The Power of Brand with Ryan Kettering

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to Contractor Radio. I am your host, Jim Johnson, the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, where we help contractors get control of their business so they can grow their business and achieve that personal and financial freedom they were chasing when they started their business. And today I'm talking with somebody about something that I'm super passionate about, which is branding and what that might mean to you, how important it can be, what it actually does for your business and truly understanding it from a strategic standpoint. And I'm excited to have a conversation with our guest today because I got to see some of his work and it is off the charts. And so we're going to get to learn a lot today. I hope to help you guys with your own branding and maybe get some of the ideas down from a strategic standpoint to get better at that, to create something that people want to be a part of. But before we do that, we're going to take just a second here to hear a little bit from one of our sponsors. We got to keep the lights on and pay the bills and all that good fun stuff. So a little bit from signpost.

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Just want to say thanks to the folks over at Signpost for being a sponsor, supporter of the show and great friends. If you are looking for a better way to engage your clients and stay in contact with them throughout the process and create a customer experience unlike any other. Go check out Signpost today and part of that whole experience is a bit of our branding and all these things in marketing got to get tied together. Like marketing can be a bit confusing with everything that goes on. We got our digital marketing, we've got our print marketing, we've got all of the stuff that we do from a outreach perspective, an incoming perspective, client experience, raving fans. You hear all the different things that are going on out there and we're going to try and wrap our head around a little bit of that today with the owner of Prolific Brand Design, Ryan Kettering. Ryan Kettering, welcome aboard today. Good to have you.

Hey Jim, thanks, man. How are you doing?

I am doing fantastic. And so funny story, most of the people I interview, I kind of know, at least I've met a couple of times. And you're different. I haven't met you before, but I've gotten into this habit of asking. My previous podcast was like, hey, if I was going to interview one person that, you know, they're like, hey, put this person on and he would be valuable to our community. They give me somebody. And I interviewed Jim Allen from Roofer Marketers, and I asked him that question. He's like, dude, absolutely. Ryan Kettering. Gotta have that guy. So glad to have you today. You and I went back and forth Facebook messaging quite a bit. And so tell everybody kind of just how you got here. You've got this prolific brand design business, but how did you get into it and what made this the thing that you're passionate about?

Yeah, so, you know, I mean, when I was younger, I was really into graphics and art and these sorts of things. But at 13, I had my first job in a home service business. And so as I was getting graduating high school and that I just really understand a way to. I was, I had this starving artist kind of, you know, cloud bubble vision in my head of like, what my life would be if I went that direction. And so, you know, I did what I knew how to do, which was I actually started a home service business, ran that for about 10 years. And as I was just working on my own branding and really that was like my crash course and really understanding how to run a company. And, you know, I went through all the steps that everyone does, like where we. First, we are like, okay, I got my site and my phone number. And you're like, okay, the phone's not ringing. I'm not getting customers. And then you start to think about sales and then you realize, well, it doesn't matter what my closing rate is if I don't have any customers or leads. So then you start learning about market marketing. But eventually some people get to the point where they, they get to branding and they get to this point where, where they, they look around and they realize that everybody looks and talks and walks the same. You know, it's all the same. And so if you're in. In the same channel saying the same things, it's very difficult for some, a customer to understand why they would choose you over someone else. How to become the preferred, you know, brand in a, in a market. And, and so, you know, as I was working on my own stuff for for my home and just sharing that in some of those forums back before the Facebook group days, back in the old forum days. So I started to kind of do some things for people really, not as a business, but just kind of helping out. And I started to really understand that I had something special and something to offer. And it got to the point where I really needed to make a choice there and so I did. So 2015 went into this full time and just started on my own. And we've been, you know, building up since then and now we have six full time employees and we've worked with hundreds and hundreds of brands across the nation and several different verticals in the home. Home service space. And so yeah, that's kind of the, the short version.

So we got the right guy at the right time in the right place here because this is contractor radio. We work with a lot of home service trades guys and most of them we've, we found are good at kind of one of two things they're either really good at like the installing and it's kind of word of mouth type of thing. The experience was good, they did good work and the customer's happy, or they're good at sales. Like they can, they can actually sell and get business work product. It could be questionable every once in a while, but that's, that's like their extent of the knowledge of the business and we try to help them get the business part down. That's our job is to help them strategically position themselves in a way that they're no longer necessarily working for the business that they created, but they get to work on it. And this brand thing is a thing that we're really passionate about and so I want to bring the best of the best on. One of the guys I follow quite a bit, his name is Rory Vaden. He had this equation that just. It stuck in my head the second he said it. I was like. And I started thinking about. I lost sleep that night over it because I was like, that was pretty awesome. I like cool ideas like that. And his equation was your results times your reach equals your reputation. And then he finished it with or your brand. Right? And I went, that's pretty interesting. So my results. And he explained what it meant and, and the results weren't just how many sales you made. It was like what happened when you were there and what that experience was like and, and how many people were impacted by what you did combined with your reputation being something that is of character and value and ethics and whatever it may be for you Those, I'm sorry, your reach being this, hey, broad, like everybody knows who you are, equals, what people believe you are, right? And I was like, man, that is, that is pretty cool. And so I've talked to several people on brand and I kind of bring that up whenever I do. Does that ring true to you? Is there maybe some more insight that you would have from somebody that's doing that every day?

Yeah, you know, I think that that's absolutely right. I would give a little bit of more clarification on the word results though. You know, I think for me, and I'm not sure if this is the, his definition of it, but you know, I would say that I would look at that results portion of that equation. Results times reach the results is not just like, I did a job and this was the result. And not even just I did a job and this is what happened, the result of all the points within that job. But it's a result of any interaction with a client. So that could be from the first time they become aware that you exist. So that could be them passing you on the street and they see your vehicle. That could be they see your ad online or offline. That could be they were talking to a friend and they heard about your brand. Right? That's an interaction with your brand, even though you've not talked to them yet, you've not pitched them yet, you've not done any work for them yet. And so your brand's going to be that, that the sum of all of those interactions, positive or negative. You can have a negative brand image or positive one. We all have a brand, we all have a perception of our company. That said, it may not be strong in either direction and it also may not be what we intend it to be, regardless of the direction that is. And so, you know, I think understanding what a brand is from the get go is critical to actually working on your brand and doing what we call branding. And so, yeah, the brand, I would say is that is basically the sum of all the interactions that a person's had with you, even if you're not in those yourself. It could be talking with, again, a referral or something like this. And so it's what they say about you when you're, when you're not around, it's the way that they think and perceive your business. And so then therefore branding, essentially, if we're working on your brand, what that is, is it's our opportunity to control that dialogue, control that, that opinion, that, that perceived idea of what your company is. And what you're all about and who you are, it's. That's our opportunity to control that conversation. And if you can imagine if I could go into any market and control the perception of what my company is to that market, and it would be what they would think what I'm. What I'm saying to be absolutely true and agree with it and know it to be true, I mean, I could conquer any market, right? Absolutely. And so your brand is critical in being able to really excel to your potential. And so what we try to do is essentially do that, is to help people to get that brand lined up so that they can control that conversation and become the dominant player in their market like they should.

That's awesome. There's a lot to unpack there. I've got a billion questions now all of a sudden. So there was a bit of first impression there you mentioned, like, they went past you on the road and they drove past your van, they saw, you know, logo, what you do, a phone number, all those good things. And they didn't necessarily interact with you directly. They just interacted with what they saw. And then, you know, they may call in and there's customer service. So there's, there's some of that impression, what that is. And, and so that might not be the first impression, but it's the second one. Then all of them lining up as they go throughout this whole process. And the full experience and interaction with you in the end is. Would that be defined as your brand, like the end perception?

Yeah, well, not just the end, but at whatever point I'm at, you know, because the very first impression I have of your company and impression being the marketing sense and the, the regular sense of like, I, I'm having an impression about who you are, but every time I come in contact with your business at that point, I have some sort of idea of what I think now, you know, if you think about a situation, you maybe had a negative experience with a company many times at that very point, you're not going to have a good perception of that company's brand, but depending on what they do in the future, meaning, hey, manager comes in, fixes the situation, not only rectifies it, but, you know, identifies with your situation and actually leaves you feeling better than when you came in and even potentially better than if you didn't have the negative experience. Now you're back to having a positive impression of that company. And so I think it's wherever you're at in that process and the more of those positive touch points that we have. And the more on brand they are, the more that they really understand who we are, and they kind of can start to assume what's going to happen next. But the more of the positive ones we get, we build what's called brand equity. And that means that when we do have a negative point in an interaction, which hopefully doesn't happen at all, but we know. We know it will at times, and that allows us to kind of bounce back with that customer and them to give us that leeway to rectify the situation with them and these sorts of things. So, you know, I think. Yeah, you know, one more thing I want to mention is, you know, the. The more impressions you have, the more trust you're going to build. And that's regardless of whether you've really had an interaction, a meaningful interaction with that customer or not. A story that, that I tell people is like, you know, if you go to a coffee shop every single day and you see the same guy there every single day, and you have a laptop, let's just say it's like 1500 laptop, and you're sitting there working, plugging away at work. Well, one day you have to run to the bathroom. You decide, this day I'm not gonna unplug it and put in my bag and all this stuff and hang it on the rack in the stall. I'm gonna ask this dude, hey, would you mind watch. Keep an eye on my computer while I run off to the bathroom. Be right back. And he says, yeah, sure, whatever. Now why would you leave that thing with that dude? Well, you know, you don't even know his name, but you've seen him a bunch of times right now that he could. He could be a thief for all you know. But it doesn't matter because you trust him. Why? You know nothing about him. You. All you know is you've seen him a bunch of times, and familiarity builds trust. And so the more impressions you have, even if you really haven't had meaningful impressions yet, the sum of them can be meaningful and can actually make you the preferred vendor and somebody's mine even before they've really gotten too far. And then once your next more meaningful impressions actually move the needle with that client, you start to fulfill the promises that you're making in those preceding ones. That's where you can. You can make headway really fast with people.

So that is maybe one of the best explanations I've ever heard. We came at this thing whenever we started. I was telling you before we started the actual show, kind of like how I got into it, and it wasn't anything that was intended to be what it is today. But once I decide, okay, this is a business, we're going to treat it like one. I wanted to make sure that we positioned ourselves a certain way. And I wanted to be known as elite, extremely professional and high character in what we do. And, and with all of that, a bit of a sportsy feel to us, because I'm a coach, like, I've always been a coach. I coach sports teams, sales teams, you name it, and the basics are all there. Teach the fundamentals, work the skills, the game plan, execute and win. And so that whole vibe I wanted to capture and say, hey, this is who we are and what we're all about. Now, if you just look at my logo, you don't know that. You start to get a bit of an inkling because there's a little bit of a sportsy feel to it, but that's about it. But when you hear us talk, when you see us online, if you look into our core values, if you start to see this buildup of what, what we are and who we are and how we handle ourselves.

We kind of.

Look at that as what our brand is. And, and so we've done, like, the brand story exercises and all that other good, fun stuff. And, and, and what are your beliefs when it comes to that? Like, how does, how does a contractor, like, start to go, hey, this is the brand I want to build.

Yeah. So I think it's worth mentioning, like I said before, that, that everybody already has a brand new. And because a brand is the way that I would say the building blocks of a brand is your identity, your promise, and your experience. Now everybody already has an identity. They're already making some sort of promises, whether they're on brand or not, whether they're intentional or not. Right. But we're still making promises to our customers. And we already have an experience. Right. So we have all the components. But it doesn't mean that they've been intentionally built. They've. They've. They've been intentionally created from one point, which, which I call a fractal brand, where we're, we take. We're essentially starting at one point, we're building out from there so that everything is cohesive. And so, you know, but, but everybody has a brand already. So where you go from there, I would say, is a lot of times as people start looking into it and there's a lot of different books and everybody knows, like, mission statement, vision statement, and core promise, and you Know all these sort of things that you've heard and nobody really knows what to do with it all though, is the problem. And so I've, I've simplified things really. I like to start from a core belief and then build out from there. Go from one core belief, a lens in which we view the world. And I find this works really well for small businesses because, look, I haven't met one small business that has employees that remember every value of their company, okay? But if they can remember the core belief, the values are actually a toolbox to exercise the belief to be the type of company and the type of people that believe X. Right. And so then our value system allows us to just have sort of a tool system to say, hey, listen, this is how a company or a person would be if they believe X. And then from there you can make a purpose statement and a vision statement and mission, these sorts of things to, to more create a plan going forward on how you're going to exercise those things. But yeah, I mean, I think it starts with a core belief is what I would say. And then from there you can kind of build out.

So, so maybe we're on the right track here because we have one of the. Internally here at Contractor Coach Pro, we have a statement that we use all the time. If we care enough to willingly serve our client, they'll know that we love them. That's how simple it is. That's our core belief. Like, and the core values that are in there love serving, care. And so everything is built around that. If it's not those things, we don't do those things. If you're not loving them, if you're not caring for them, if you're not serving them, we just don't do it. We don't focus on numbers or how many people we help or any of that kind of stuff. Just do that first. Is that kind of what you're talking about or is that.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And if some people are, and this can all be confusing if, if somebody's not sort of, you know, really put a lot of research into this, but, you know, your, your, your identity is broken down into a few different things. Your story, belief, personality, appearance, your personality and their appearance that sports comes into play, but it doesn't at all clash with your belief. Right. And so you kind of build these pieces and, and then they sort of build on themselves and, and so, yeah, I love, like you have a lot of it sounds. You really understand how this stuff works. And to give another example of how that belief can really come out and create a lens for someone. One of my favorite examples is Chick Fil A. Chick Fil A. Their belief is really about servanthood and serving others. And, and it's one of the only fast food restaurants, you know, if not the only fast food restaurants, that across the board, every single one of them, you cannot go get your own drink at their restaurant. So you're, you're originally served the drink. If you need a refill, either somebody's going to come around and ask you if you'd like your beverage refreshed or you're going to go up to the counter, a special little, little corner counter they have and ask if you can have that. And somebody comes over really quickly to do that for you. But they've manufactured an experience that you cannot do. Self serve. Why? Because they're not about self serve. They're about serving others, not self serve. So that would go against their brand. And so it's a really simple but very clear way for us to kind of understand this. Like if we look through our brand lens and we look at every single touch point that we have with a client and we anticipate every single positive and negative thing that they could go through and we start to say, well, what would a brand like us, you know, what would we do looking through our brand lens? And that's where you can come up with some really unique things like that that no one else is going to do because it wouldn't be on brand for them. They would have never even thought about it.

Yeah, that is, you know, Chickfila, you brought that one up. And I think there's a, if you say them, a few things just come up right away. They're not open on Sunday.

Right.

And they, and because of that belief, this can be fairly polarizing too.

Right.

But they have conviction to the belief. Like it is who we are, this is what we're about. Regardless of the, the circumstances that it creates for us. We're not going to compromise that belief because we can make a buck or any of that other kind of stuff. So it's interesting because I think it attracts a certain type of person, their ideal client, but repels another kind of person that maybe not their ideal client. Do you find that often happening in branding?

I think if you have a good brand, then that many times will happen. It's because we just, we don't all care about the same things. But here's what happens is you end up, you end up going a lot further by having more die hard cheerleaders And I know people are thinking, well, dude, I have a home service business. But I mean, is chicken really that exciting too? I mean, so, but, so, but the point is, you know, having people, that just doesn't matter what kind of business you can have the most boring business in life. Okay, but you can still have people that really get behind you. When it's not about the gadget or the gizmo or the service. Right. It's not about that. That's the end thing that you end up doing. But every other person in your space does that. Right? If you have an invoice, the line items on your invoice are going to be the same as the next guy and the next guy. Okay? That's what's expected when you, when you come to a job site. But that's not why people recommend you, because that would be the same no matter what. And so people recommend you based on the things that are not written on the invoice. Right. And you know, so, so people can get behind your brand no matter what, because it's not about the brand. It's about you identifying with them, with who they are. And when you can identify with, with someone else is what you're talking about. There's certain beliefs that people can align with, but then others will say, well, that doesn't really align with me. You're going to have a more polarizing effect. But now your top 20 or 30% of people that are polarized in a positive direction are going to spread that your word a lot more than the others. And also what's good is that the bottom ones that are polarized in a negative way are going to talk about you as well. But guess what? Even though they're saying they don't agree with the things like you are in maybe Chick Fil A's example, there's, there's gonna be, they're gonna be talking to people that sometimes agree with them, but then half of the other ones aren't gonna agree with them and they're actually saying good things about you to those people. Right?

That's that old thing. There's no such thing as bad press, right?

Yeah, especially, you know, and, and, and that's. I think there is bad press, but.

Yeah, I think it comes to your brand.

But when it's on brand, I think that's, that's what, that's what people mean. There like is like, if it's on brand, then it can't be a bad thing. Right. And that's why, you know, for instance, you Know when, when Tesla, when, when he broke those, the, the, the, the, the glass on the car, the, the Tesla truck. I mean, it was that bad pr. Well, I mean, if, if you look through their brand lens, I mean, I don't really think it is. They tend to roll things out a little bit faster than normal. It's still a prototype, you know, and so it was a way for them. Do you, do I believe it's manufactured? I don't want to get in trouble by saying which way, but I mean, it could have certainly been right. But I don't think it was a bad thing. And, and they do a lot of stuff like that. I mean, if you look at, you know, for instance, they, Tesla gave out the patents and freely and said, hey, listen, whoever, you know, GM or whoever, you guys can use our patents for our batteries from Tesla. And they said, if you, if you guys want to use these, we are not going to come at you with, with any legal action. Now, people that have patents, like, that's the thing, right? If you have a good idea and you can patent it there, you, you won't, you don't want to let that patent go from. If you're dead in the grave, like, you want to be holding on to that thing. Right. And so for them to do the exact opposite is totally crazy. Gets a ton of pr, but guess what? It's also on brand. And that's why they did it.

You see, they believe and it actually falls in line with like, have you ever read the book Art of War? Are you familiar with that book?

Yeah.

And so Sun Tzu in that book, he said, he says, I can tell everybody in the world my tactics. Right. This is how we do it. Exactly. Here you go. Here's my patent. Right. But they'll never understand the strategy behind it. And I did not know that about Tesla. That is pretty wild. I don't pay too much attention to that stuff. I'm kind of focused in my own little world over here. Yeah, that, that's, that's super cool. So, all right, core belief, right? Get that down. And that's step one is get that. Understood. What do you do with that? From this fractal branding aspect, like, where do you go from there?

Yeah. So just to kind of backstep one just a bit. People are probably wondering, like, they're probably thinking, well, Jim. Yeah. I don't know what my core belief is. Right. You know what I mean? So, so I'm just going to give you a couple tips real quick there. And this is tough because essentially most people need a mirror to understand who they are. Okay. In order for me to understand what I look like in the morning, I need a mirror. And it's the same case many times, if not most of the time, with understand standing this inside stuff. And that mirror is generally going to be two things. People that are close, close and understand you, and also advisors that are uniquely equipped to essentially be that mirror and seek to understand you in the context of the goals that you're trying to, to accomplish. But there's a couple things I would recommend in way of looking at this the easiest way. And this is still going to be tough, tough for people because, because there's not somebody I can't be here to field questions and all that in response to the people thinking this. But there's a question that I really like to use, and it's basically in culture today. What are good people like at their worst and at their best? And if we can try to understand in my mind what, what, what is wrong basically what's wrong with the world? Like, if, if, if everything, if culture, if culture could just have this, if people could just have this, they would be at their best or flip it around. When people are at their worst, it's because they're missing this, right? And so, you know, in Chick Fil A's example, it's that people, people are missing service. They're not, they're, they're selfish, they're, they're not coming with a serving attitude. And if we could just add that back into the world, it'd make a huge difference in how we operate as a society. And so when you look through that lens, that's how I come up with. It's one of the main questions that, you know, we go through several of them. But it's what, what do I believe needs to be added back in the world? And then when your company is about doing that, I mean, that's how you, that can drive you to get up when things are bad and when things are good, you're going to keep pushing because you want to keep spreading that message, you know, so that's, that's the belief, that's how you get there. And I know that was a really kind of short way and some people may need.

We talk about that with our clients too. And we challenge, like, they'll, we'll get to this purpose or core belief thought process. Right?

Yeah.

And then I'll challenge them like, okay, so that thing you just told me, does that get you excited to get out of Bed every day. Like, seriously, like, you're going to change the world, you're going to change the way things operate. You're going to change the, the experience for your clients, for your people so much because you believe in that that it gets you excited to get out bed every day. And I get a lot of silent answers back, right? We go back to the drawing board. But once we get that core figured out, things start to get really easy. Do you find that too?

Yeah, I mean, I think most especially, you know, blue collar guys, it's, it's, you know, you don't, you don't start business thinking like, well, you know, how do I feel about the world and how am I gonna change?

How do I feel about anything, right?

You know, and you kind of, you're like, dude, I'm just trying to make money. I'm trying to go to work, I'm trying to feed my kids. I got some other employees, I need to make sure their kids are, you know, fed and all this. But here's the thing, is that if you don't have that, when things get rough, you're gonna pack it up. Because if it's just about money, okay, then what I'm gonna do is when things, okay, if you take, for instance, stocks, when, if your stock is going up and then, and then it starts to go down, at some point, things went up a lot and they kind of came back down a little bit. It might be a good time to get out of that and look for a different vehicle. Right? And that's what happens in business. If you have nothing else attached to it than money, you're gonna say, well, we had a good ride, but it's starting to go down and therefore I'm out. Or again, same same type of thing with investments with, you know, stocks. You go really high and it may not even stop. Start going down. But because things are really high, you say, you know what? I can kind of sit back, I can kick back. I don't have to push forward. I don't have to look at, at other options here. I don't have to pay attention to this because everything's good. And so you don't push on. And guess what? Things aren't so good when you start to take your eye off the ball, right? And so, you know, I think it's, it's. I think people need to realize that most of us do have those things, even if we haven't clarified and defined them yet. Otherwise, we just pack it up every time things got hard, okay? And if you're saying, well, I wouldn't do that because X, like, you're already thinking about your beliefs, right? You're already thinking about your actual kind of belief and system. So why not just define and clarify those things so that we can actually double down on them and use them to their full extent instead of just being this background thing that we only sort of lean on when it's absolutely necessary. Why not double down, be more of you so that you can take full advantage? Entrepreneurship is. If there's one word in entrepreneurship that is more critical than anything else, to me, it's leverage. Right? And why just say, well, I have a thing that, you know, we can. We'll lean on it when we'll use it on a rainy day. Leverage, fully leverage, everything you have, and you'll get the best result you can from that.

So you brought up something that I want to talk about. You kind of were, I don't know, dancing around it a little bit, but I think I know what you're talking about. I want to. Want to ask you for some clarity.

I gotta.

I gotta pay the bills here for just a second, if you don't mind. We're gonna hear a little word from Atlas, and we'll come right back. Is that okay with you, Ryan?

You got it. All right.

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Atlas has on the shingles to know.

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Streaks caused by algae.

I think the Scotchgard is an important part of it, literally putting their science into the product. It eliminates all streaking on the roofs. Everyone knows Scotchgard, so it gives it some legitimacy when we go into a home to sell a roof. You know, the Scotchgard brandings on our samples or on our literature, I mean, it is recognized. Homeowners can't tell you what kind of brand of shingle that they have, but.

They can tell you that it has.

Scotchgard husbands, but most importantly, wives. The women know Scotchgard. You go into that house and you.

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Hey, you got Scotchgard on your first.

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It definitely builds credibility as well. When we present an Atlas shingle to a customer and we tell them that this has a Scottsgard Warranty backed by 3M. The trust is there. We feel more confident that they feel confident in us that we're giving them a product that's going to last for the life of the roof. You're not only selling the color, then you're selling the long lasting color and it lasts for a lifetime.

Sold. Done deal.

If I could put on all Atlas products and avoid any type of streaking and drive by that roof 10 years from now and it looks like, like the day we put it on, that's what I'm looking for. That's the peace of mind I want to give my customers. It's just an easy sell. So I knew about that commercial. It was big on the whole brand, right, Scotch Cart brand and stuff like that. And I thought, what a great time. So did you notice anything, like they weren't even talking about Atlas or the actual companies, like the component that was in it that everybody else knew.

I hope 3M gave them some money for that thing.

Like they, they are like, something tells.

Me there was a co op there. I mean, dude, 3M is, I mean they've done an amazing job. I mean they, they have tape, they have coatings, you know, protections, they have vinyl. And like people just, yeah, I mean they're, they're really known for that durability. And it's, you know, we do a lot with wraps. Yeah, we do a lot with, you know, vehicle wraps. And I mean, you know, I don't want to bash other brands but like there's other brands and like people like I want the 3M, you know, I want, you know, we don't, we don't do, we don't do the actual rapping, but we deal with a lot of rap companies because we do design. But yeah, I mean it's there, it's a great, great company. And yeah, I would say, like you said, the 3M really got the brand coverage there more, didn't they?

Yeah, they, they got that far figured out. So you, you were touching on something and it wasn't something I was planning on even talking about today, but, but we were talking about this core belief and you hear all the time nowadays that the younger generations aren't as hungry as we were. They don't have the drive. Right. And you're actually talking about those things. Passion, like we term those things as something different nowadays. I think passion, purpose, our. Why you hear that kind of thing all the time. But if you're not like feeling driven to go do something every day, I don't think you're following what your purpose is or that core belief. Is that kind of what you were touching at?

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's a really complex thing. We're not going to break it all down here. There's a, there's a book called Unscripted. He talks about an FU moment or F. Not fu. FU ftef. This event where, you know, you, you, you, you go from this and you're like, I'm done. Like I'm sick and tired. Like I'm gonna make a change. And, and you know, many times we have to hit a particular type. We have to hit some type of rock bottom, even if it's, it's a relative rock bottom. Right. It's not the same for everybody but in order to sort of really have the resolve to then, you know, push forward. So it's a really complex thing because part of getting on the right path, I think for many of us is actually kind of falling off path and then. But yeah, I think once you. It's all about like, basically I think we have this inherent thing inside of us where we, we know, it's like more of like a compass. We know when we're kind of going the wrong direction. And, and I always tell people like there's never. People get scared about like, oh man, well, now I'm understanding this stuff. And like, I think we've been ha. I think we need to, you know, get this stuff in place with the fundamentals. I think we might need to change our name. We might need to change. This is a lot. And they're like, they get scared because it might be a lot of work. And I always tell people there's never a wrong time. There's not never a wrong time to go in the right direction. Right. Because if you keep going in the wrong direction, you're going to have to trip. You know, it's even more steps back to get back on path. So you may as well start changing things when you understand what that is. And part of understanding is, unfortunately, at least in my life, part of understanding is going and doing the wrong things sometimes to understand what doesn't work and what, you know, understand more about yourself and. But yeah, so I mean, I think whatever you, as you go through the, you know, different exercises, it could be with our company and we, we do offer strategy sessions outside of just like the full branding things. But you know, if you work with someone who understands this stuff, they can be that good mirror for you to help you to understand exactly who you are and, and bring Clarity and definition around your. Your. What's important to you and also what differentiates you in the market nowadays, everybody does the same stuff. The end thing is the same. So it's really about how and why we do those things. Right. You talked about the book Start with why, and he talks about that as well. And what we try to do is kind of bring a little bit more structure and information and clarity around this stuff, because people read that book like, Start with why by Simon Sinek, which is an amazing book, but they leave that and say, I know my why. It's my family. Well, your. Your family's a who. Okay. It's not a why. You know, and, and if it was your family, then it'd be. Your job would be interchangeable. Right. And, you know, you wouldn't have to do your company anymore. And, you know, people look for easy answers most of the time. And so that's where, you know, again, having, having a team, you know, some, you know, your, Your, your. Your key team members or some other people to help you to keep pushing for. For deeper questions, not settling for easy questions and easy answers that can really help you get to good places, you know, because it's not. If you know like that, you probably don't know. Like, you really have to kind of wrestle with this stuff a bit.

Yeah, it's actually one of our challenges. One of the most frustrating things I think we deal with is I don't think people want to think. Not as much as they need to, not as much as they should. They would rather have a silver bullet giving the answers. I'll just go do it. But I cannot give you drive. I cannot give you purpose. I can't tell you what your why is. You're the only person that can. How I can help you get there.

Right.

That's our job. We walk through that and we listen. We're observant and we understand we're going to have a little bit of empathy as well. And, and we don't want to make you feel dumb, so we have to walk you down the path so that you come to the understanding on your own.

And.

But once you. Oh, it's like magic. It is. It's like magic. Once you figure it out. I'll never forget this guy. He. His whole business was, hey, I'm going to make. We're going to do this thing, we're going to make all this money, we're going to be $100 million, blah, blah, blah, right? And I'm like, why? And he's like, well, because I want to achieve this thing. I like the achievement and all that. And then he starts telling me this story about his kid, his. Actually his nephew. And his nephew's in, in the hospital. He's been diagnosed with terminal cancer. And he's trying to help this kid go through this. And it's really heart wrenching and difficult for him to deal with. And he goes to the doctor, he says, hey, doc, what's. I mean, what's going to make this kid's last few months tolerable? And he said, well, sometimes the family will bring in a pet, right? I'll bring in the pet, and that'll at least help them some joy as they go through this. And he's like, hey, kid doesn't have a pet. Can I get one for him? He's like, yeah. So he goes out and gets a golden retriever, brings it back, and the kid is just in tears. Happy, joyful man. You. You want to talk about a change in a person. He knew what he needed to do. He needed to go help other kids that were dealing with terminal cancer and other families. That's what his whole business is built around it. Like all of that is to. To serve these people in a way that nobody was noticing before. And his business has skyrocketed because of it without really being focused on, hey, how do I make my business bigger? It's been pretty wild to watch some of these things go. And he's got the whole golden fund and everything's like, all part of it now. It's all part of his belief. And they got a big gold retriever on, you know, on their vehicles and all this stuff that it's all about that, that which is really cool. And I don't know if he hit the nail on the head real well, but I know that it drives them.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, so let, let's assume we figure that out, right? Let's assume that we can get to that. And there's all kinds of exercises. You don't need me and you don't really need Ryan. There's all kinds of. You can hop on YouTube and start getting some of the exercises for that. But once we get to that and we're going to take that, we're going to do something with it. What are some of the first things that these contractors need to be thinking about? Because you said fractal brand, I don't.

Even know what that means.

Can you explain what that means?

Yeah, well, you know, a fractal is, you know, it's a, you Know, a geometric, you know, mathematical thing where basically it's like the, the next component, you know, mirrors the, the last one, right? And so like for instance, a snowflake is a fractal, a tree is a fractal. So we have, have the trunk and then the branches. But if you look closer at an individual branch, it kind of looks like a mini tree. And then you look in on a stem of that and it looks like another mini tree and you kind of just keep going down. Even on a leaf itself, it actually mirrors a tree, right. And so, you know, there's basically self replicating and, and so it becomes very easy to build a self replicating brand. Everybody, I think most people understand that they should have a cohesive brand, but it's a lot more difficult in practice. And I think the reason for that is not because we don't understand the concept or the benefits of a cohesive brand. It's because we don't have one starting place to go from a little off subject, but on subject is even within content because I know you're obviously in the content we're doing, creating some content right now. But most big idea people, big content people, they have one piece of content that, that ends up, you know, it gets broken down into more components, right? So you have a book in every talk, every video, every, you know, it's all leading in the same thing. And that's how most, most things in of that magnitude are built. I mean, even if you look at the Bible, it's, there's one idea and every story points to one idea. And so, you know, that's what a fractal is. And we can have that in our business by figuring out that core thing. And this is why I get it down to a core belief. You don't hear most people, you hear talk about values, purpose, mission, vision, and you have like sort of this whole tool set, right? And it becomes very complicated for people. But if I could just get you to get one thing right, right? And then, and then stem from there, you could actually operate without some of that stuff never even thinking about it, but you'd still be probably doing it. And so it kind of simplifies the process where I say, hey, start from one point and let's branch out from there just like a tree and you know, branch out from there and everything's going to be part of the whole.

It's funny that you say that because we, we don't do the traditional mission, right? Like you got, hey, this is my core belief. I'm Gonna go get this mission statement and all that other good. Our missions are more like military, right? Like, hey, we're gonna go do this this year. And these are the things we're gonna do, exactly how we're gonna do them. They're very laid out all wrapped around that core belief, right? Like, hey, that's all because of that. So that's pretty cool to hear you say that because I believe the same thing. I don't think you need all of that other stuff.

Right.

So we find our core belief when we say this is our thing. And then from that thing, everything we do from there is building off of it and mirroring it, replicating it. If I understand things correctly, from a practical standpoint, what would that look like?

Yeah, so your, your identity is going to be made of your story, which, like, you talked about, you had like kind of the coach deal and all that, right? Your belief, your personality and your appearance and the appearance from. We're not talking about your exact visual brand, like your logo and these. We're talking about like your brand might be sports theme, clean, maybe a little edgy at time, that sort of thing where it's really sort of like this broad strokes. But if you think about a person, it's just gonna. It's gonna be similar to like a brand. Like if I'm talking about an actual person, if I know their story, their beliefs, their personality, and I have an idea of what they're, what they appear to be like, not only can I kind of pick them out in the crowd, but I can kind of tell you what they do in any, any situation. Right. And what that does it means as a consumer, if we now look at the brand side, a consumer can pick you out in a crowd and they can pretty much know how you're going to act or how they would expect you to act in any given situation, positive or negative. So you can start to build trust by simply following what they would expect you to do. And you're not doing it because they expect you to. You're doing it because that's who you are. And they're expecting you to do that because that's who you are. So it's just all kind of comes together. But so basically I would say you're going to start to build out some of those other components, like understanding kind of the origin and story of the company. What do you guys like, the personality, what kind of how do you want to appear? And then that's where you can start to build out your visual branding and exact sort of voice things with like how's our copy on our website going to be and what is our one liners going to be and you know, these sorts of things, you can kind of get into the details at that point and start building it out. So once you have the foundation, that's where you're going to build from, you know, just like a house, you know. Yeah.

And you know, I catch myself on some of these things because we have a variety of brands. You know, we've got our contractor coach pro brand, we've got this contractor radio, we've got top rep and all of them have kind of their own separate feel. But if I, if I go back to my core belief that stuff is still underlying in each one of those and you can see it in each one of those without it being necessarily the visual representation of the logo itself.

Right.

That, that's super cool. So are you a believer in like the, the book brand story and stuff like that? Is that a good roadmap for people to follow to kind of get their story put together or you know, Story.

Brand by Donald Miller? Yeah, it's, yeah, I think that's, I mean that's probably in definitely my top 20, maybe even higher. But story brand is, is, is not going to help help you to fully build like the actual brand. It's really more about I think kind of understanding how to communicate as a whole to people and that, that the whole of our communication should, should be sort of a, put together the same way a story in a movie would. But I think that when you can combine that sort of thing with your unique brand. So hey, I understand how to generally tell a story. Like I'm the guide and I'm gonna guide our customer, the hero through this process. Here's, here's the bad thing you're going to deal with. Here's you know, how we're going to help you get through it and here's how you can get started and really simplifying communication when you can combine that with your unique brand, I think you can get some really special results and most people can do it. You know, the thing is that nowadays like, you know, most people just aren't clear at all. So I mean, so if you can just be simple and clear, it's, you've won half the battle. But if you can then become unique as well now you become, become untouchable. Right. Because like you talked about with Art of War, the reason why I can tell somebody my, my strategy and they can't replicate is because I, I would be actually throwing them off by telling them my strategy because they'll try to copy me, although they have their own strategies and stuff. Strategies in place. And this. I'm doubling down on one thing. And if they attempt to double down on more than one thing, they're going to fail. And so what happens is they either fail at my thing or they fail at their thing or they fail at both. Either way, I'm going to win because I'm going to be winning at my one thing. And so if you can just, you know, if you can have that clarity and then you can double down on, you know, I have a. We say all the time, it's just, just be more of you, right? If you can just double down on the things that make you you. That's what, that's what, that's your unique. Makes you unique. And if you can double down on that stuff, nobody else is going to double down because that's not them, you know, so double down on your stuff, your unique things, and you can get some massive results with that that no one else can feel like the universe.

Is talking to me. This is not the, the first of these that double down on being you and just do your one thing. You actually kind of put it in the book format too. Is like, Ryan, have you been paying a conversation, paying attention to the conversation I'm having over here with somebody else completely. So, yeah, it's. I'm getting advice like that from really great people that really understand brand, really understand marketing, really understand creating a following that is a community that's invested in you, aligned with you. That is amazing. I wasn't expecting to get there today, so I want to say thank you for that. You gave me a bit of clarity on some of my own stuff today. So I'm a contractor. I want to get clear and I struggle with that. I already know I struggle with it. You've probably had these in some of your strategy sessions with people like, I'm not creative. I, I don't think like that. Can you just think like that for what are some of the tips to get people through that? Is there, is there anything you got there?

Yeah, it's, it's really. And this is why it really is helpful to have somebody help you with it. And, you know, we can, I can certainly do it, but there's others that, you know, if you're listening, you know, you may be in Jim's, you know, program as well. And, you know, if you have some advisement, it can be very helpful. And the reason why is. Because, like you said, like, a lot of times we kind of, we kind of try to sidestep hard questions, all right? It's really, if you want to get to the good answers, you got to ask hard questions. You got to be willing to, to really not settle for easy answers, but keep, keep on it until you get the right, the right answers. And that's all you're doing, right? You're, you're, you're saying, well, listen, I don't, you know, most people say, well, what makes you different? What do you care? Well, we, you know, well, we want to help our customers. We want to do a great job. We want to be the best. We use the best equipment, we have the best guys, best training, best stuff. Best, best, best. And, you know, it's really the same thing as everyone else. And the thing is that I could, like, literally say this, and then if we were to be able to, like, bring a caller in right now that was, like, listening, you say, what makes you different? They'd say that exact same thing many times, and you'd be like, but, dude, like I just said, like, everybody says that, and they're, well, but in my market, and it's like, yeah, no, but.

I really do it. That's, that's what I know, but I really do.

Yeah, but we really do. Yeah. And so you have to be willing to say, like, like, like basically just set that all aside and be like, all right, what if, what if there was actually a better reason, a better under, you know, better answer here? Am I willing to keep pushing here and, and keep digging? And if so, if you set that kind of your beliefs right now on about, you know, who you are and, and what makes you different, kind of set that stuff aside, kind of be willing to dig further. Ask what, you know, there's a. I don't remember who came up with this, but you've probably heard of it because I know you're do a lot of reading, but, you know, it's the five whys. Like, first you ask why once, but then you're asked why again. You know, I talked to a pest control guy yesterday, and he's like, well, you know, if we go out and do a, you know, trying to get rid of ants, I mean, yeah, we can go there and just kill the ants. But he's like, the thing is that why are the ants there? So if we just kill the ants, they're probably going to come back, so we need to ask, why are they there and why is X happening? You keep Going back until you really, truly understand, you know, the fullness of what the situation is. And now you can come up with some really great things to help people. And so that's the same with your brand. Like, I think most people just haven't dug far enough, and they come up with these kind of superficial answers, and they just stick with them like it's the best they can do. And it's just not. Every single person is unique. Every single person has some really special things that they bring to the table and bring to their market. And if you're not willing to dig for those, like, you're really doing yourself and the entire market and people that you serve, you're doing them a disservice. And so if you're really kind of at this. That superficial level and you feel like you're just the same as everybody else, I can guarantee you, you are not. You just haven't dug far enough yet.

Boy, that's a strong advice right there, Ryan. People want easy answers, and they're attracted to it. Them, they're like lightning. What's the easiest path to get from A to Z? And that's where I'm going to go. And it's really the hardest path. They don't understand it. They've created things. So if they would take the time to just think a little bit up front, be proactive, really get in touch with, like, what. And to say to a bunch of contractors, get in touch with yourself and figure out. They're like, whoa, dude, I don't do that. I don't want to listen to you anymore. That is a hard thing for some of them to hear and understand. But I think it's where we're headed. I think it's. I think we're coming to grips with it a little bit more, and people are being more open to that idea. Right. If somebody wanted to. To get a hold of you and Prolific Brand Design, what would they do? How do they. How they get a hold of you?

Yeah. So you can go to getprolific.com G E T the word prolific.com and that's our website. There's a. You can grab a free ebook on there. Kind of walk you through a checklist of. Of. Of how to put together your brand, from the fundamentals to the. The visuals. We have a bunch of examples of stuff we've done on there and, and.

Which I looked at rock solid, man. I was like, wow, thanks. These guys do. These guys do.

Really?

And that was just like my first impression.

Right.

I had this impression and talking about brand the way you got here, or Jim told me about you and said, hey, you need to talk. And so, boom, impression number one. Like, hey, he believes in him, so he must be halfway decent because I have respect for Jim. And so then I go and look up your website before I, like, reached out to you, and sure enough, really great work. Then I reached out to you through messenger and we had our first interaction. And you were on brand, right Instantly. Exactly what I was kind of expecting whenever I went to it. And now here today we're having this interaction, I'm like, yep, exactly what I like. A different level. It was a different level of understanding branding and the thought and time you put. I want to appreciate you for that. Really great job. So I have one more question for you. What's your core belief?

My core belief is that we have basically that people have a much larger potential and potential impact and that most of us either have kind of lost sight.