017: Michael Synk - Two Client Case Studies on Improving Brand Promises

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All right. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Scaling Up Business Podcast. I'm your host and Gazelle's business coach, Bill Gallagher. We're talking today about brand promises and we're talking with a senior Gazelles coach who has just a depth, a world of experience from Memphis, Tennessee. Hello and welcome to the show. Michael Sink.

Hey, how are you, Bill? I'm having a good day and I'd like to kind of add that this brand Promise discussion is kind of an old dog learning new tricks thing is kind of how I'm looking at it.

Are you discovering new ways to get at it?

Yes, that's really it. And even though I've been coaching for 14 years and known Vern for 20, it's never too late to learn a different way to get at things in developing strategic plans. And that's kind of the old dog new tricks. I'm the old dog who learned a couple new things here and helped two clients in particular.

Yes. Well, we're always both teaching, coaching and being schooled by the experiences of our clients. And hopefully we learn our lessons rapidly. So I know you're going to share a couple stories with us today and then we're going to look at some of the things you've learned from them. I know in the notes for my assistant we talked about a uniform company and a food company. So where should we start?

Well, let's start with the uniform company. I've been coaching this company. They're called Uniform Masters. I've been coaching them for about a year and a half and unfortunately, you know, we haven't gotten to the great Brand Promise until about the past two months. It's taken that long to kind of figure things out. The company's been around 70 years. They're operationally excellent. But have Been shy about telling their story. And we've worked with things, we've improved things. It's not like nothing's happened in a year and a half of coaching. A lot has happened. A lot of things have been straightened out. The service issues have been straightened out and all that.

But you just didn't get to brand promises yet.

Well, the brand promises weren't cutting through. You know, we came up with some. They just seem so generic. We worked on them, but what's kind of interesting is we kept plugging away at it. And this is the thing that I learned with this particular client is that we kept plugging away at the company strengths to get to the brand promise, which is kind of a different way of getting to the brand promise than usual. Usually you're talking about customer data and customer experience, but we really started digging in on what the experience really is for the customer. Not from the customer's point of view, but from an operational point of view. Okay, and what kind of happened? The uniform business is a pretty mundane business. There's not all that much to differentiate on. But we started digging into operational data, and all of us seem to have an epiphany one day when I asked the question, you know, so how many garments do you lose in a year? Because that would be an important thing to someone, getting uniforms for all their clients.

Right?

You know, yeah. And they said, well, we know exactly how many. Well, what is that number? Well, let me look it up. And they go in. And last year we lost 13 garments. I went 13. Well, give me the perspective of that. He says, well, we have about 550 clients. The average client has 20 uniforms. Uniform is usually shirt and pants. Start doing the math. Start adding up how many times the uniforms get washed. You know, every uniform gets washed every two weeks. And like 13. Such a small, minuscule number. It's like, my God, these guys don't make mistakes. And they know exactly where every piece of pair of pants is or shirt. It's like, we need to start digging into why this is meaningful to your customers. How does this compare to your competitors? Well, we hear, you know, on the customers we convert and our existing customers who are with us, the things we've heard is things get lost all the time. They don't get replaced. We can't reach people on the phone. All of this was coming around is everyone's complaining that they don't get what they want. And as at this point we said, well, maybe our brand promises, you get with us, you get to get uniforms on Your terms, not the uniform company's terms. You get them the way you want them. So what is that? And at that point we were able to take that bit of information and actually go to a marketing firm. As you and I both know, we have probably good, very, very good marketing instincts. But, but no one should use the words I used to market their firm. Don't count on me to write a slogan. But with that little thing that ideas, you can get uniforms the way you want them. A good marketing firm was able to come in and create a brand that's cutting through uniforms your way. Uniforms on your terms, with supporting promises of, you know, when you call us, we answer the phone, you know, and then the creative firm was able to take that further with ads and the branding of the trucks. And you know, the trucks look like ambulances now. These step vans have been painted to look, you know, the basic step van that UPS uses, they've been painted to look like ambulances.

Why is that?

Well, it kind of says, this is our rapid response team. We respond, okay, so now the service drivers, they're all excited about this brand and they're excited about their uniforms. And we were almost making jokes that we should have put spoilers on the trucks.

Because they have fast service. So where are they different than their competition?

Where.

What's the, is that significant?

Well, the uniform business in Memphis, I would say is a low ball commodity type business. And the sales is done. We're gonna give you whatever price you want, get it in, and then you start changing the bill after you start. So there's an up charge on everything that happens to your uniforms.

So I bid low, I get a lock on your service business, I get ingrained in your company and then I start finding ways to improve my mar.

Yeah, and they start jacking you. Uniforms replaced. Oh, there's an extra $2. It just, it's crazy and it's annoying to everyone. And what they've come out with is, you know, the sales pitch has changed. The you're going to get. How do you want them? You want a one year contract? We'll give you a one year contract. Here's what the cost is. Here's what the cost is going to be for the full year, every week, no matter what.

Yeah.

So it's starting transparency, no hidden charges. We answer the phone.

So it's flexible, it's responsive. It's like that.

Yeah. And one of the ads, the one that I chuckle about the most, they've got a series of postcards they're using to get people to make appointments with them and things like that. One of the postcards says, you know, our competitors think customer service is an answering machine. We actually answer our phones. It's like. And thinking about this allowed us to start thinking about the general manager and the seat he's sitting in. Uniforms are not a big part of his day. You know, why is there so much hassles about getting uniforms? It should be easier than this. It actually, in most companies, the uniform budget is a very small line item.

So here's the thing. I think it's interesting, but this doesn't sound like where the inspiration, the insight came from. It's off that you have this thought, this inquiry, you discover that they don't lose much, and then that leads you down this other thing to we do business on your terms.

Yes. It just almost is a different way of getting at it because everything we kind of came up with before seemed schmaltzy. It seemed like something everyone else could say. It didn't differentiate. It wasn't a value add proposition. But by digging into what we were operationally good at, we could get at, oh, this might really be meaningful. And it was kind of a backdoor way into creating this incredible brand that cuts through.

Yeah. What I'm hearing is that there's. Well, I think all CEOs and leadership teams, as well as coaches, struggle with creating things that don't sound generic. You end up with a lot of things that all sound nice and generic, but there's no richness to them. There's no excitement to them because they're generic. Right. And what I hear, you struggled with that world in creating brand promises, which is easy to do. Oh, we're fast or we're this or that. But in looking operationally at what distinguishes them, where they're different, where they're unique, what's special about them, what they care about. Then you started to hone in on this idea that they were responsive and tailored approach that the others were not. The others were more commodity driven.

Yeah. And the marketing firm has been able to create a series of FAQs that if you ask these questions and you have people wearing uniforms in your plants, you're going, why didn't I ask them that question? And it's funny. Technology plays a role in. Supposedly plays a role in the uniform business. All the other people in town have these RFID chips on their clothes, supposedly helping them not lose them ever. But these guys are doing it strictly with barcodes because they found that no one wants the RFD chips on Their clothes, they make bulges in your pockets or they make your clothes look funny and it doesn't improve the quality.

Well, I worked with an outstanding app based consumer laundry service up until, for a couple years anyway. And this company does the same thing. They have a barcode that they do and they have a photography system to track each and every item that comes through. So there's a visual record of everything flowing through the system. So they can find a lot of stuff. The only thing that they can't find and then accumulates are people who give them things without initiating anything through the app. So they have no idea who you are. All they have is a garment from you as long as they knew who you were in the first place. They tie it all the way through and they don't lose stuff, which is outstanding. And they can see the flow through their system. And a barcode does work well for that. RFID has certain advantages, but it was.

Like the others were saying, we've got RFD codes, they don't.

Yeah, sounds sexy.

It sounds sexy, but it didn't deliver anything.

Yeah.

And one of the coolest things that has happened with this, when we did our in company rollout of the brand, there's some ancillary or secondary benefits. The pride of everybody in the company, it's almost like they didn't feel like they could brag about how good they were. And this brand has given them a way to brag and be proud of what they do. And it's like everyone's chest is puffed up a lot because they've created the brand around this. And granted the company that did all the specific branding work did phenomenal work with it. And I suspect he's going to win a local Addy award. Cause he's told me this work is phenomenal. We're submitting it.

Nice. Well, you know, I hear kind of two things I'm reminded of both with a company I work with and then my own personal development over the years. And that is that sometimes you've got to look at yourself, your company, through other people's eyes. I had two leaders from a client company yesterday and I sent them out to go interview some of their staff to get their strengths and weaknesses as leaders. And I had encouraged them to know that whatever they hear is not necessarily the truth, like with a capital T, but it's true for those people. It's their perspective. So you have to embrace and empower it. Not argue with it, learn from it, use it, but also know it. And I think about A company that I ran some years ago and we always thought that some of our marketing materials were terrible and we just operated on this, that we were so inadequate in this area. And then one day over some drinks, after some at a conference or something, one of our customers said, oh, you're some of the best stuff in the business. And we were like. And then we had the question, do we actually need to spend that if we're already the best at it? Is that what matters? Should we spend less on that or should we like, you know, what is it that makes people buy and keep coming back? And so that was a whole separate conversation. I think it's great though, you pointed and opened the first thing that you have to come at it in different ways and sometimes you have to look outside and you have to look outside the area and outside the company to see the insight that leads to a breakthrough. So tell us about food co op.

Yeah, I'm working with a food co op in Little Rock who's a startup. They're in the middle of their second year and they are a cooperative of about 16 farmers currently who raise grass fed pastured meat. So chickens, lambs and cows or steers, but all grass raised.

So they raise them and they slaughter them.

Both the farmers, well, the co op facilitates what happens to the cows after they're grown, so they bring it to market. And normally the cows in the past, I mean the farmers in the past would do stuff on their own, but it's like the power of 16 together is really good. So.

So it's small, traditional farming, not commercial.

Yeah, it's small. Sixteen farmers, you know, not the commercial, all pasture raised. Now that may mean something to you. It may mean absolutely nothing to you. It didn't mean anything to me when I first started working with them. I've learned a lot about farmers and farms and so on, but there was a commitment on this company's part in terms of marketing towards people want to buy our meat because they want to support the family farms and are really cool people when you meet them. It's like, this is one of my favorite clients to work with because farmers don't know what hard work is. Their definition of hard work is so far above what you and I think hard work is. So they don't believe in obstacles, they're really smart, they enjoy working hard and they laugh at jokes. Really good. They're a lot of fun to work with. You know, they were a little too self absorbed. They're doing direct to consumer sell through the Internet. They Also selling to restaurants and so on. But it's like, are you sure that's why people buy, because they love to support the farm? Well, they always say that to us and that's great. And he says, well, why don't we ask the customers? Well, really? I said, yeah, yeah. Who are the top 10? Direct to consumer customers. Yeah. Why don't you call them up, interview and don't let salespeople do this.

Yeah.

And ask the key question from buyer Personas. And the key question is, when you chose to buy from us, where you were getting your quality, why did you choose? What's going on in your life? Tell me about your life that time, how hard it was to get what you wanted. And the answers to a tea blew everyone away. They called up 10 customers, they asked 10. And the answers were phenomenal. These people were fanatic about having really healthy meat for their families to eat. They were very, very educated on the subject. They were all self educated. They're all professional. I don't want to say they're all professionals, but very, very, very busy people and time stressed. And it's like the choice was my family's gonna eat good meat. We gotta get, it's gotta be easier to get it than the way we've been getting it. And almost, you know, so the story started coming through in these interviews. And the woman who did the interview, she did great because she really let them talk and then pegged them down. Explain that to me more. Explain that to me more. And I listened in on some recordings. They kept the recordings. Yep. And that was key. They recorded them and they kept the recording and they were able to give the recordings, all the recordings to their ad agency afterwards. But it kept coming through. Is what we were able to do in the last quarterly planning session was come up with a brand promise. A rudimentary brand promise is our healthy animals produce healthy meat and your family will be healthier, not smooth. He says, now we got it. And what's the other things? Well, our other promises, they're grass fed. That's how we prove that it's healthy. So we got to tell the story about the farmers. And it's easy as Amazon. This is to get this meat is easy as ordering on Amazon, so you can order online. Now. People have been struggling. One person, one of the stories was, you know, it's a 40 minute trip to whole Foods to buy this stuff. Time for that. Or I'm chasing around farmers markets to try and find these people. Or I've got to go to three or four different farms. I'm really committed to doing all this, but my God, I have children, I have important jobs. I don't have time for this.

Yeah.

So that's what our rudimentary brand promise was. And at this point I said, take, run to your ad agency with this, have them translate this, because your site, your website, your materials, don't say anything about this.

Right. Right.

Now, if you go to their website, the splash page says, eat with confidence. It's like, this is catchy. It cuts right through our meat. With confidence, no hormones, it's healthy. My kids will be better. But three words, eat with confidence.

Interesting. Well, I definitely hear the evolution of the brand promise of healthy food and making that easy. And I could hear it instantly. I mean, I think about my own family and I have teenage kids who both have gone vegetarian the last year and how that's forced us first to tighten things up as they grew concerned. And now my wife and I haven't gone that far, but we've added a lot of things. And their principal concern, our principal concern was health. Theirs was animal cruelty. And everybody wanted better tasting things. And so we struggle with that. But my wife goes to the farmer's market and special retailers and you're right, it's a lot of effort and work. So I instantly recognize that the idea of supporting farmers is nice, but it's for sure not a driver for us. It's nice and I like the idea of it, but you have, you have.

To tell the story right. About them so that they understand that the animals are happy.

That gives a credibility to it. Right. So I got, my kids are willing to eat eggs because I source them from a place that looks a little bit more like our traditional farm pictures and less like a factory.

Yeah, yeah. And, and that, you know, now their website, they're making sure all the pictures are of happy, healthy animals running through the forest.

Well, if you just as an aside coach to coach, if you're not aware of it, I'm sure they are. There's a company that's gotten pretty big out on my side of the country called Niman Ranch, that's very well known for building up this kind of a farmer's co op and selling more traditional meats.

And it's been cool to see this happen. When I saw the website, it was like, I have to post this right away. This is just the incredible story.

You were excited about it?

Yeah, I was excited about it. I get excited when the light goes on in my client's head. That's Why I coach, I want to see other people have epiphanies. And this was like the light going on. Everything went great. And it's given them, in the same session, it gave them the confidence to expand their marketing from Arkansas to three adjoining states and start down the path of being able to sell this and ship this nationwide.

So just a couple quick comments to pull out some stuff there to underscore. So in this case, what you did is you sent people out to interview customers. And I've done the same with companies that I've worked with where I said, go out and interview your top customers, ask the question for them when you switch to us, what was your life like? What was going on? What were you dealing with? And then use a video camera if you can when you're going and doing those visits. Don't have your salespeople lead that process. Although I've had some marketing and operational folks go out and then capture it. And I've had them then look around the buyer's office or the buyer's home and see what it looks like, what magazines are there, what, what's their environment like, what things. And after you get a few of those, you start to see some common elements like, oh, this buyer's quirky, our buyers are quirky. All right, so we need to let our sense of humor come out if that's part of our culture, because we're connecting with people on that or that needs to come in some way. So you're creating a rich picture by going out and talking to people, hearing in their perspective what they were like, what mattered to them, and, and listening freshly for that. And that leads to that brand promise in this case of healthy food.

It was so obvious when they listened. I listened to the first one and I called the lady who did the interview. I says, that was great. How many more you got lined up? She said, I got 10 more.

Nice.

Just keep doing the same thing. And what you did really well is you listened. You didn't lead. Salespeople want to lead the question to get to the answer they want. You can't do that. Just nail it. Nail them down. When they say, my life is busy, that means ask. Tell me about that.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay. I'm really concerned about, you know, healthy food. Why are you so concerned? How did you learn about this? And she just that those nail down questions that, you know, questions that, that opened the door and then more questions on each one of it. And they had these 10 rich stories, and 10 out of 10 said, this is what it is. And she was able to pull that information together and share it with the rest of the team. And like, oh, beautiful, we're selling this wrong. We need to do. And they were doing a pretty good job with it just the way they were. But it's like, my God.

Yeah. So we're at about time for the show. Let me just underscore a couple of things that you shared with us. So first of all, this can take some time. Sometimes you're working with companies for a little while, you come at it in a few different ways before you start to hone in on something powerful. So it's useful to be patient, to give it time, and then as things go, looking at it from new angles. So looking at things operationally, looking at things competitively and getting out and looking at things in particular from the customer's perspective. Go talk to your top leading customers, whether they be a B2B or you're selling to another business or a consumer, and look at what drove their purchase decision and what their environment looked like at that time and develop a rich picture of them so that you have some sense of their world and what they chose you for, not who you think you are.

Yeah, very much so.

Outstanding.

I can't mention enough about the patients, but the other thing, the one thing your assistant asked me about, you know, what other thing came out of this is in both instances, both of these clients felt in control of their marketing process now and felt in control in dealing with their ad agency or their marketing firm. So often you're going to your marketing firm and you kind of feel like you're at their. At their whim.

You gave them some power in the process. It's great.

We understand our brand. So get that rudimentary brand promise down before you ever talk to your ad agency. And then you can direct them and they will do better work for less money.

That's outstanding. All right, so, Michael Sink, the topic is brand promises. We'll get a link out to you in the show notes and to the book buyer Personas and to your folks.

Thank you. It's been fun.

It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for talking with us today.

All right.

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