Rob Genovesi's Fear-Proof Brand Strategy: Turning Paralysis Into Profitability

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The fear of if I do something different, I'll be judged, I will get called out, I will get this imposter syndrome. I they'll find out. I don't really know as much as I'm posing to know. And what I realized was those rules were for them. So I wanted to win and I typically was not. I was not a winner. In life, I'll be honest, I would say, and this isn't self deprecating, I was a loser meant I was losing. I wasn't making money, I wasn't moving up the corporate ladder. I wasn't doing things that successful people experience or do. But what I realized was if I just change the rules, I can win. And it wasn't cheating. It's just that I wrote my own rules. I wrote my own playbook, I built my own arena. All so I could win.

Step into the world of success with your brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. This is one of my favorite types of conversations because we're going to get into brand. But I'm here with Rob Genovese and we're not just going to talk about your book Don't Fear Brand. We're not just going to talk about your work with building strong brands. I know that's not the exact name of your company, but I did that on purpose. But we're going to talk about life and how what does brand really mean? So I've already really enjoyed our conversation. I wish I'd pushed record as soon as we jumped on, but here we are. So Rob, thank you very much for being on your brand Amplified.

Thank you, Annika. It's great to be here, really.

Let's start with a little bit of your pivot point. You've spent 25 plus years in the creative industry across advertising, marketing, Publishing before you launched Build Strong Brands. So what was that pivotal moment that helped you realize that you wanted to focus on brand building and strategy?

So it is interesting and I think a lot of people make assumptions about what a person does as a career is something they kind of chose right. They intellectualize, hey, that seems like a good thing, like to do that. Let me go to college, let me learn about it, let me take courses and then I'll become that thing. And that's not the case for me. I have a degree in graphic design and I've been around long enough. Where a two year degree got you somewhere? Not very far, but I have a two year degree in advertising and graphic design. So I'm a graphic designer honestly by formal education and manage creative teams most of my corporate career. You know, I had four kids and designers do not make much money at all. So there's no way I can raise a family on a graphic designer salary. Because to be honest, I wasn't a great designer. I was very good, but I wasn't great. And I wasn't the type to enter awards and go after the higher echelons of the design industry's visibility, you know, the radar, all the awards that you could win. And that was probably what needs to happen for a lot of designers. But it just wasn't me. I'm just a regular dude. So I was like, I got a family to raise, I'll go into management. So very quickly I got out of hands on design and went into managing creative teams. I worked for a publisher for 14 years, an advertising agency where I was a designer marketing agency where I was doing different kinds of work, but it was always in a managerial capacity. And to be honest, ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to own my own business. I thought that would be the coolest thing in the world. Because my perception as a kid was if you owned a business, you actually accomplished something that most people don't accomplish.

Oh, this is true, it's true.

And when I looked around my community, outside of, you know, people who were C suite executives or surgeons, the people who live in some of the nicest houses actually owned a business. It was your local contractor, you know, a painter, a builder, a local store owner, they seem to live really well. And I thought that seems cool because they're, they're in the driver's seat. The problem was I was not raised that way. And I was, I'm an introvert, you know, which we know if, you know, it's an energy thing, it's not a Shy thing, that's a separate issue. Introversion. I'm good for about an hour of conversation at a party and then I gotta check out, I gotta go recharge and then I can come back. But a couple that with shyness and paralyzing fear of talking to people, kept me out of going, yeah, I could start a business because there's no way, right? You have to be able to talk to people. And so fast Forward through my 20s and in my 30s as paralyzed with fear, I couldn't talk to people. In my 30s, I just couldn't carry on a conversation. I knew you were smarter than me, I knew you were more successful than me. It was a self image thing for sure. And in about a 15 year period of time, I read over 500 books because I was like, I need to change, I need to. And then when I finally got into my 40s, believe it or not, I got laid off for the first time corporate in 2013 from the publisher. That was economics. And it took me six months to get a new job. And by that time I had learned some networking skills. So I was, I was hitting it. I mean I was doing everything you're supposed to do, working full time, looking for a job, not just post, you know, uploading a resume on LinkedIn or anything like that. I mean I was hitting the pavement, literally. And so I learned the skills, got another job, had that for two years, really outperformed, turned around a creative department. I mean, in six months was, it was just going downhill. I knew what I was doing. I did the job I was supposed to do. They created the role just for me. And two years, because of economics and politics and legalities, they had to get rid of me versus the person who wrecked the department. And I was like, okay. So that was kind of the smack in the face I needed. And I went out with Grace. I understood what was happening, but I went home and I told my wife I got laid off for the second time. That was 2015. It was August 8, 2015, I'll never forget. And I said, I got laid off. I'm going to get another job, but today I'll start a business that I retire from someday. And that was the start. So it took me seven months to get another job because it was, it's tough, really tough in the creative industry to get a job. And I started a business. It was a website and design business. I mean, Anika, this, this was my. Oh, I know, a business I'm going to start. Let's see, I'm a Graphic designer. Everybody needs a website. I think I'll do that. Right. That was all about 10 minutes of thought?

No market research? Yeah, no, no.

Well, you know, I learned you just have to get going. I would figure it out as I go, but I had to get going. I just had to leverage my skills and I would figured I would pick it the rest up along the way somewhere. And I did that for a couple of years, and it just wasn't happening. I mean, I got clients easily. Don't get me wrong, the profitability part was the problem. That was a very slim margin. Business to make websites, and I need to make an impact in the world, and I wasn't doing it selling websites. It's a commodity, and I wasn't making an impact in businesses. I'm like, I'm making this website and they're all happy, but it's not changing their business, it's not changing their life. And that's what I wanted to do. So there was a. You asked about the pivotal time. This is it. I'm on the phone with a potential client, a local painting contractor, just getting started, but had years of experience, went away, came back, said, I'm going up against the big guys. And he only asked for a website. And I'm thinking in my mind, I actually didn't have any work at the time. I'm like, I need to nail this, because website people are a dime a dozen. You can, you know, talk to your neighbor whose son's cousin's best friend does it right, and you can get a website done. So I'm like, I need the money. I need to nail this. So I thought more strategically. And in our conversation, he throws the word brand in there. I didn't know anything about brand. I'm just a website design guy. And he goes, you know, I need to go. I'm going up against some of these bigger guys in the area, and, you know, they get all the business and they got advertising budgets, and I'm this little guy, blah, blah, blah. So I need a brand that I can maybe get out there and maybe give me. And he threw it in there. And something in my mind went, okay, what's that all about? So I did some research. Very remedial approach. Very remedial, because I didn't know anything, right? But I could figure things out. So I went back to him, I interviewed him. It's like we were talking about earlier. So what's your mission? What's your vision for the company? What are your values? Who's your competition? I'M like, what makes you different from them? And this is stuff I was just. It made sense to me as a business to find out these things. I just wasn't doing it beforehand. So I was using this strategy to sell design. And so we spent about an hour, we talked. I go home and I work up a presentation. I do all the slides and all the research and the work. And I come up, I basically give him a mock up of a website. I write all the marketing copy. I design him one logo. He didn't ask me to. I designed him one logo. And I present, I present it to him. He's this Italian guy, right? You know Italian people. I'm a Italian kid from the New York suburbs. So he's sitting there like this in his chair and he's rocking back and forth for what seemed like 15 minutes. It was probably only like 15 seconds. And I was done. And he goes, now when the time is rocking back and forth like this, you don't know if they're gonna kiss you or smack you.

Because that's for those of you who are listening to this, not watching it, you really should watch this episode because Rob is very animated. But basically it's gesturing really close as if somebody was pointing a finger in your face.

Oh, yeah. And that's exactly what he did.

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He was rocking back for the chair with his hand, his thinking hand on his chin, rocking back and forth, just staring at the screen, looking at me, staring at the screen. And then he leans forward, he points his finger in my face. He goes, you absolutely nailed it. He goes, it was like you were in my head. How did you do that? And at that moment, I went, whoa. Now he bought everything. He loved the logo. He bought everything. But that's not the point. Just because he loved it didn't mean it worked. He called me a year after that, hey, Rob, what's going on? He said, hey, Lou, how you doing? He goes, oh, man, I'm busy seven days a week. I'm Killing it. And now I learned to be humble. And I said, so what do you attribute your success to? He goes, just like this, he goes, he goes, you, what you did for me, the brand stuff? He goes, Absolutely, 100%. And that was 2017. And I started using strategy. What was remedial brand strategy? To sell design, right? Strategy first, design second. And it worked. I was able to sell plenty of designs, more websites, higher profitability, but still I was putting in more hours. So that was the turning point. And when I went, like, when I saw Lou getting success, better clients, more profitable clients coming easier to him, I was not getting that my own business. So I was like, wait a minute, I don't have a brand. So I developed more of the process. I dove in. I learned from some of the greats in brand all over the world through videos. I didn't take any courses or anything, but I learned, man, I, I, I drenched myself in everything I could find, and I put together a process based on what I learned, and then I put myself through the process. Now I was online, you know, I was pounding social media, getting website and design work with little to no results. Like complete crickets, completely invisible. Nobody really knew what I was doing. Even people I knew were going, hey, what are you up to these days? I'm like, what? Like, are you even going online? And when I, when I realized the brand that I actually have inside me, you know, we started talking about personal brand. A lot of that came out of my core. And when I realized who I was at my core, what I wanted to be, I took off the corporate mask that they gave me. I ripped it off because that's what I was posing as. This kind of mainstream, highly polished saying all the right cliches and jargon and buzzwords, and I went, oh, my gosh, that's not me. I can't do that anymore. And once I realized I changed it, I ripped everything down. I was doing every single thing. And I redid all the brand identity, I redid all the visuals, I redid myself to be who I was. And out the other side came build strong brands and what I look like today. And so the idea that an introverted, shy, completely paralyzed with fear kid with no real business experience could suddenly get a lot of attention, become very profitable. I mean, my profitability forexed in a matter of a couple months, and I'm not talking about a few hundred bucks, that was the turning point where I went. Brand strategy made such an impact in my own personal business, I started doing it for other people. With amazing results. So that's a very short answer there. I bet you thought it was. You thought it was gonna be short.

No, no, no. I don't feel like people should ever apologize for the length of their answers, because that's exactly what I wanted to hear. It's so funny because, of course, one of the things we want is we want people to relate to our storytelling. And as you're telling us about your journey and creating really great visualizations of that first client and then taking off your corporate mask and all these things, I'm just sitting here going, yes, because you went from one place, you're like, I'm really. I'm gonna do graphic design because that's what I do, and that's what my. My degree is, and blah, blah. We go down those narratives in our heads, and we might still be good at things, but when we get to that spark, when we're really true to ourselves, it's even better.

And on that point, Annika, I mean, it wasn't only the profitability that made me happy. I was. Don't get me wrong, I was after profitability. I was in my late 40s, two, you know, four kids, two of them in college. It wasn't really the time to take chances and start businesses. I mean, my parents thought we were crazy. You know, are you sure you're not going to get another job? But the fact is, it wasn't just the profitability, which I was after and I got. It's the rewards. You never expect the fulfillment of my work. Yes, I do love brand strategy, but I get to be me. I get to do it my way. And one of the things that is part of my message to people is, and I went through all. I made all these mistakes, okay, let me look at what other people are doing. They're successful. Why don't I just copy some of the stuff they're doing, and therefore, I will be successful, too. And that was a really hard lesson to learn that I see a lot of people still don't learn because of two things. Number one, they don't know what they're doing. It's fine. No, no judgment. We. We just have to learn, right? Number two is the fear. The fear of if I do something different, I'll be judged. I will get called out. I will get this imposter syndrome. I. They'll find out. I don't really know as much as I'm posing to know. And what I realized was those rules were for them. So I wanted to win. And I typically was Not a winner in life. I'll be honest. I would say, and this isn't self deprecating, I was a loser meant I was losing, I wasn't making money, I wasn't moving up the corporate ladder, I wasn't doing things that successful people experience or do. But what I realized was if I just change the rules, I can win. And it wasn't cheating, it's just that I wrote my own rules, I wrote my own playbook, I built my own arena. Also, I could win in business, in my branch strategy business. So guess what? If I make the rules and it's my arena and I play according to my rules, nobody can beat me. Why? Because I'm not really up against anybody else. And that came, that was something I realized. I was giving a talk to a room about 40 business people early on. So when I left corporate in 2019, I was immediately in business networking. I would found myself in a room giving a presentation and I said some words that came out of my mouth that I never thought about and I never said before. And this is why I love speaking, because I read so many books that a lot of this stuff comes out and you don't know where it comes from. And I said to them, when you build a strong brand, it makes your competition irrelevant. And I was taught you watch when you're speaking, watch people in the room. So I saw eyes widen, I saw people nod, you know, people mouthing, oh, I like that, that kind of thing. And not that it's the game changer, but for me it was like it makes competition irrelevant. It does do that. So that meant that me playing by my own rules meant I don't have to try and beat them. In fact, they're irrelevant to my journey, which is very freeing. So when I talked about before the fulfillment and the freedom of doing your own thing, there's no feeling like it in the world that I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I've gone down some of this journey. I started out in event promotion, DJs, clubs, brands, magazine, world, you know, launching magazines, doing the same thing, marketing events, sales to pr. And have been different versions of myself like we all are at different points in our lives depending on where we're living and what we're doing at the time. But, but it's really freeing. And I'm now at that kind of same point of like this is the most me I've ever been because I am playing by my own rules, because I am doing. I thought this was good and yeah, I can do pr. Yes, I can do all these things, but where I, who I am right now and what I'm doing is really where I'm meant to be and what fills my soul. Right.

And so, you know, that, that starts to make me think about this whole debate about personal brand versus company brand or business brand and how we hear, especially in LinkedIn, which is where I spend most of my time, build your personal brand. Which I speak out against in a manner of speaking, because it needs to be qualified. Build your personal. First of all, what does that mean? Well, most people that are saying it in places like LinkedIn or any, any other social media platform, what they really mean is, and, and I love, I'm on the, I'm on this, this podcast. You're amplifying your brand. You're not building it, you're. Because people are amplifying a brand they don't have. Why? What you just said right there. You know who you are, you know where your big skills are, you know what you're good at, you know what you're not good at, you know who, you know how you want to play this. It's your thing that you're crafting. And so the biggest problem I see is people who are building their personal brand, they don't even know who they are. They're just copying other people's words. And so in our earlier conversation, before we even hit record, we started touching on that about, you know, personal brand and the fact that you're these, teaching these college students. And then I ask you, like, how do they perceive personal brand? Because I think my perception is a lot of people college age and well beyond think that if I just show up as Rob Genovese and I just start saying stuff about brand, I'm building my personal brand. And I, we need clarity around that. And I know you know, because we already, we already talked about your approach. Most people don't understand that you need strategy.

Right.

So what do we talk about? Mission, vision, core values? Who's your ideal client? What's the messaging that connects and attracts them? Right. What's the positioning? All these things need to be thought about, even if it's just little old Rob. I need to know these things because. Okay, how can you amplify a brand if you don't even know what the brand is? Yes.

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Well, this is something I dealt with a lot with my PR clients because a lot of them were startups. They have the website, they have the logo, but they don't have any of that dialed in. And so that's when I really started thinking about this process. And we can't just do pr. We have to take you to the point of, like, really understanding what story you're sharing, what message you're sharing, because people need to connect with that. I mean, it's all. It's science. Right. Neural coupling and all the different concepts we could talk about here. But I think the way that you have discovered this for yourself, for your clients, it just puts it into really clear terms. Because you and I, I mean, I think you had a post on LinkedIn and I was like, yeah, we're gonna debate this. Cause I believe in personal brand and. But what we're saying, we're really saying the same thing. We're just. It is about the nuance and the context and really knowing thyself. Right?

Yeah. So I'm glad you said nuance because, I mean, any branch strategist who's actually a strategist understands about the nuance. And it's some of the things that I want to clear this. You know, maybe we'll talk about my book in a bit, but I wrote it in my book, which just came out. And the reason I wrote my book the way I did was it's about my journey to understand about the mindset and the transformation and the one thing that keeps us from building a brand. And here's the thing, brand strategy is scientific, but it is also an art to building a brand. And that art comes in when you know the science part of it, as you're executing. And you need to make decisions for your business, by the way, through the lens of the brand. Right. How do you do that in a way that is effective, whether you're on LinkedIn or TikTok or Instagram or email or in person or like all these little things that people don't think about, the opportunities to amplify your brand that most people do not exploit. There's an art there. And for some reason I can teach people this, and they Hear it. They just don't do it. Why? Because it doesn't seem like it matters. And that's the part that kind of gets me with personal branding, is people are just fronting still.

It'S hard going through different parts. Like you sharing your story about how you grew up and what was reasonable in your world and what wasn't, and you had to get rid of those preconceived notions. I was also a shy, introverted kid, and I let people tell me, oh, don't use words like that because you sound dumb. Because I'm. Because they couldn't understand the language I was using. Right. I had to, from an early age, get myself out of this bubble so that I could at least have somewhat of a voice. But it's really interesting to realize, oh, I still didn't have a voice because I was still insecure enough to think I had to dress a certain way or do this a certain way. Even though I think most people I grew up with would probably say, I'm a rebel, you know, I'm still. And I've recently realized I am in my 50s, but I'm still that cheerleader, the varsity cheerleader in Kansas who wore combat boots. So it's a little bit of both. And you have to embrace who you really are and what that means for you now. And so I've had to embrace that. The best part of me is when I'm teaching to students, when I'm talking to people. Never in a million years did I think podcasting would be what my brand is about, you know, or what the work I'm doing that expresses my brand. But it is. But. And I do want to touch on your book here. Right. Don't Fear. Because I know. I'm sure I can see your. Your wheel spinning as well. So I want you to share as much as you want to about what you're thinking.

It's called Don't Fear. Don't Fear the brand. The art of building a strong brand that attracts. And the story behind the book. I am not a writer. I'm not an author. It's my first book. It's one of those things where when you're younger, you know, in your teens or even your 20s, you think, wow, maybe someday I'll write a book, right? Because it sounds like. It sounds like a good idea, like a bucket list thing. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna jump out of an airplane. I'm gonna go swim with the dolphins. I'm gonna write a book. And, you know, whatever and it just seems like one of those things that sounds like it would be a good idea. And that's how it was to me. You know, English came easy to me. The subject in school, math did not. I'm very much a words guy. And so I learned to use words to my advantage in my design work and in my branch strategy. And so while I knew I could write marketing copy, I can craft a good hook or headline, I learned that in the magazine world, I learned that in the advertising world. Writing a book was a whole different ball game. And I really wasn't intending on writing a book at all. I just thought, again, it was probably one of those nice things. And then I'm at a conference down in Dallas, Texas, back in 2023. And I'm sitting there, it was a business conference, Listen to different speakers, whatever. And this woman gets on stage and she goes, I struggled for three years to write my book. I knew I had to write a book, and I struggled. And then she's saying how she took this course from a coach, and then she wrote a book in three days. And I was like, what, three days? Like, she went from can't write one to write one in three days. Now, that's pretty short. But maybe she, you know, maybe she's a writer. But here's the thing. In 30 minutes, she took the entire room through this kind of mini course mindset adjustment. And I went in there looking to learn about business. As soon as she was done. I knew the name of the book. I knew what the book was about. I knew the outline in my head immediately because she was so inspiring that I thought, well, if it came to me like that, that I have to write this book. So I set out to write it. And, you know, that was two years ago. I did lose a year. You know, I had some tragedy back in 2024 was just last year. I lost both my parents four months apart. My mom, I mean, they were older, but, you know, my mom went in January. My dad went four months later to the day, because he was just, people do it. People do die of a broken heart. He was brokenhearted, so it was fine. And then my uncle, his brother died two months later. So a lot of tragedy in the midst of. We were renovating our entire house. We weren't even living in it. It was just. So. I didn't do anything for 2024. I didn't do any. I did the bare minimum. So I stopped writing the book. But then I finished it this year, and it came out. And the idea was this. It's kind of like you were saying before, Annika, you know, when you realize you have something to say. Like, you didn't think you'd be doing podcasting, right? And now it's your thing. I didn't think I'd be doing brand strategy, but it's my thing. And the book was the message. Because here we go. Here. Here's the million dollar drop. For people listening, you have to have a message, and that message can't sound like everybody else's message. So while branding is differentiation and plenty of branch strategists will just talk about that ad nauseam, it's fine, it's necessary. And plenty of brand strategists will talk about positioning and all these things. They're real. I do these things. What's the thing you stand on that separates you from all else? So mine was the one thing that holds everybody back. It's the fear. It's what stopped me from leaving corporate. It's what stopped me from building a successful business. It's what stopped me from talking to people and learning how to speak. Just so af afraid. It stopped me from everything. And once I understood that and I kicked it, and that was me, that turning point about understanding my brand strategy, I got a backbone. I was like, I'm tired of losing. And so while I don't, I mean to be abrasive, I will be very firm. And so I don't take fear as an excuse anymore. I've overcome most of my fears. I'm. I'm not. I can talk to anybody anywhere. And it's not a back pat. It's just, it was necessary. So the fear has to be overcome. So what you can do, amplify your message that is different from everybody else's. And don't give a rip what anybody else thinks. Because you're looking for the lovers, you're going to get the haters. You got to be able to handle both at the same time. And so while many people might, you know, question what I do or throw tomatoes, you know, who the heck cares? Like, they're not me. Yeah.