a world.
“So that's where the management comes in place. It's for consistency. Kind of I think of it”
like this way, like McDonald's. Why is McDonald's consistent? Because people trust McDonald's if they go to Hong Kong and they go to LA, then they get the same flavor and that's built in trust. To the whole idea behind branding besides differentiation is building so much trust you put up loyalty. Yeah, well, you get the loyalty I say and the relationship. And just different consistency of those relationships. And I would say that's where you see a lot of
businesses go wrong. It's not having consistency. Right, exactly. Exactly. They don't have that consistency. So the consistency and by the way, it doesn't take much. I have a client right now I'm working with and they're using this eternal designer. And
the first thing they start doing is they start to not go by or brand manuals start doing their own
thing. I say you're killing a brand overnight because that looks like a totally different company. Yeah. So, you know, graphic designers want to get creative a lot of times to get overly designed, they overdesign to a point that actually works in backfires. Mm-hmm. Yeah, again, Steve Jobs keep it simple, right? Like it's keep it that's the whole thing here on brand. Gotta keep it on brand. Again, it's a hard one because people evolve, people change,
businesses change, but you can't the brand can't. Like the brands got to stay the brand.
“I mean, you can think about, I think about companies who say brand big brands like Lulu”
represents something like Lulu Lemon is a brand like their clothes are crap, but people still like they sell $80 to $200 t-shirts because people just want Lulu Lemon brand, right? And obviously we talk about the luxury brands and all that lifestyle brands. And the the game is branding. I see that. Like marketing is one thing, but you you land the brand. People are going to buy just to feel part of what the brand represents. Nice act, right? We like what's the brand, right? Yeah.
Yeah. You're exactly right. And then people are proud to have been draw off that brand wherever it's car, where there's clothing, where there's going to a restaurant, wherever it's going to that destination location, where there's a hotel, it's like they feel a sense of the extension of who they are, the extension of who they are. I love it. The the brand needs to be an extension of who they are. So the question is, if you're listening here, is your business, does your business
have a brand and are your clients feeling that they are the extension of who they are, or I'm going to add who they want to become? Oh, I like that. That's great. And you're right, one of the biggest part for branding in my it's not into my opinions, what I've seen is result is aspirational design, aspirational design. Okay. So I remember when we were designing WSS and the founder was like, well, we don't want to chase away our local customers. I said, this is what's going to happen.
You're going to be an inspiration, aspiration for them, because you're going to feel like they've been listened to and I'm going to have more pride shopping at your retail's places. And it worked
a company so for $750 million to a foot longer. Wow. Yeah. So they're happy. But yeah,
we had to be really rigorous with our team, because they had it in-house design, advertising, team, and we work on a master looking field and I had to be really disciplined and stick with our system. Otherwise, it will. It breaks. Yeah, it will. It would not be good. So where can people find you? They got want to work on their brand. They got a business. They want to go to hell. Like, hold the V, work and they go. Well, when I offer for those who are really, really serious is a
“is an hour call. You need to have $2,500, it's $500 and it's really an assessment on your brain.”
And, you know, if they're interested, the easiest way is to email me and I can email that link and there's a whole process to this. I want them to send me everything they have about their company. You know, besides their website, their social media, and then I start off with a dialogue, like a 10-fifty-minute dialogue, understanding the person, the client, the business, and understanding
What they're trying to achieve, but also understanding their obstacles.
an assessed quote unquote, their body of work that's representing their brand. And I start to pinpoint,
“we use Zoom. And I start to pinpoint exactly what they could change immediately to start to improve”
their positioning and their value. So what I do is ask people to email me and Howard at howcreative.com,
Howard, howcreative. Well, we're going to make sure that that's in the show notes as well. So if you're
“a business owner, you're even looking to either recreate, start, and/or you're having some issues”
I'm going to say in your marketing sales, chances are it's probably a brand issue. So how is your
guy, for sure? I've seen the stuff you've worked with, and I know we've talked about doing something
“ourselves. So I can't wait to see what happens and I love what you're doing. I think it's very important”
for businesses to understand the nuance and you have it. So we'll leave it there. Howard, thank you so much for being with us. Yeah, thank you for allowing me and being on your show. I really enjoyed the conversation.
