3 Reasons Your Lack of Branding is Hurting You | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 173

Today we're going to talk about three reasons why the lack of branding is hurting you and how to fix it.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach, owner of Retirement Realized Financial and Retirement Realized Agents Academy. By the way, if you're not part of one of our organizations, you should be. That's just going to help you get better and better. As you can tell, I think we're at, what, 170 or 175 podcasts? Something like that. I mean, it's a loss.

I mean, it's crazy.

I went to the other day and it's like, 167. And I was like, what? You know, and I talked to someone who actually interviewed me on one of their podcasts, and I told them how many I've done. They're like, what? That's like, a lot because we only do this once a week. And so it's over two years. Yes. Oh, man. It's over two years. When I'm 80 years old, we'll still be doing it.

Oh, yeah?

Yep. But I'll be doing it from a yacht. I'll be telling you that.

Well, if we're recording together, then I guess I'll sacrifice.

No, we'll do it via. Via what? It will be like, hologram. It'll be a hologram. By those times, I'll be at the office.

Three reasons why your lack of branding is hurting you.

Number one, you're not pretty enough.

It's funny because.

Or you're not handsome enough. Or, you know, we got this. I mean, I can only work with what I got, you know? Okay.

Poor branding inevitably creates a devalued perception.

What's funny?

What's that?

Somebody seriously looked at me and goes, you got a perfect face for radio.

Perfect face for radio. Where nobody sees what you look like. And I'm like, that's the point.

That's the point.

Took me a second. I thought they were being serious, and I'm like, oh, man, that person. And then I realized, wait a second.

Yes, they're dog in your face. They were dog in my face. No, they were cat in my face. If you don't do dog, and the dogs are good, cats are bad. Okay.

But it creates. It creates a devalued perception. Okay, I want you to think about. People rarely do business with an individual that isn't a representative of a company. Think about that for a second. When do you purchase anything or buy anything or do business at all with a single individual person? That is not directly representing a company they're working for. I. Garage sales.

Like, absolutely.

You see what I mean?

Garage sales are awesome.

But the point is, people naturally do business with businesses.

Well, the reality is, if you're buying something on a garage sale, generally it's because you're buying something that was already branded.

Well, that's true, but you're buying it from an individual they're not putting on the garage sale. You go to a car dealership, you're buying from a car salesman, but they're representing the company you go to a grocery store, you're buying from. You see what I mean? People always do business with businesses. Rarely do they do business with individuals. And most of the time, if they are doing business with an individual, that individual is still representing a business that they own.

But you can. Freelancers do have something as good branding and still not be a good representative.

Exactly.

No matter what the branding. So it is a combination of the two.

But the lack of branding.

Yeah.

Lack of this devalued perception where they automatically think what you're doing is not as good as the fidelity.

Yeah. See, we own a company called the Other organization. Yeah. We own a company called Increase you. And one of the things I've really started to do is pay attention to branding and branding statistics. And it was kind of interesting because I think it was 80% of people that you call and you're gonna meet with them, they check your website. I was like, huh? I mean, I never even would have thought of that.

Right.

You know, I. I'm not one of those people. Well, I wasn't. Now I do all the time.

Or they look you up on social media.

Yep. Oh, definitely social media. And thank God I live in Texas because I would lose a lot of clients if I lived in Washington state or New York or.

Right.

California, Southern California, Northern California. I'd have a lot of people. It's true.

It's worth saying too. When we talk about branding, what are we referring to? We're referring to the company identity. You can be branded as an individual. For example, Chad branded as the annuity sales coach. Right. That is a brand. And there's design and creative work that goes behind that. There's a website. There's all these creative elements.

People changing my logos when I don't want them to, but it is better and they are. Right. But anyway, sometimes. You know, it's funny though, because I do say I know what I'm an expert in, and I know what I'm not an expert in, and I am not an expert in branding. But, man, I have some great people around me that are experts in branding. I have a guy I've hired just specifically for my social media. Why? People check that all of the time. They'll go to your Facebook or your Instagram and they will look at that. And I've had people, literally, I talk to them and they say, oh, you know what? The reason why I kept this appointment is because I saw you represent this on Facebook, or you're a family man, or you really show that you love your wife. And, man, I'm not one of those people that puts the fancy little show on. Right. I mean, I do love my wife. I do love my family. I am for mentoring and loving people. So, I mean, that's easy to come out. Yeah. You know, I'm not a dancer, so you're not gonna see me say, I can dance, and.

And then the rubber meets the road.

And it's deep trouble. So I'm not gonna say, I love my family, I love my wife, or I'm ex. I love helping people in business if that's not really who I am.

Absolutely. Well, you solve this problem of devalued perception by creating a.

What you're doing, okay? So you're. Whatever you're doing, whatever service you're providing, whatever it is that you want your clients to perceive about the products you offer, the process you're using, the way you're doing business, you create a brand that reflects those same characteristics. And now all of a sudden, you have branding that doesn't have devalued perception. It can often have inflated value perception. Meaning there are people with great branding that maybe they don't do a great job, but because they look really good, they look the part, they look professional. The perception is that they are. And we're gonna get to that in a second. But the second thing as why lack of branding creates problems and why it's actually hurting you is that poor branding fails to build trust.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

I mean, trust is built on consistency. And if you're saying, oh, yeah, I'm an expert in this, but you don't look like you're an expert in this.

Yeah. Like your website, 10 years old.

Exactly.

Yeah.

There isn't consistency. If you say, oh, yeah, I, you know, I've been doing this for 25 years, but it looks like you're just a representative of an insurance company and nothing more. A simple salesman.

That.

That is not. That doesn't create consistency. That does not build trust.

You have to remember a lot of people we deal with do have a very good knowledge in their area of expertise. I can tell you my branding team with Increase Youth, they can look at a website and tell you approximately when that was made. And so think about this. You get someone that's in the marketing world, which there are plenty of companies that are in that, you know, and they look at your website, they go, come in this, this is an old website. So what are you doing? Old products and old. This old, you know, it's important.

Yeah, well, that's the way you overcome it. It's funny you mentioned the team, but that is the way that you overcome this problem of lack of trust is by utilizing a branding strategy team to actually take the things that you're verbally telling clients and apply that to a visual representation of what you're doing.

Correct.

I mean it sounds a lot.

That sounded really complicated.

It sounds more complicated than it is.

What is for me and maybe for.

A lot of people listening to.

No, I mean I'm not. I love posting personal social media just because I family that they're in long term care facility or nursing home and that's how they live life right now is they get to see what their family's doing. But I'm telling you as far as websites and you know my business stuff, man, I'm not. That is not my area of expertise.

Yeah. And the third reason your lack of branding is hurting you is because poor branding creates a poor halo effect. Now that's.

Please, what is a halo effect? Caleb? I've been hearing so much about this lately. I mean it is once again, this is important thing about branding. You start hearing these terms and when it comes out of your mouth, I'm just like, yeah, it's not important. But when Josh says that, I'm like, I better pay attention. Caleb Lucas says I really need to pay attention. So, you know. But what is the halo effect? Because it is quite fascinating.

It is. So I like to think of it as an example. You walk into a restaurant, the outside of the restaurant looks run down. The inside of the restaurant doesn't look much better. It seems kind of dirty, just kind of held together by cockroaches running across. It doesn't, it doesn't have a great esthetic to it. You inevitably associate the lack of quality in your surroundings with the quality of the product that you get. So even if they have great.

That's why I've never went into. Oh, I can't say the name. Oh, almost said the name. And now Chad's being sued by this company, because he said their place doesn't look. I'm not gonna say, oh, my gosh. But I will tell you, though. Yeah, we did in Marshalltown, Iowa, this dive. And I will say the name, it's Cecil's. Had the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had in my life. And the whole thing was. It's a truck stop, so it was run down. I don't know what it's like now, but I remember walking into that going, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna be dead. There's gonna be food poisoning. I'm just. You're right. That halo effect, until they brought out this biscuit like this, just oozing a graveyard.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend like the.

Halo effect started right here. The halo dropped right on the waist.

But if you go into that restaurant that I was just describing, run down, dirty looking, doesn't look nice, doesn't have a great aesthetic, you inevitably subconsciously associate the quality of the food with the quality of your surroundings. So you will think, even if they have great food, you'll subconsciously be thinking, there's no way this is going to be good food. And then when it gets there, it can and often does actually adversely affect your perception of it.

You know what the crazy thing is? Because we've been all over the world and we eat it, obviously, one of our favorite things is checking local food. One of the things I found, and this is about a 5050 shop right here in Texas. We have a restaurant that overlooks a lake, and they're known for beautiful views, but their food is not good. So they rely on that halo effect to bring them business. And they go there literally just for the food.

Yeah.

And so that's interesting.

It is. If you have a product that's average, it's in the middle, middle of the road, and you have an atmosphere that is subpar. The product, even though it's average, will be associated with subpar. If you have average product, but you have a very great aesthetic, a very great atmosphere, your product will be associated to be great. It will be thought of as, wow, this was great. This is wonderful. If you don't have a good. What we. What we would call a good halo effect, it takes exponentially more higher quality product to bring that perception back up to even average, which is what happened at Cecil's for you.

So would you say, because I always tell people I show up in a big red pickup truck or wear a polo shirt, blue jeans and boots, that's a Texas Halo effect, you know, that's like if you show up in a suit with a tie and a Mercedes, you're not going to get the halo effect you want. For someone who's generally Texas or I'd say Midwest, Mid Midwest. Did. Going back to the Midwest again, Midwest, it's probably very similar. Yeah. But if you went into New York City and you showed up. Well, first of all, you wouldn't find a parking spot, but in a big red track, you have polish. I don't know. That might. Because Texas is just cool.

Well, and so there is an element of that.

Yeah.

Is part of a brand.

Yeah.

You see what I mean? So it's a balance. You can have a great brand. It be that simultaneously when I talk about a negative, you know, or a poor halo effect in regard to this, it's having a logo that is grainy or pixelated or the design of it doesn't look good, that the font doesn't match.

Yeah. And what I've found often in this industry is because of the lack of expertise in the creative side of things, agents tend to tend to see a mediocre brand as, oh, wow, this is my brand. So great. They think it's.

Well, because it's generally something they came up with. So from experience, I have personally experienced this, I can have my own perception of what looks for branding and be completely way off from what the industry would call a good branding. So I think it's so important that you have the right team actually helping.

You with it's so crucial.

And this is not a plug for the other company because once again, this is a company that I haven't taken a dime from. It's just something that I know helps agents do better. I have no doubt about it. You have a good folder, a great logo, a good website. You are going to get a better first impression every time. Yep, absolutely.

Build that halo effect. Make it good. Your lack of branding is hurting you. If you have branding and it's not very good, it is hurting you. It just is a reality.

We can help. We can. Well, I can't. Not at all. And neither can you.

And I'm very limited. So what I just spilled out is a fraction of what the experts really know.

The office right next door is our team that takes care of branding. So when we want to get something done with retirement realized financial retirement Real Estate Agents Academy, we'll go on and we go, oh, we like this, this and this. And they go, yeah, that was like six years ago. That's just not modern. We're like. But it's so cool. No, you can't have. What do they call that? The gradient? That you don't do gradient anymore or.

Something like you're talking about the three.

Dimensional and three dimensional. That's so cool.

Chad loves these metallic looking things.

Not metallic, but definitely. You're old.

Your old. Your old one looks metallic.

This has some roots, man. This has some roots. If I go anywhere, they see this little shield and they go, eagle, shadow, life and annuity. There you go. Okay, well, this is it. We're wrapping it up before Caleb digs a really big hole.

I'll just go all the way through down to China, get some good food.

Oh, come right back. I went anyway. What? Why? See, this is. This is why it's so important to watch us on YouTube. Because there's some weird things he does that you're never gonna see anywhere else. And you can't see it when you're hearing it, so. But don't do it while you're driving. I did have someone tell me they're watching YouTube while they're driving. My. Don't do that. So. Well, hope this helps you guys. You have a great day and happy selling.

It.