The Branding Mistake That’s Costing You Millions ft. Benjamin Behrooz

There's too much noise in the marketplace to be able to get anyone's attention with something generic. Being able to put something in front of someone that's unique, that speaks to them, to their pain points. That's how we're able to kind of float in this like crazy water that we're in right now. People are leaning towards unprofessional videos. They're leaning towards videos that are a little bit skewed. They don't look right. There's so much polish in the world and people know that polish is there. So I'm seeing pixelated videos. I'm seeing a longer view time on those compared to the stuff that's super polished. Take the risk. You are the best thing that you can bet on. You are the best horse that you can bet on because you can control and you can push. So bet on yourself. Bet heavy on yourself because you will win if you keep pushing.

Good day and welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I am your host, Bob Govreau. It is a pleasure to have you join today and I just want to remind you that this is the place where we dissect the elements that contribute to your entrepreneurial success. From mindset and leadership to profits and revenue. As you know, I am a finance expert so I can't leave that component out. Excited today to bring in a guest. We're going to talk about all things branding, marketing, personal brand, business brand. This episode is titled beyond the Logo. Building Purpose Driven Brands with Ben Behrouz is the founder and CEO of a great company called Branding Los Angeles. They are an award winning multicultural marketing agency known for turning ideas into movements. As you will learn, Ben had some really great experience working at some large multimedia organizations to being involved in politics. But over the last 15 years he's helped sole proprietors, national organizations and businesses alike define their voice, amplify their message and build purpose driven brands and and make a lasting impact. I don't want to take away from Ben sharing his story a little bit here today, so I will welcome him in here momentarily. But guys, this is going to be some really great content. If you want to understand how to get your message out, if you want to understand how to maximize or optimize your story storytelling. If you want to understand which platform you could be using and how to maximize the benefit. We're going to talk about lead generation versus branding and and everything in between including some mistakes that business owners are making and how to optimize their marketing going forward. So without any further ado, I want to welcome Ben into the show. All right, Benjamin, welcome to the show. So excited to have you join us today.

Thanks for having me, Robert. Excited for today.

Yeah, no, this is great. So I always love, you know, to kick things off, all the entrepreneurs who are listening to this, they've all gone through their sort of unique story challenges, some highlights for sure, otherwise we wouldn't still be here. But would love for you to maybe just share how you got started and how everything evolved to how you got to where you are today.

So, you know, I'm, I'm over 40 now, so my story goes a few generations now, a few decades. So I started, I'll go back to ucla. I think that was where my creative learning kind of kicked in. Started UCLA was going to go down a different route. Was going to go in the medical route, was. Was gonna go to pharmacy school. Ended up getting a internship for Sony Music and everything kind of took off. So for me being able to kind of start in the industry before YouTube was profitable, it gave me a really good understanding of what's around and the atmosphere that I was kind of getting into from that. I was lucky enough to be underneath some amazing people. The vice president of Sony A and R, I was able to work underneath him. As my career grew, I was able to expand and get into more the political sector with truthdig.com and I had an amazing ability to have one of my mentors be Robert Shear. He was the ex editor in chief of the LA Times. So a lot of amazing people there by my backbone and kind of pushing me. And I didn't go the medical route, I found more fulfillment and doing marketing, being creative. And during that time that I was spending with Truthdig, I was really able to find out what my best skill set is, was definitely giving a voice to those that can't speak for themselves. I really understood that. And as things kind of transitioned and I was put in a corner, I got laid off as things happened. And then our company started. Being able to start our company from ethos of just helping people. And we haven't stopped. And to this day, I still find that as a core belief in our company, just being able to help people get what they need done and be able to live their dreams. So for me, being able to have that initial political starting point to, to learn about politics, work underneath Huffington Post sister company, and then kind of transition to my own company. So with us, we've been fortunate enough to be supporting brick and mortars to national campaigns. I think the one thing I was able to really understand is storytelling. Storytelling will take you through a journey, take you through a flight, take you through a trip with a friend. That story that we're able to build and that emotional response someone's able to get, I think that's where I've found my playground that I love playing. So psychology is really my biggest thing. Being able to understand if you present something to someone, what kind of emotional response that gives. And it falls in line with everything from being able to come up with a really amazing name or to be able to provide education or access to something where it's hard for someone to understand. So definitely kind of finding our ability to kind of do that more and more and more. I have an amazing group of people behind me and I think that's probably one of the bigger things that has to do with my story is being able to identify those true characters that are able to really stay with me. And I've had a long term clients and long term staff, so we really don't have a revolving door. So that's one of our big ethos, to just be good to our clients, be good to our staff. That's kind of resonated over time a hundred percent.

And your company's called Branding Los Angeles. And when did you guys get it launched?

We established in 2007. Very, very humble.

I wasn't sure. I see the shirt. I see your shirt saying branding established 2007. I wasn't sure if that was just branding in general, like the godfather of forming this or no. Well, that's great.

We were lucky. So with when we named the company about a year after you saw USC launch a whole branding courses, so a whole department opened up a USC and we just became a part of the dictionary. So we became really capable and able to kind of step in because we were visible. And it just started the trajectory of the company became more and more visible.

No, I love that. So let's jump in because I know you've got a lot of insights and wisdom. Right. Being in the game since 20 2007, but also having that interesting political side and working in with major media. You know, I could probably learn a thing or two about politics because I got to tell you right now I'm not really understanding a lot about politics, but we'll leave that for a different day.

Yes.

So let me ask you this. What does it mean to be a brand now, like in 2026? What does that look like?

I think being a brand carries a lot more responsibilities than people thought prior because the way consumers now are wanting their brands to be, they want them to kind of fit within their likes and their morals and all these different things. So a person might be very much so advocating for helping homeless people, but they're not necessarily doing anything. But the brand they're supporting is doing it. So it's just brands being able to raise their hand to things that really will move the needle for their consumer. And you have to help them understand that brands belong in the conversation. So being able to kind of do certain things that fall in line with people's value, value systems, it's really an important thing. And brands are having different kinds of relationships, like different friends. You have acquaintances and then you have long term friends. Right now the fast fashion brands that are there, they're dealing with such an upheaval because they just have no loyalty. No one's coming back. So building that relationship and knowing that long term value needs to be set into place. So the smarter brands are creating that ethos to get people to come back, not just to purchase once and to be able to lose them through the transactions.

So do you feel that, you know, smaller businesses, right, Like I remember having this conversation with one of my mentors early on. He said, you know, they're so important for you to get your marketing engine rolling. And so I was like, great. I went out and found a marketing person more so that she was a very loud person that everybody would have to listen to. Right? And that was my initial was like, this is great. She's going to push the brand, pushed the name across. And he sort of came back and he goes, well, do you have a branding person or do you have a lead gen person? Because it's interesting to understand the difference between the two and it looks like, you know, you jump in and support both. Because the question I really want to ask you is like, how do we really create strategic alignment between message, market, mission and then turn that into lead gen? What does that look like? How do we do that properly?

I'm having deja vu with what you said because this, what your mentor said to you. This is something we do all the time. So, so this whole distinction of having someone design the Porsche and then having someone drive the Porsche. So I think that's where the branding kind of comes in, where you're able to understand the conversation, the action statements, the values that really need to kind of align and then you throw your lead gen person in there to hit, to redline it and to be able to kind of get it going. So I think there Definitely is a different distinction. And a aggressive personality type will work for certain things, and you have a creative personality type that work for certain things. But I do think those things are divided. I definitely think this is something we do for almost every single one of our clients. And social listening, understanding what is the conversation for your target audience and what is that conversation around the brand, around the service. If you're not really taking a look at that, you're missing the combo. You're in a state where you're going to have to back up three months, restart, and come back. So that's one of those things where we get a lot of calls from clients like, hey, I want this. But you can't have a magic ball. You just press the button and you do one Instagram ad and you're just like. So it's, it's a little.

Oh, it doesn't work that way. Oh, okay.

You, you, you know what? There, there's certain people, wants it to. Certain people, they will go about that route and then they'll come back three months later. And we're very firm on that thing because we know it, because we know that same. Like I said earlier, we don't have a revolving door with our clients. So being able to really figure out who their target audience is and how they can serve them best, then you move forward. I think people are just jumping in without those specific things with very generic items, and it just doesn't work. There's too much noise in the marketplace to be able to get anyone's attention with something generic. So we're really understanding that. So being able to put something in front of someone that's unique, that speaks to them, to their pain points or things that they love, that's how we're able to kind of float in this like crazy water that we're in right

now in the market a hundred percent and kinds of changes and, you know, the major platforms continuously evolving and changing how they do things. When I think of marketing or when most people think of marketing, they think of marketing as that, hey, this is how we drive interest to the company and we get a sales team or we book sales calls, anything like that. Now it's onto the sales team. But how important is branding to not only just the, you know, the lead gen or showing what the company can do to serve the market, but how important is branding to, you know, recruitment, attracting those team members, building sort of the infrastructure around also delivering clients, but like creating a brand that people will be proud to work at. How important and relevant is that in

today's workspace, I think the people that represent your company are probably the most important thing because they are the people that out in the field, they're the people that are making decisions and speaking for you and the clients. So I definitely think having clients and staff that match so on both ends, you want to be able to control it. I think because I've ran my company for such a long time, I really do have a higher expectation of my staff and my clients. So we do fire clients. And it's not good for me to say that, but we do. If it doesn't match our ethos, if it doesn't, if it becomes abusive or whatever the case is. So we are very much so on our staff side. We fight for them and we never, and I tell my staff this, and this is, I even tell my seniors to share this with them is we will never have a staff member do something that we wouldn't do ourselves. So that is at the core of what we do. So everybody is in the same boat. If there's a hole in the boat, everyone is sinking, not one person. So we really try to make a point of bringing in people that are able to be. And there's characteristics, there's selflessness that you have somebody that's part of your team, it's that selflessness, it's that creativity, and it's the ability to say no. And I have some of my staffers, I'm a hard ass with certain things, but my staffers, they're seniors, they've earned the trust for me to believe what they say. And that's one of those things where I believe in my staff and I think giving them the ability to grow. And they've done amazing. I'm like, I'm a big fan of everyone that works for me because I've seen them grow and do such amazing things and it's giving them that little access point to be great. And I think that's something for any entrepreneur, really. Do not try to crowd your staff. Try to allow them to fly. Don't try to hold them down, allow them to fly. The higher they go, the higher you'll go. And it's a really important thing to believe in your staff and push them.

Yeah. And the key theme coming out of what you were just speaking to is empowerment.

Right.

Making sure that the team is empowered with the skills, the support they need. And you know what, they're going to make mistakes, but that's how they grow. And that's how really, truly we build businesses. That have leverage that are outside of just being controlling business owner. Right. It's not even building a business if we're in that position. Okay, let's talk about, and this is maybe a good transition one, the role of PR in marketing and maybe how we can optimize PR in our own business. And also reputation management, which is now, I think in the last three or four years has come up as like a major theme in business as part of not even just the client success, but on the, the marketing and the branding side as well. Can you speak to those?

Yes, I think with us as a company, we definitely stand out. We do help people with reputation management. We've had people that have gone viral in a bad way where they reached out to us to be able to help kind of deal with those issues. I think the reality where someone is googling your name to us, having super wealthy clients that are, truth be told, they're on dating apps and they were after the first date, they Google their name, they're like, holy moly, what do I do with this? So from that extreme that you have to us kind of helping that to Fortune 500 companies and you have the CEO just cheat on his wife or he have or whatever it may be for companies like us, for us to be able to help control the brand and be able to have the first two pages of Google be of what we want to be able to have come up, that's we are that weapon. So when certain Fortune 500 companies, individuals will kind of come to us, we're a weapon. They'll point us to what needs to get done and we're able to do it with our skill set that's there and we know how important it is. We have companies that are looking for mergers, we have people that are looking to grow and go into their next career. So being able to control what comes up on Google is essential. And what's happening now, you're having AI now search deeper and this tool with AI is to be able to search and sort deeper. A normal human being will only go so far. AI will go in and ask five more questions. Well, this is what I have. Do you want me to look on da da da. You want me to look on da da da. So for us, we know that the question and requests are going deeper. So we're fortifying for us, we know how AI is pulling the data in from where it's pulling it out from. So with a company like us, we understand that being able to control your brand is essential. And being able to have control the first two pages is what you need to be. And again, protecting people, I think through life things happen. And be able to have a resource like us, to be able to take control of the wild wild west, which is the Internet is becoming essential is something that people have to do. And we get calls from the spectrum, like from Hot Take, from porn stars that found God and they don't want to do that anymore. And just being able to have that go away to having people that have gone viral and they're all over the news, cnn, everything and then be able to manage that and help them with that. So it goes a lot of ways. I think we have great power in what we do and we do decline a lot of reputation management projects if they don't fall in line with our ethos. So if people are not putting good in the world, we'll say no because we know what we're capable to do. But we have to have that ethos amongst our company. And I think that was something as a whole. We decided to be able to reject some of those projects as they come in. If they don't match what we're believing.

That's some exciting work too, right? So like mix in some of that reputation management work with high profile cases and seeing the impact that you do, that's fun, that's engaging, that's exciting. When I'm thinking of like the small to medium sized business owner who probably has been too busy working to get themselves in trouble and I'm thinking of reputation management, I'm also thinking of like Google reviews and you know, positive, some negative. Do you guys engage with reputation management around that? And you know what are some maybe quick strategies that people can focus on to make sure that they're getting those positive reviews because we know that that does impact in a positive way.

So thank you for asking that question because I think that's probably the most important things that you asked so far. Because the way AI is working now, it's using Google reviews as a big indicator to be able to share and be able to give access to people. So my biggest thing is you need to understand how Google works. Google doesn't know if you're the best pizza place in town. It just knows about how many people are clicking to the page and clicking the number and clicking the link. That's what it knows. So as you're going about this accessibility to your clients to be able to get to your Google my business page is essential. So from them saying, okay, you have an appointment in one hour, they click, they see your Google my business page. After the meeting, you send them a review or whatever it is to be able to have them leave a review or say, hey, check out this photo. The biggest thing I have to say is making sure that your clients are aware of the page, are seeing it as they're clicking their Google Maps to meet you, as you're having your email footer you're able to incorporate your website should be there. These are probably the most essential things to be seen because as you move forward with AI, less and less people are going to be going to websites. AI is going to pull the data, present it, and the only way that you will be a part of that mix, if your page is getting clicks and you're getting reviews. So from the initial meeting to be able to get them, click to go to the page to see it, to following up to be able to get a review from the people, depending on the industry that you're in, you have to step back and take a look at where can I insert this specific page so I'm able to make sure that my Google my business page comes up. There's a whole racket right now that's happening where you have Uber drivers, where they have 50 phones, 100 phones in their car, and they're just going to businesses on Google to be able to have those businesses show up more. And it's actually happening in every major metropolitan city. So us knowing this, we are very much so aware of these different fake companies, fake Google reviews, all these things. So we're very much so against that. Like, if I see a company that has 3,000 reviews, I'm like, I know that's not real. There's certain things that like a consumer will understand to a certain point. And I really recommend highly to anyone out there. Do not pay for reviews. That will come to a quick end. Google's smart, they know, and they will take them down. Go the righteous way. Create newsletters, send emails, send text messages to get people to leave reviews for you. It really does make a difference and you should ask because it's, it's something that will help your business in the long run. And there should be an ego thing where you put that aside because some people don't want to ask because they're in their feelings about it, but it really will help your business grow if you're able to kind of take that step 100%.

So thinking of some of those people that leave a negative review, you know, I've got a few on my company right where There were people that came in, weren't even clients of ours, we didn't even do work for them. And all of a sudden we get a, you know, one star, whatever, you know, the, they were having a bad day and they put that on there. Any sort of advice for people who have those and how to, you know, work through that situation.

There's good and evil in the world. There's good and evil in the world. I think the big things to understand is Google is a little less receptive in regards to taking reviews down, knowing your terms of service on how they do things. So going through those steps and here's a little cheat code. If you have 10 admins to your Google My Business page, all 10 can submit a report for that review being wrong. So instead of one person doing it, 10 people cancel. That was a little trick. But the reality is I think there is some infrastructure where you're able to make sure you have Kevlar on before the gun goes off. So some people are in a place where they're trying to backpedal after it goes up. But if you have a fortified foundation, those bullets hit, it's not going to get into you because you have those other views in place. So you have to be forward thinking, you know that you're in the market, you have to get reviews on the page before it's too late and then you have to go backwards. So I really advocate when you start the business, when you do your grand opening, whatever it is, push that page so you can have a fortified starting point because it really will make a big difference for you.

Yeah, that's great. I've definitely had a couple where, you know, people have, have come in, haven't even become clients, they've left a review, I've reached out to them and ultimately the feedback is, and this is fascinating and business owners, I know you can relate to this, that ultimately they thought we would just do it for free. And their complaint is, is that we sent them a proposal or hey, this is the price for us to actually do the work. We gave you the free advice but you need it done. And that was their negative review. It was like, well, how dare you charge me to give me this advice or to guide us thing. It's like, well, everything up to now was free, but if you want to work with us, you're gonna have to pay for our expertise. And it is what it is.

We get a lot of different types of engagement from people. And for me, and I've even told staff, it's like for Us specifically. Sometimes when people call, it's their dream, you know, this is their dream, this is their hope. So I don't, I never say, I try not to say no to people. I try to kind of understand what they want and lead them. If it's going to another provider, I say that. I don't, I rarely say no because it's someone's ambition in their dream. You want to be able to support it, big or small. And I've been lucky enough to have people come back three years later after that initial phone call, hey, do you remember me? And. And I'm like, I'm just blown away because that 15 minute conversation of giving them some guidance really just goes such a long way. And we get a lot of calls. When someone looks up best marketing company in Los Angeles, we're getting that call. So it's like getting people small and big and just being right to people. I think the review issue and people attacking you is always going to happen. They moved our company San Francisco, they moved us to Nevada. They do a lot of things with our Google my business page because we're one of the top service providers. So we have all these little weird things that happen with us too. But good will always come out at

the end and so great transition. So when we're thinking of branding and building a business with a strong brand, a lot of the time we're building a business that is aligning to a strategic vision, aligning to some core values. I know for you using influence and invisibility for causes is very important to you. Can you touch on that not only for yourself, but why that's important for business owners to link those two.

I think it comes back to the social responsibility aspect of it for us as a company. I made our ethos in any state that we are with that we have a hq, we are giving back. So it's something that's at my core and it's something that I advocate for my clients. So from us being able to sponsor a baseball field, to us being able to have jerseys for soccer teams for the underprivileged, for us to be able to give toys to the boys and girls club, this is something that every single one of our projects, we have a community manager involved that is constantly looking for opportunities for our clients to give back. There's so much noise happening and the reality is it's that one value, give to the community that will pay you years and years and years. One of our clients, amazing client, he's in real estate and we were Able to have him donate around 2,000 water bottles. Those 2,000 water bottles were branded with his information. He's probably sold maybe $15 million in properties because of those water bottle investment that we did. So there really is a value of giving back and having that give you back even more. So make sure when you're budgeting, you are budgeting dollars to be able to give back. And it may not be every month, it may be once a year. It may be being able to send your team to the soup kitchen to be able to wrap lunches up. It really will be beneficial to a company to do this. And there really is a differential with how staff feel when they work in an environment they're giving back compared to just running, running, running, trying to close the deal. And there really is a burnout reality that people will have if you're in that environment. So from the client side, they definitely see the benefit of it. The mental positivity that comes in. Like, for us, whoever's seeing this, we have our Earth Day beach cleanup coming up in April. This is our 8th annual, and we love for people to join us. So we have a constant push to give back and we've had nothing but positive returns from it. So I definitely advocate for people to do it. Brands reach out to people that you can help. If you have something that you can donate, donate it. It really will help you in the long run to be able to have that history of being able to contribute to others.

Yeah, no, and I can vouch for that 100%. We have a bunch of initiatives that we work on, but a couple that are maybe closer to my heart. One, we have this massive backpack campaign for kids going back to school for underprivileged kids. So I think last year we had over 200, somewhere around 200 fully stocked backpacks with everything kids would need to go back to school. You know, they. We got them a haircut, we got them a pizza donation for their family. So there was a bunch of things that we sort of stack in there. But not only, you know, is this, hey, this is just the right thing to do. And it also ties into, you know, education and financial literacy for us, but it also brings the team together where they're part of something bigger than what you're doing in your day to day. Right. So the alignment that it brings to our team when we're part of these events is, is incredible. And, you know, a lot of the time when you're talking about long term retention of your team members, a lot of the time People just want to be part of something meaningful. And these things are meaningful. Right? So doing your beach day cleanup, that's meaningful. People want to be part of that. They think of, you know, LA and they think of beaches and man, if you're part of making those beaches beautiful and giving back to the community, it's powerful. So I love that. And definitely something that we buy into wholeheartedly as well. Let me ask you this. Thinking of, you know, turning passion into brand power. I know a lot of times we think of founders and, you know, as we sort of kicked it off, we were talking about the difference between lead gen and branding. What are some of the mistakes founders make when they're launching and scaling their brand?

I think it goes back to a few different things. I don't think there are mistakes. I definitely think they're learning lessons. There's things that you're able to learn, and from that, from your failures, you're able to have success. Without failure, there is no success. I think the reality of having more zeros in your dreams makes sense. So adding so if you're thinking times 10, think times a thousand, because that's the reality of what where you will get if you push hard enough. Do not be scared to fail. Do not be scared to bring others in, to be able to help them get your dream off the ground. I really think there is something about people feeling that they're all alone, but that's not the truth. I definitely think your ability to bring others on, to be able to think in a different manner that you haven't been able to think of, is the thing that's going to move the needle for you. And I definitely think contribution as a team to something will really make a bigger difference.

And when we're thinking about, you know, I think of this too, and there's a lot of this as we build a business. So I'm fortunate. I've got a team of 180 now. So a lot of what we've built, you know, is much bigger than me. It used to be that I could push things over the line. Now I just have to be a really good cheerleader because my significance is very limited, which is great. That's what we want to build as a business owner. But when I think of, you know, the personal values and the personal brand versus the business brand and both of those identities tied together, how do you create consistency or alignment between, you know, the personal side and the business side of a brand?

I think this goes into multiple factors. I think what we're Seeing now we're seeing more creator owners, which that's becoming the biggest kind of step where it's no longer an influencer coming in for another brand. You have an individual doing it for themselves. And that role specific where the brand has to be like Fort Knox. It can't have any type of issue, it can't have any type of malfunction, it can't have a bad day, but the individual can. And I think this is understanding of balance where the humanization of the owner is able to come in and they can make mistakes, they can have hardships. The brand can never do that because if you're like a luggage brand, that luggage can't have a bad day, can't have a day at the zipper doesn't work, but the individual business owner can. And then I think it's this reality of balance where you're able to show a different side of yourself, where you're able to show you have problems, you're able to show that you have difficulties like every other human being. But the brand can't do that. So this owner creator role is really interesting for me because you're seeing people put their life on focus. Everyone's able to see and then like, oh, I have my brand here. That's becoming the more organic way for a creator and an owner to kind of mesh. And I think there's a perception of that. So if you have a creator that is doing something for skincare, of course she has her own skin line. That is something that like people are seeking now because it's. There's so many machines out there that are going to try to tell you what to go and where to go. People want that individual. They want that person. That's why you're seeing Reddit and all these websites kind of coming out through the cracks more and more. Is that individualized recommendation, is that person that has the know how in the back to tell you people don't believe brands as much compared to believing an individual that they can kind of build a relationship with. So before we even launch a brand and we know it's coming before the palette drops, like we are already building the individual's brand, the owner's brand, to be able to have him jump into the market. So this is probably one of the biggest things I think everybody's going to see this transition of I don't see influencers going away, but I do see the creator owner role becoming the most significant thing. And I just see corporations in a weird way because you're about to have A guy out of his 400 square foot little house or his little apartment coming up with something amazing. And that's what's going to happen. People are getting more and more numb to generic things, to things that they can kind of see through. And they're seeking that truth, they're seeking that storyline. They want to be able to have a brand that they can kind of coincide with, that they can say, I feel good that I buy this brand.

Love that, by the way, because a lot of talk these days, last couple of years has been on personal brand versus business brands. Where would you say priority level? Because it sounds like you've got a mix strategy of personal and corporate. Where would you put the prioritization in there on personal brand and corporate brand? Which one should be focused on and at what times?

I think it's industry by industry, because the reality is you want to go into an interview, the brand can't walk into the interview. The individual that runs the brand can. So I think right now, the way that people are digesting information, there's a point where ads will run and they'll get visibility information, but then there's that individual that's able to kind of open up the door, say, oh, we're going to Milan, we're going to go to Fashion Week. Like, we're giving people, the owner's giving people access, they're giving them certain things. And I think industry by industry, but more so than ever, you're seeing today, people know the owners of companies. You never knew that before. This was not something there. You're having personality types able to grow their brand significantly because their personality is really amazing. It's like the same thing you're not going to when Joe Rogan, you go on Joe Rogan, the individuals, they're talking about their hardships and stories, but their brand skyrockets because it's a part of that journey. It's just being able to insert yourself or the brand when it makes sense. And I think more and more there's more opportunities for individuals to be given that pedestal to kind of share. And trade shows are coming back. Amazing podcasts like yours are here. And there's a need for sharing people information, giving them what's behind the ropes, what's behind there, because AI will give you something, but it's so cluttered. People are still seeking the truth. They're still looking for that real information from an individual.

That's great. And so, and I'll tie this one last piece in. You mentioned earlier talking about some of the strengths of your organization specifically and you had highlighted storytelling. And I'm just wondering here if we're looking at some action plans for some of those business owners who do are trying to build their own identity, also trying to build their corporate brand as well. What are some quick win ways or get the most bang for your buck way to tell a story. Engage an audience as a personal brand who's a CEO or founder of a company.

Be transparent, don't be scared. If you try to be too shiny, people will see through that. There's something now that I'm going to tell people and it might throw them off. People are leaning towards unprofessional videos. They're leaning towards videos that are a little bit skewed. They don't look right. And it's a weird thing because there's so much polish in the world and people know that polish is there. So I'm seeing pixelated videos. I'm seeing a longer view time on those compared to the stuff that's streaming, super polished. And it looks like a professional ad. So I definitely think the fear component of being, oh, I don't want to go on video, that has to go away. You really need to kind of put yourself out there. You need to be able to create content and talk about what you have. And that's the easiest win that individual can have. Where you're in your room, you hit the record button and you're able to share with the world. And for me, I always tell my clients, those are your receipts. When you look back six months from now, you're like, those are my receipts that I put in the work. I bought into it, I did what I had to do. And I look back and that video now has 200,000 views, 250,000 views. I have my receipts. I really say, you need to jump in, don't have fear. Be in any part of your thought process, because what's the worst thing that can happen? So definitely put yourself out there. Make yourself comfortable with being uncomfortable. And that's a business owner tactic that you just have to be there or you will never grow. That's it. And I think there really is this conception of an ego and how am I going to look? I don't have. That has to go away. That really has to go away. I don't want people putting out something that's going to be negative for themselves. But at the same time, the thought of having a secret in your pocket or having something that no one knows, it doesn't work anymore. And specifically with us we're getting a lot of clients that are been in business for 40 years and they're like, we want our flowers now. We want to be able to get visibility. So that's a lot of the relationships we're building with people that have been doing it for 40 years and they're, well, this new guy just opened. They're getting all the Instagram followers and it's just us kind of stepping in to make sure they get their flowers too. And it's just a very interesting timeline for us as we're kind of helping those Fortune 500 companies say, okay, I did the hard work, I'm tired, but I want my flowers now. I want my business to be the first thing that comes up.

Love that. And you know, as someone who's a bit of a perfectionist, not having high quality content go out is, is a challenge, it's a struggle. It needs to be thought out. But you know, you look at doing something like a podcast, which is very raw and real and using that as a method to have engaging conversations. Cut it up, send it out. Right. It is in a professional way, but it's raw information and sort of unscripted as well, which is great. So love that, love that advice. Last question here before my, you know, final recap. What platform do you like most and what platform do you think has the most power for people to create a story on right now?

YouTube. And this directly falls in line with the power of AI. We had a huge shift where short form videos were doing amazing, but that is going to come to an end now with the power of AI, you put in something, you, you put one sentence into Google of what you're looking for. It will search that three hour video, pull out that one minute of where that's mentioned and you're able to see it. So we're seeing this trajectory of long form videos make a huge comeback. And I think storytelling on YouTube is growing just for the simple fact of the indexability where you're able to search and see a response. You're not jumping into a platform where you're competing against trends and those other things. You're really able to step in and have value. But we love all platforms and right now, and I'm going to tell everybody, if you have 500 followers on Instagram, you could get 2 million views on your video with the help of AI. Smaller accounts are killing it. Our clients are, we're seeing more views on our content than we've ever had in the past 15, 17 years. Plus, I'm Seeing more views on our content now simply because of AI. It's able to search and sort and is able to give people content. And we're seeing 2 million views, 3 million views out of account. That's 4,000 followers. So do not feel in any way that this AI is working against you. It's not. It's helping you. It's going to help those smaller accounts get more visibility. But if you're going to create content, use the funnel system. And that's what we always say. Create the long form, have it be available on YouTube, cut it up for shorts, cut it up for TikTok, cut it up for YouTube, cut it up for Instagram. You don't know which platform is going to work for you, so don't pick one. Be friends with all of them and just have a really small plan of just posting throughout. And you don't know which video on what platform is going to really do well. If you're going to run ads, try putting it up organically, see what does well organically, then push it over to be able to run ads against it. Use these resources you have. Don't guess, guessing is gone in marketing. Try it out, put it up organically. If it does well, then put dollars behind it to make it run for you.

Absolute sense. And maybe just a quick follow up on that. Any tips, quick tips for people to optimize the AI learning on ads or on videos or storytelling. Is it labeling? Is it content specific? What is it that that storytellers could use or incorporate to optimize their views, their videos, their reach?

Here's my warning to everybody. All AI is not good AI. And this is something that we need to kind of be cognizant of because you will see one of the biggest platforms right now is Reddit and they have a AI component that does things. But as marketers, we know that's not the best route right now. It's not on point. There's certain things where you have to have a good resource and recommendation that comes in that doesn't have a hand in your wallet. Same as Google. Google will give you, oh, let's implement these AI updates. Let's implement these things because they want to be able to increase your daily spend, but it's not necessarily going in the right direction. I do think having on your different AI agent that you're using, whatever it is, have a learning process about the brand that it constantly knows what you're talking about so you're not having to start your conversations from scratch. So if you have within where you are, create a segment, talk about the project, have it, know what it knows and then feed it into that. Do not trust the AI recommendations from the platform to have their hand in your pocket to be able to spend more money. It doesn't end well. Meta specifically, we're seeing right now this craziness with Meta where AI is shoving a lot of people that we're not requesting. Like we're running med spots and we're specifically targeting women, but the AI is pushing men constantly, Constant, constant. Because it's trying to have more people see it. So I definitely think there's a reality of using AI but being mindful that the person that's implementing it is not at a point where, oh, spend 10 more dollars a day and get this, you're really able to use a source that's you're able to really teach what, train it properly and not be given a recommendation just to spend more money. It's not going well for certain people on the platforms because they're just spending more and not really getting that return.

Yeah, 100%. And we experienced that ourselves, right, where when they change the manual targeting to AI targeting and audiences, that we essentially lost our lead gen, our quality. Well, we didn't lose it, but the quality was down. The interested parties, the qualification factor sort of diminished. So we had to bail and try a different approach. But you're right, you know, we still continue to push organic, see what's engaging and then continue to push. Benjamin, like, there's been some real gold here for a lot of business owners, so thank you. Appreciate that. My last question that I ask everybody is if you had to go back to 2007 when you started and give yourself one piece of advice that would, you know, go the furthest way right now, what would that be that you would give yourself?

Go faster. Don't be scared. I think with my own company, I think it was maybe eight years back that I just said, hey, what do I have to lose? And then now we have offices in every major metropolitan city across America and we have amazing staffers and the next generation of people. Don't be scared, just really look at it. What do I have to lose? And take the risk. You are the best thing that you can bet on. You are the best horse that you can bet on because you can control and you can push. So bet on yourself. Bet heavy on yourself because you will win if you keep pushing. And that's the only thing you really can control.

I love that. Great advice. Couldn't agree more. And then be resilient, right? To maybe add onto that, you know, like, it's not going to be a smooth road. You're going to bet on yourself and it's not going to always be a winning race, but that's okay. You got to learn to be resilient, learn to understand how you can face adversity and continue to push through it because there's going to be more there, especially if you double down on yourself, which I couldn't agree more, is something that we need to do. Benjamin, thank you, my friend. I appreciate you. This was a great conversation. How could anybody find you? Obviously, you know, you're gonna. If we put in Branding Los Angeles, I'm imagining the first two pages of Google are gonna find you everywhere and everything about you, but any specific channels or locations that you would send people

to, you nailed it, man. Branding Los Angeles. The one ask I have is if you see us giving back, if you see us doing any community events, contact us. We do backpack drives like yourself. We do our toy drive at the end of the year and we are in California, Texas, New York, Hawaii, Florida. We have a big footprint. We have staffers in every single city and we do toy drives and backpack drives in every single city that we're in. So reach out to us. I'm easy to get a hold of. I make it a point to be accessible to people. As busy as I am, whatever it is, I always make sure I'm accessible to people. So reach out. If there's something I can help you with, I'd love to be able to do so. And one of my biggest loves is helping others. And the more we can help, the more I get comes back into my own life. So feel free to reach out.

Awesome. Love this, guys. Thank you for joining today. This has been the Wealthy Entrepreneur podcast. I'm your host, Bob Goverau. It's been a pleasure to have you here. Listen, we're here to empower business owners with the financial information they need to be successful so that together, as entrepreneurs, we can make positive changes in the world. I know there's been a lot of gold that's been shared today. If there's information here that you think one of your colleagues, one of your friends, a fellow business owner would benefit from, please share this out. We're just trying to get this free message out and add value to business owners. If you have any questions, comments, please leave them in here. Our team will respond, get back to you and for sure, we're going to leave the link for Benjamin's contact information and everything that we can to help support him and his mission on on giving back as well. So for everyone who's joined today, thank you very much. Once again, this is a wealthy entrepreneur podcast. We look forward to seeing you again next week.