What To Do When Your “Bubble” Bursts With Eric Berman

You want to scale, you need a strong brand and you've got to multiply your business beyond you. So we're going to talk about scaling, branding, all of those things that are going to elevate the growth of your business right here, right now. On the Scale or fail show. Welcome to the Scale or fail show. My name is Allyson Maslin. I am your business growth mentor and the founder of Pinnacle Global Network. And on this show I find the most amazing entrepreneurs that are going to share their wisdom, their journey with you to help make your road just that much easier. And today I am super excited to have adir friend of mine, Eric Berman on and he is the founder and CEO of Branditize which is a full service performance based digital marketing agency in San Diego, California. Let me tell you, they are remarkable. But just a little bit of history. Eric was one of the co founders of collegeclub.com, which was the largest and most visited college site on the Internet. In 2000@collegeclub.com, he raised $75 million, oversaw several acquisitions and helped manage employee growth from 3 to 400. Wow, that is a lot of business know how at a young age I will say so. Eric has been growing businesses for over 25 years and has a passion for helping others scale their companies and grow the bottom line to through high value digital marketing. We're going to talk about that, we're going to talk about teams, all kinds of cool stuff. In 2001, Eric built the online business for the world renowned speaker, author, thought leader Brian Tracy. And after a lot of success in a short amount of time, other brands started reaching out to have Eric help their businesses grow in the same way. And this is when Eric decided to form Branditize with his partners, Robert Pulling, Chelsea Frederick. So Eric, I am so glad you're here. Thank you for joining us.

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure.

Yeah. So you know, your life really has been all about business.

It has been. You know it's interesting when you, when you graduate college, you really don't know, you know what you want to get into and you don't really know you're an entrepreneur until you look back and you start looking for signs and signals. I think for me in looking back, graduated at UCSD in San Diego, which is what brought me down here. And I watched a lot of my friends go off into jump on those first jobs and I just didn't feel my gut. That was for me. But then when I ran into a Friend who was sitting in a desk somewhere and said, hey, we're doing this cool thing. We have this idea to do something. Something. I'm like, cool, where's my desk? I literally just said that day, all right, where do I sit? And didn't even ask for a paycheck or anything. And then you look back and realize I had the entrepreneurial blood, and that was me. I didn't want to go build stuff.

Yeah. You know, that's interesting because people always ask, do you think people are born entrepreneurs or is it something that you learn? And I do think there's definitely some things that you learn, but there is that quality that you just mentioned of an entrepreneur that says, yeah, let's go do it. You know, without having the plan, without having all the system and knowing, you know, what are you going to get paid? Because, you know, there's all of those things are unanswered. Continue to be really right. And you have to be cool with that. So it sounds like you were from the get go. And so can you tell a little bit? Well, let's talk about a little bit about what happened back there, you know, at college club. I mean, that sounds like, you know, from not knowing anything to raising $75 million. How do you do that?

Yeah, well, I mean, I was, you know, fortunate that I had a little bit of a mentor. I was a. The main guy who had the idea was somebody I met, had a few years on me, and I guess you sort of got my MBA on the fly, if you will, by learning so much. And this is when I started, when I was 21, in my first sort of seven years of my career, the first phase of my career, if you will, and you just go in there and start figuring it out. So collectively, we went and raised money. And how do you go do that? Well, as an entrepreneur, you know what you need to do and just, we'll go figure it out, we'll go research, we'll go ask, we'll go hustle, we'll go to. I remember we went to a lot of the sort of venture capital meetings in town and the networking stuff happening. And then, okay, let's go find who the VCs are and okay, now let's go find the San Francisco VCs and who are the angel investors in town. And you just start asking and asking and sharing the story. And next thing you know, it was a struggle for a while because. And that's part of it is figuring out that it's not easy to do that. And then eventually the timing hit where when the Internet first started getting hot, and this is now the first. First big run of Internet back. Going back 20 plus years ago, back in probably 97, 98, you know, then all of a sudden money started flooding all over the place where it was really hard to raise money. Then it was all of a sudden there, and we did, you know, many rounds and, you know, did fundraisers at that point as we grew the company.

Yeah, but you just, you know, hustle till you figured it out. I think that there is that analysis paralysis with so many people, oh, I have to get my pitch deck exactly right. And then that takes them like another six months instead of just getting out there and meeting people and having conversations. So.

Well, it's interesting. And even on that, I think if, you know, and I've been on both sides now as an angel investor and others, and I think so much of it is just the energy that the excitement, enthusiasm somebody has towards their product and being so. You believe in it so much. That's what's infectious. And people are buying into that just as much as, you know, the idea. They want to see your history, how much you think, you know, how much you're into the deal, how much you care about it, versus I've seen people with amazing, amazing businesses, but they're just so dry and they just don't, you know, and it's just. Yeah, you got to be fired up about what you're doing.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that says so much, that passion. And so can you share. Then how did you move from that into branditize you. I was talking a little bit. You know, people just started asking you to do things, but can you share that journey a little bit more?

Yeah, so I'll try to. That's a long story. I'll try to sell it. Sell it a little quickly. But, you know, we'd gone from a few of us, and then when everything got hot all of a sudden, we were out to 400 employees, raised all that money, and several acquisitions scaled the business quite a bit. We were actually two months from going public and finally getting rewarded for our seven years of working every day for seven days a week, 20 hours a day, sleeping in the office, all that kind of fun stuff, and then took our first vacation in five years. And that's when the market crashed of April 2000. For those that actually remember that. So there was. You hear all the stories of people that got in on that. Good. And had great timing. And there's stories of people like us who had the worst possible timing, where we just acquired another company, brought them to San Diego. We were three months from going public, but we were burning $2 million a month, which was the sort of what the VCs wanted you to do is spend, spend, spend to get market share. And unfortunately, the bridge loan, which we had set up that Tuesday after we returned from our trip in Mexico, was supposed to be there Tuesday. The $10 million bridge note all of a sudden dried up because everybody wanted to see, wait for the markets to crack. So now here you are looking, thought you were invincible, thought nothing could go wrong. And all of a sudden now you had to learn how. Just everything went haywire at that point. And that was just such a humble, humble lesson experience.

What did you learn? I mean, just that here you are just so close to going public, you can taste it. And you worked so hard, obviously, huge disappointment. How did you deal with that and what did you take from that?

Yeah, yeah, great question. I mean, it was really difficult because this was your baby. And I think mentally you get to a point where you feel like nothing else, we've kind of made it, nothing's there. And I think it is a humbling experience to learn that to. To always be looking for what could go wrong and mentally preparing yourself, not counting the money until it's in the bank. You know, that kind of thing. It was tough. It was really difficult. But I think what the spirit inside of you and always asking yourself, what's useful? What can you take from this? You can't sit around and be negative about stuff because you can't change the past. All you can do is quickly say, all right, what can I learn from this? What can I do to move on? And so we kept pushing, and I said, all right, well, here I am at 28 years old, number one, it wasn't like I had a pile of money in the bank that I actually got taken away. That would probably be more painful. It was a bunch of money. I never had the money before, so. And I also, I said, well, what can I take away? Well, I have all this amazing experience. I mean, how can I trade this experience at 28 years old from what I got in 7 years? And I started just asking all the positive questions. You know, I have this experience. Look at my network now. I can go out and get any kind of job I want to if I want, you know, so it was just so, you know, you start to focus on the positive of all that, and you're like, okay, well, I just got to get up back on the horse. And I think you learn in life that as Brian Tracy teaches the law of sowing and reaping, you know, at some point you're going to reap what you sow. And so I still feel like, you know, all the hard work is paying back, and it'll continue to pay back.

Yeah, well, I mean, my gosh, that kind of education from age 21. I mean, most people are out partying in their 20s.

Yes.

So, like, you had definitely more than one MBA during that time. So. And so then moving on to Brandotize.

Yeah. So that kind of occurred. So a little bit of a bridge there was. I met, you know, so one of the one I met Brian Tracy, who I was a huge fan of. In fact, at college club, we used to lock ourselves in the room. It's from 6 to 7 every morning listening to either Tony Robbins or Brian Tracy. And that's how we fueled our mind. Which, as a sort of aside, one of the things I would love to give back in the future is helping rebuild education and teaching people life skills that we never get taught in the high school and college years. I mean, guys like Brian and Jack Canfield and Tony and all these people, it's like, gosh, this is the great stuff we want to learn. So I really owed a lot to Brian and this guy that I never met, and all of a sudden I found out he was in San Diego, and he just so happened to need a website in 2001. You know, what's this Internet thing? Okay, so we're still going back way in time here, you know, 19 years ago. 19, 20 years ago now. And I met him, I said, brian, I'm such a fan. I know you need a website. I know exactly what to do. I'd love to come in and help you. And in fact, Brian, my philosophy is, I'm going to do all this work for you, but don't pay me until I make you money. He's like, what? I'm like, yep. I just. And again, that's another entrepreneurial lesson. I learned that when you're really confident in what you could do, sometimes you get an opportunity for yourself by wanting to go out there and say, you know, I'm willing to do this amount now for that. I want to get a return on the back end. But to get a door open, to go out there and show what you could do for some people, it's hard for you to build trust. And so I had the ability to do that. And Brian's like, you're my kind of guy. And here we are 20 years later, he calls me his third son. And he's never had a relationship like this in his whole career, where it's just the trust is like this. And so that's where it started. And then many years later, I was working just with Brian and doing some other consulting. And after you hear about the fourth or fifth or sixth person that comes to you and says, gosh, I've seen what you've done to briantracy.com and all the work you've done with Brian. Can you do that for me? And when you hear that enough times, that's, again, as an entrepreneur, you sort of look for the signals. You say, okay, well, maybe there's something here. Rather than me working on Brian and other types of ideas I have, maybe I need to focus on building a business, doing more what I do for Brian, for others. And that's really where that big conversation occurred with Brian, where I said, hey, Brian, I want to take the team that I built for you, and I essentially want to take them back for me and make my own agency, where you'll still be our premier top client, but I want to be able to offer our skills and services to other people and grow that way as well. And he was. And, you know, he's such a great person. He was all about it. And as long as I continued to take care of him, he was happy. So that's how Brand of Times really got formed. About five, six years ago.

Yeah. Wow. Fantastic. And so. And what an education from having that relationship with Brian Tracy. I've not met him before, but what an incredible icon. So with Brandotize, I mean, let's talk about branding a little bit. I do feel like there's so many ways that you can talk about what branding is, what branding does. I think that there's some confusion. Do you find that? Sometimes?

I do. I find it, yeah. I find the confusion. I feel like people also often don't understand the value of it, and they tend to dismiss it.

Mm. So share with me. What do you feel like? What is branding? And, you know, what are some of the mistakes people make when trying to understand branding?

I think. And, you know, really, we do have three phases of brandotize, the first one being branding. And really, when we look at branding, it's a lot of things. It's. To us, it's the way that your customers are going to view you and look at all your assets, but it's not just a logo. Right. It's. What is that feeling I get when I see Alison for the first time, what's that message I get? What do you want people to be walking away? What do they want to be left with? The emotions they get from consuming anything related to anybody's brand. So there is the logo, there's the way, the coloring. There's just the one line that goes along with your. Your logo and your name, and is the name even accurate? And the core messaging beyond that. So that's all kind of part of the initial main branding elements. And it's so interesting when you talk to people and you can talk to them, and after a few minutes you start asking them, what does your business do? And ultimately, if you had to describe how you could serve people in one line or a couple lines, tell me. And they tell you. And then you look at their website or their business and it's completely different. And yet you want to go out and spend all this money driving traffic and sending leads and doing these things for your business. Yet when they visit you and see you for the first experience, you're off brand. You're not even off mark. And it's stuff like that.

So mixed messages kind of. Right. So it's the energy that you're putting out there, and is that really in alignment with all of the different assets that you have?

That's right, exactly. The emotions, the mixed message, everything that goes there, it's got to really speak to who you want to be in your brand. Exactly.

And a confused mind says, no, that's right.

Confused mind. And that's exactly right. And you're saying one thing and you're saying, hey, I'm going to be the great at this, and I can help you do this. This is how we serve you. But that's not what you're saying over here, and that's not what maybe your, your colors or the mood I'm getting whenever, when I, you know, you know, look at your assets, there could be things that are completely disconnected. So it's just all the components.

And what do you think are the biggest mistakes that you would want to avoid? Like, you know, help us here. For the business owners that are listening here going, you know, I want to do this right. You know, what do I need to make sure that I'm looking at or make sure that I avoid.

I think, well, a. Avoid ignoring it, number one. And I think another thing, I see too much with businesses and, you know, I make this mistake all the time. Everybody does. It's hard is trying to be too many things to too many people. Back to the confused mind. You know, I got to be able to walk away and understanding ultimately, that one message, that one feeling I get from my experience with you. And if it's too many things out of the gates and you're trying to serve me two different ways, I can't. It's hard for me to resonate with the brand. So trying to keep it simple, that's a really difficult thing for many of us entrepreneurs.

Yeah. You know, it's funny because my husband and I were talking about this recently. All the commercials we remember from when we were a kid.

Yeah.

You know, like, Campbell's soup. Good. And, you know, all the foods is so bad for you. Right. Like Oscar Myers. But, like, they had. And it was so simple, and they had it down.

The jingle, too. You remember the simple jingle that was probably, you know, that the simple notes. There's a lot that even goes in the jingles. Right. It's probably the common chords that we know and we can remember.

Yeah. And, you know, one thing I've been thinking a lot about, and actually we've been working on, you know, I've built my personal brand over the years, and our company is Pinnacle Global Networks. We're a mastermind for business owners, and this is our 10th year, actually, that we're celebrating. And so I think that, you know, I was always like, well, should I do. Should I focus on the brand of the business, or should I focus on the brand of me? And now what I'm really trying to do is almost step back a little bit and focus more on the brand of the business and show the team and the company. So it's interesting you get mixed messages on that. I'd love to get your take.

Yeah. I think part of that is a tough one because, like, you know, we're dealing with, like, Brian Tracy, you know, Jack Canfield. These are. These are individuals. Right. In that sense. But I think a lot of it comes to, what does the brand want to do in their future? You know, if you look 20 years from now, what is the, you know, Alison Masalan pinnacle? You know, do you want it to go on continuously without you? Then if that's the case, then I think there's definitely, you know, you want to go more in the direction of creating a brand that's outside of an individual name. It just has more longevity, you know, even with, like, Brian Tracy. We're already having those conversations right now. You know, we need to start converting Brian Tracy into, like, the Brian Tracy method, at least, or the Brian Tracy system. Something that creates more of a, you know, less of just the individual because, you know, he won't be there forever. So.

So yeah, yeah. I think it's a question a lot of people ask, you know, and that's a good point.

Yeah. It's funny because you think of musicians and bands too. I mean, they probably go through that. They go through that same exercise all the time too. You know, is it that they go off the lead singer's name or do they do, you know, a fun name for their band?

Right, right. And what's the goal? What's the ultimate goal?

That's right.

And so what are, you know, can you give some examples of some clients that you've worked with and what were sort of the transformations that you helped them with?

Oh, wow. Okay. Trying to figure best to answer that question. The transformations. Well, I think for the clients we worked with, I think a lot of it's just been mainly getting clarity on their messaging and their brand so that we can convert eyeballs together. You know, really it's. You got to have that customer journey, that customer experience really makes sense. So for us, it's just been really transforming a lot of this, I'd almost say a mess, a chaotic mess of stuff, and try to simplify things and create a good seamless experience for that early customer. Create a relationship, not mix messages too much. Have that simple brand, that simple messaging, and have that good journey where the customer has a good experience at the end of the day. Don't know if I'm answering your question.

But I. Yeah, actually, I think that's. I get what you're saying. And ultimately. Right, you want your customers to be sharing your brand.

That's right.

They have the clarity, then they're going to be out there and be your, in a sense, your sales team.

That's right. That's right. It's interesting. I mean, I compare some of our clients and as much as I love Brian, I mean, we do a lot of comparisons. One of our other biggest clients, a guy named Phil Towne, which I know you know, Phil Town and investing. And in some aspects, we love working Brian. As much as he's a content king, he's got so many different avatars of customers from people that like sales or entrepreneurs or leaders or time management. Phil is great because the experience of the brand is all about, you know, values based investing. How do you invest like Warren Buffett. And that's it. I mean, it's one focus, one. And so you have. So customers have a much easier time of going through that experience, knowing what they're getting from the brand of Rule 1 investing. Even though it's Phil Town's Rule 1 investing, it's still rolling investing. In fact, we even talked today about how do we scale at some point, Phil can't be on stage all the time, but we have the Rule 1 investing brand. And everybody will know the Rule 1 investing is values based investing, like Warren Buffett, because that's in all of our messaging and they get that. So that's kind of maybe talking a little bit to what you're alluding to there.

Yeah, yeah, no, I totally get what you're saying. And it kind of takes us back to what we were talking about earlier. Keep it simple if you can. Brian has amassed all of this content and direction over the years. But it is when you, like, you don't have to decide, am I going to. Is it between this or this? Like, you really understand immediately. It's easy to make a decision, am I going to move forward?

That's right. That's right.

So let's shift a little bit. And I want to talk because you have done something also remarkable in your own skill scaling of this company in a fairly short period of time. We were talking before we got on live here on camera was that you have 35 employees all under the same roof. They're, you know, in person, not virtual. And so why did you decide to go that way? And you know, I would love to hear, how do you make that work especially. Especially with a lot of millennials. What's your secret?

Yeah, well, I mean, I think fortunately I learned a lot about culture and building teams in that first company I had with 400 some odd employees. And I got to take what I love from it and add those elements and what I necessarily didn't care for and sort of move those elements and had fun building a team. And, you know, I learned so much about culture, the importance of building a culture. You know, you're at your office more than you're at home. So how do you make it a family? How do you make it feel like a home? Really listen and care and do little things to make employees be heard, make them feel valued, understand what motivates them and be able to provide that. Now, the reason why I wanted to do it in the first place is as an agency dealing with multiple different clients, there was so much communication that has to happen between people. And I just noticed that when you're virtual, it just tends to be a little bit more difficult to know if the person's there where their mental state is. If you have a question, you may not ask right away. You may, you know, you may delay versus Hey, I got something that I'm working on. Just real quick, I need to grab somebody to do a quick five minute huddle or you know, quick riff. And it's just, it just seems to flow a little bit quicker and you know, when we're going. So that's why I wanted to set that up in the first place. I also felt it was a competitive advantage for us because again, there are a lot of agencies out there and we're trying to get new business that, you know, we could go out there in our sales process and say, look, you know, you're getting a team that's all under one roof versus hiring somebody who's basically going to go out there and then just outsource it to India somewhere. So there's that what you're getting, which has more value. So there's that. And then being able to work with the marketplace, today's millennial marketplace, or again, it goes back to understanding what they really want, making them feel heard. I think people right now, nowadays, they want to work on stuff they feel makes a difference. They want to have the ability to feel independent, to feel like their voice matters, not just be an order taker and just go sit in the corner and do stuff. Everybody loves opportunities to grow and learn and that kind of thing. So to me, it's less about, hey, let's go have a foosball table in the corner. It's more about other things that I think people really enjoy.

Yeah, and I do think that. I totally agree. I really love the face to face and there's, there's nothing more powerful to go, hey, can you come over here and look at this for a second and let's have a discussion then, hey, let's pop on zoom and do that. And I do think it's a lot of value that you bring to your client to say that we are in person and you're seeing that less and less. And so what are some things that, I mean, it's a lot of leadership, isn't it, Eric? I mean, it's kind of how you show up in the business. Are there some things that you had to work on within yourself as being a leader to be able to build such a wonderful culture?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, definitely. You have to, you know, you know, I have to stay, stay humble. Number one, you have to gain the respect by showing how hard you're working. I mean, I'M always working hard, always being responsive to people. To me, that was important, I found. You know, I've seen other entrepreneurs who sometimes take them 2, 3, 4 days to get back to people. And to me, I'm really big on quickness to response, always showing people I'm there for them, asking them questions, taking people on walks, really showing that I care. That's a big part of what I do. The other thing is, especially when you talk about scaling, I know it's so important to your audience. One of the biggest things I learned early on from my first partner, who's the CEO, he taught me something here which I'll never forget, which is to quickly figure something out and then build a system and then replace yourself with somebody better than you in that area. And going in with that mentality has been so powerful for me my whole career where I always look to free myself up because I will always be busy. And everybody hears the story again of the entrepreneur who's stuck in the weeds and all that. And it's so true. You have to get out of the weeds. And so what I'll do honestly is I rarely will do things by myself because if I find myself doing certain things, I'll figure out, I'll grab somebody, the team and say, okay, whatever I'm doing here, let me see who I can join me to this. That way at least I'm learning along with somebody else because they're going to replace me at some point in this area and not being afraid to like, oh, they're going to take my, you know, early on your career. Are they going to take my job? Nobody looks at that. You know, they all. Everybody wants to help out and do things. And so I think people are sometimes are too afraid to let go. But, you know, I argue that you're better off getting something done at 90% so you could do something else at 100% versus just stuck in one thing just to go from 90 to 100. Yet nothing else is getting done because you're stuck in this one area. So you have to not be afraid to let go and realize that it may not get done as great as you could do it, but you're at least getting way more stuff done as a company.

Yeah, you're speaking my language, Eric, because this is where so many businesses struggle, even companies that are well into the eight figures and they've got their hands in every aspect of the business and it's exhausting and it causes divorces, causes health problems, and you're still holding on. I Get it? It feels scary, like, oh, if I let go, things are going to tank or lose a client. But it really is that coming from a place of scarcity. But once you can make that shift, which you obviously have, and I love what you said about having people sit with you and learning it. So right from the get go, you're looking at being replaced and looking at as a positive thing so that you can focus on the area of the business where you're bringing the most value.

Exactly. So I always say, rule of thumb is if you feel like you can't take off and go on a three week vacation and the whole world's gonna fall apart in your business, then you got a problem. And then that's the other part. We need balance as entrepreneurs. And so you're gonna be miserable at the end of the day if you can't ever leave. And you're such stress that you can't go run out of town for a week. I mean, how awful is that? So it's like you gotta be able to enjoy life while you're building in the game of business.

Right? That's why you got into business in the first place. But what have been some of the mistakes that you learned? Because I really think that our biggest growth comes from our biggest mistakes or those walls that we hit. Was there anything along the way here that you went, I mean, besides the crash that you had earlier, you're like, oh, we had to take a different pivot or a different strategy.

Yeah, a few things. So actually, let me stay on the topic we were just on, because there's also a. As much as we want to get out of get out and delegate, there's also a fine balance of not getting out too soon. And I think, you know, what I've learned is, okay, I'd find somebody to work on that project or take over that task and I'd be like, okay, cool, I can free my hands of this. Let me go somewhere else. And I think there's a fine balance of I almost call you, I lose the driving the car analogy, you know, so first I'll be driving the car. I say, don't drive the car alone. Please put somebody in the passenger seat. So now they're in the passenger seat with me. And then I got to let them drive the car. And usually I'll say, okay, let them drive the car. I'll stick in the passenger seat. And then I leave. And that's, that was a mistake. I'm leaving. I'm like, okay, well you can't Just teach somebody to drive a car, and they're gonna have it on the first take. So I need to stay in the driver's seat. I mean, the passenger seat. Sorry. I need to stay in the passenger seat a few more times while they're driving the car, then I get out. So there's been too many times where I want to get out too fast because there's always only fires over here. And that was a mistake. They weren't quite ready to drive the car on their own. And so that's one lesson that I learned. And honestly, I continue to make that mistake today, and that's something I have to always push myself to say, Eric, stay in the car with them. You know, check in with them, make sure everything is going okay. So that's one. And I think as far as the, you know, the business itself, it's always looking at. Actually, here's a funny one. Because I'm such the. As, you know, you know, so I'm such big, well, networked, you know, I have so many networking groups and a lot of relationships out there. That's one of the core strengths I have. Well, I learned also early on that doesn't go. That doesn't play nice when it comes to me making proposals and asking people for money. So another mistake or another thing I learned is to get me out of the way when it comes to doing the final part of the deals. Yeah. So it's an interesting entrepreneurial lesson. It's like, well, I brought this person in, and Allison's my friend, and we want to work together, and I'm so worried about what she'll say if she's not happy. Therefore, I'll cut you a deal. And next thing, I'm cutting everybody deals. You know, we're looking at the numbers. I'm like, eric, this is not good. This is not going well. We're not making any profit here.

Yeah.

So that was a fun lesson learned over the last few years, even today, trying to get me out of the way for certain things like that. When it comes to the relationship side, there's always pricing. You read about it and you hear about it, and then it's probably one of the easiest things for us to fix. The most simplest thing is taking a look at your pricing and asking yourself, can you increase the pricing and how much impact that has on your business and the different pricing models? And we've gone. And I don't want to get too far in the weeds of that, but really, over the last two, three, four years is really doing A lot of work on fixing our pricing and package models, and there's been some mistakes there and some growth there.

Yeah. And, you know, I think it's also. And when you talk about branding, I think it probably applies to this, too. It can change. Oh, yeah, right. And even like somebody's brand, sometimes it's time to give it a new, fresh look. And same with pricing and, you know, the market changes and maybe who your ideal customer changes, and you've got to be willing to move and flow with that. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I think you nailed it. I think. I think, you know, we all evolve as humans, and sometimes we forget that we have this brand, you know, that we put in place several years ago. And as we grow as people, you're like, wait a second, I don't really stand for that anymore. I'm not passionate about that. I don't believe in this myself. And that will come out. This is the new me. This is really what I'm all about. And there's probably a good chance wherever you thought you were early on is probably not the right, you know, the right thing yet. You haven't really gone and changed that. You're still sort of out there telling the world this is who you are when really you want to be something else. So I think it's a great point that you made, and it is good to kind of take a step back and reflect and, you know, almost look at your whole brand with a fresh set of eyes and imagine you're looking at yourself for the first time and saying, is this really me? Is this really what I want to be out there?

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I said, really? The brand, you know, it just. It's all encompassing. And I think now, you know, you're more than ever. I mean, people want authenticity.

Yeah.

They can read through the crap and. And, you know, so it's got to evolve, right, in all the work that you're doing with clients, through the culture of the company and everything.

Yeah, it does. And in fact, I mean, something else I wanted to touch on that you just kind of remind me of is just even now the brand, especially with individuals. I don't care if you're a single brand or working with a big company. People want that authenticity. They want to see the people. They want to have a relationship, an emotion behind the brand. And I think you're so great on getting in front of camera. You're not shy. But there's so many people that are afraid to get out in front, and more than ever right now. It's all about people wanting to see and feel and touch what they're consuming and what they're having a relationship with. And you're watching out there, those that are really starting to take off and kick butt there out there. They're on Facebook Live all the time. They're out there shooting YouTube videos every day. They're doing podcasts or talking to people. They're interacting. And that's where the generation is headed right now. And so you can't be afraid to get out there and show your face and be vulnerable and talk to people and that's what they want.

It's an era of visibility.

That's right. That's right. Can't hide anymore.

Yeah, you can't hide. I talk to my clients about that all the time and I think, you know, I. Look, that's how you and I met, right? From being connecting and relationship building and all of that good stuff. It's key. Well, this is so. I love this. I could go on and on and on and pick your brain about so many things. You obviously know a lot about business, which. The other thing too, I think in the agency work that you do, Eric, to be able to. A lot of times with an agency there, you've got people that are super creative, but they're not real business minded. And it sounds like you really bring that business mind to the table. And that's real differentiator because, you know, you're working with clients and they're like, okay, what's going to work here? What's going to help us bring it back to the bottom line, you know, and make an impact out there? So that's pretty awesome.

Yeah. And I think it's because again, I sat back and said, you know, what are my strengths? And I have some good creative strengths, but certainly I'm not the most creative guy out there, but I know how to hire and find people and created a team, people that are way smarter than me and bring them to the table and not be shy to let, you know, let them, you know, to get out of the way, let them perform, you know, that kind of thing.

Well, very cool. Well, before we go, I just hit. We have we. You know, you got the dogs behind you and, you know, they've been moving around and yawning and. Well, there's one. Where's the other one?

Oh, the other one's over there. Let's see.

Oh, there he is. Hi. Except you want to introduce them real quick.

Yes. That's Oliver over there. And Stanley. Stanley's over there. So Stanley's the French den, have French bulldog, Huff, Boston terrier, and Oliver there. He's a. He's a kind of a part. I'd say chihuahua and part. I forget the other Jack Russell, he's kind of hops a lot. So, yeah. So there they are hanging out. They've been running around. So I got them running around before our call so they'd be finally knocked out a little bit.

That is a smart dog. Parent. Well, listen, Eric, thank you so much. How can people reach out to you? What is the best way for them to connect?

Well, thank you once again for having me. I mean, simply. You can Visit us@brandatize.com that's brandties.com and you can always find me there. You can also just reach out to me@ericrandatize.com Perfect.

Thanks for joining us on the scale or fail show. And for all of you, if you enjoyed this, please subscribe. We're on itunes, Spotify, wherever podcasts are found in video form or on audio. And. And until next time, get out there and elevate yourself because you deserve it. And we'll talk to you all next time. Bye, everybody. To make that leap from entrepreneur to enterprise, what got you here is not gonna get you there. So if you have a goal, and.

Especially if I believe if that goal is a goal that serves greater humanity and not just yourself, I believe the universe or nature or whatever you want to call it will guide you with inspiration.

But business is merely a reflection of you, period. If your business is struggling, you look where you. You're struggling.

It's important for you and your team to ask yourselves, you know, why is a complete stranger going to choose us? People have so many options.

So. Which I think is something that takes a lot of courage as a founder to be able to step back and say, I can't scale this business if I don't find somebody who can actually do this component better. The beauty of growing and bringing on more people is that it actually ends up freeing up more time for you. Do not go where there is a path. Instead, go where there is no path and create a trail.