Ryan Berman - How Courageous Companies Build Well-Known Brands

When I had people working on a courageous idea, they would stay later, they would be happier, and it would also work. And every time I had someone working on like, well, the client picked the safe idea, they would. Couldn't wait till 5pm showed up.

It didn't work as well. And I had pissed off people.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustler Flow Shark podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf, Joe Fear. Welcome back.

What's happening?

Not much. Just having good conversations.

Having a good conversation. Well, we just wrapped up a great one.

Well, no, he's on the line. We're about to have it.

Oh, okay. Well, okay. I'm like using my telepathic visions in my mind.

We're assuming it's gonna be a great one.

I'm gonna misspeak someone's name in this episode, and at least I'm told I did. I don't believe it.

You don't believe it? Well, we'll find out.

But today we have the one and only Mr. Ryan be. Yeah, yeah.

Pronounced Ryan.

Yes, yes, Pronounced Ryan. Yeah, it's one of those names that, you know, it's really difficult to remember. Ryan Berman is absolutely amazing. He's actually in a mastermind locally with me. And I soon realized that this guy is. He's got his hands in a lot of big brands that we are all aware of, and he's, he's just the mastermind behind a lot of interesting things. He's writing books for big name celebrities. It's just he's doing a lot. He speaks everywhere. He's the founder of courageous. Over 20 years of basically thinking of these wild ideas, branding and creating them into reality.

Yeah, dude. He's worked with companies like Google, Snapchat, Snapchat, Kellogg's, Hilton, Major League Baseball, Charity, Water, Subway, and More Funner California also being one of them that you'll hear quite a bit about on this episode.

Yeah. And definitely, I would say the easiest and best way. I just want to give a shout out to his book. We'll talk about it. But ReturnOnCourage.com you want to grab his book because that's basically all of his thinking around branding and this courageous brand that he's created. We're going to talk and navigate this whole what that means and how you can apply the same for your biz.

And we are taking an action guide on this episode. So if you go to flowchartgroup.com, you'll be able to join our Facebook group and in the process of joining the Facebook group, you'll have instructions on how to get the action guide. So go to flowchart group.com and grab that because you're going to want it.

Let's go back to Ryan and this episode is sponsored by our friends at Vidyard who make it very, very simple to create videos either one on one or maybe it's one too many like posting it on your website for the world. But this is how you connect with people these days, so they make it easy. Vidyard makes it so dang easy to create the videos, post them ad free and then share them with whoever you want and you can actually track their performance easily in the back end. It's built for businesses with the robust analytics, tons of integr with other tools and ways to customize this. So this is super cool. If you want to, you know, bring in interactive video elements, personalized videos, you can even use them in places for so they could be your marketing videos. Embed them in email campaigns, on landing pages, on blog posts and just generate more leads and more sales ready folks that come into your pipeline. You can even use it for your customers. We do that all the time as well. The beautiful thing is that people love personalization and when you're using these video it's, it's a wow factor. I mean we get responses all the time when we use these types of videos for folks. It's an unexpected thing and this is what's going to really get you to stand out in this day and age when people really want to see people like this. So Vidyard is making it super easy and they are hooking you up Hustle and Flowchart listeners with a free account. You can try it right now and we have a special URL you can get hooked up with that special deal if you go to vidyard.com flow that's V I-Y-A-R-D.com flow and they will hook you up. There's no promo codes, none of that stuff. Just go to vidyard.com flow, grab an account for free and also grab their video guide. They actually have some tips and tricks on how to implement this stuff and get some ideas for your business. It's called A21 or Sorry 2021 B2B Video Trends Guide. So it's totally free@vidyard.com flow Mr. Berman, we're live. It's great to have you here. How are you?

Wait, we're. We're live?

I mean not are we on Facebook Live.

You guys did not tell me, didn't warn you.

Ha ha.

I don't know. I feel more important with this show. When I say we're live, he likes.

To think we're broadcasting over, like, Sirius XM or something.

One day. One day. Don't we all?

He's like, I'm.

I'm in my.

My Zoom. My Zoom garb, not wearing pants. Guys, I did not know we were.

Live, but the state has opened up, my friend. Now wander with pants on. But why would you. It's hot outside, by the way. Why?

Why? If we're open, like, 85% are still wearing masks.

Have you noticed that I have been out very little? I did go to the zoo yesterday, and there were not a lot of masks there. I will warn you there, so the.

Animals don't have to wear masks.

The people orangutan was a little confused. He was still wearing his homemade one.

The real test will be tonight's Padre game, which is they're calling it the. The home opener. Even though it's halfway through the season already. They're calling it the home opener because they're filling the crowds, right? It's going to be full capacity. So that'll be the real test to see how scared people are right now.

True to.

I thought they were calling it the home opener because they lost seven in a row.

We've been starting to talk about Padres a lot more in this podcast.

Yeah, it's not Padres podcast, but it does come up a lot because it's something that we tend to be passionate about.

Yeah. All right, so you and I, we met in a local mastermind here. I think it's, like, very, very creatively named the San Diego Mastermind. I think it is.

But by your brother. Not a brother. Eric Berman definitely had that confused for, like, multiple sessions. And you're like, bro, we're not related.

Yeah. Every time you mention the names, I just assume that for the longest time, I assumed you guys were brothers, because aren't you both in the master. You're both in the same mastermind, right?

Same mastermind. Yeah. And again, there's the theme of today, right? Like, hey, branding's about getting clear, and we're confusing. And I'm like, yeah, he's my brother.

It's fine. Let him think it.

Yeah, man. But we talked for so long, and it's really cool to have your experience in that mastermind and your perspective. You've helped us out on the pod hacker side of things, our new brand, so thank you for that. But you have this branding, you know, you come with a different perspective than a lot of the marketers. In this mastermind, you're always like, hey, I'm the branding guy over here. You know, which I'm like, I like that. I like that because, like, I feel like that's where my heart always kind of was and is. But then, you know, some of this nerdy marketing stuff kind of gets in the mix, and it's helpful too, right?

Yeah, that's why. It's. Why it works, though. You know, I mean, and yeah, like, I. I think the first time we met, the very first one I was at, I'm like, guys, I am. I am not a funnel guy. I'm. I'm a funner guy. Like, we came up with funnel California. Like, that's what we. That's what we do. And I think, look, you know, maybe this is a good kickoff point. You know, we're.

We're.

We're living in this media obese time right now, right, where we're. We're inundated with, I think it's like 7,000 messages a day.

Yeah.

And the problem is when we work on the little. Our eight to 12 hours a day, we aren't thinking contextually, we aren't thinking about what happens when you drop this idea in with the rest of the world. We just assume, well, of course you're going to see it.

Right?

It's so important. I've been working on this forever, and the world could give a shit how long you've worked on something. They just see it or they don't. And, and so there's so much competition right now. It's why brand is so important.

Well, dude, you said funner. And before I knew you, I was seeing the billboards all around San Diego.

The videos with David Hasselhoff.

Yeah, he. Yeah, Hasselhoff has been in there.

We call him Mayor Hoff, is what.

We call Mayor Gotcha.

I mean, that guy, man, his name still comes up. It's insane. But, yeah, like, these billboards are still, like, burned in my mind. And that was you. That was you.

And say, that was our team. That was our team. It's a full team behind it. And I mean, by the way, so I got to give props. So Austin Lane, a guy named Scojo were the rock stars that really came up with funner. And, you know, you talk about what am I really. I really see myself as like a creative business guy. Like, I think most business people probably under index on creativity. They don't really understand what creativity can do for your business. I think, sadly, most creatives really don't understand business or really the impact that they have to the bottom line. And you guys know this. Like, without emotion, you're not moving anyone. You're not. There's no behavior change. I always like to say, no feel, no deal. And so funner. Funner was like, you just can't help but smile when you see that work. And like, what is this? Is that a word? And we're like. We always say, it's not a word. It' place. And so that's the beauty of Funner, California.

It's like a place in your mind. Like, as a kid, you're like, I just remember. I'm like, yeah, my dad. Like, that's not a word. I'm like. But as a kid, I'm like, it's funner over here, man.

It's also a place up in Paula. Paula, California. It's a Harris Harrah.

Yeah, exactly.

Now.

Now it is a place. It's an actual place.

Funner, California. There you go. Yeah, man. So, I mean, so you're getting things seen. It's memorable. It's a place. You're creating all these kind of. I mean, you just have a different perspective. It seems like when you approach things and you said team, you're very much of a team, a collaborative kind of guy. I know you're working on some projects right now that you can speak about, maybe if you want to, but it's not the Eric Berman show, but you're collaborating on someone else's vision. But it's also this thing of the heart from you. It feels like that's wrapped in everything you do.

Did you just call me Eric Berman? He did, right?

Did I? I might have.

Did I say Earth?

No freaking way I said that. Yeah, you did. This is.

You did.

And now this is the part where you have to now do the.

Back and be like, all right, Jacob, if.

You'Re listening to this, edit it so we could hear if Joe did that or not.

If I did, I deserve a slap.

It's not the Eric Berman Show.

And now we're back live. There we go. So, yeah, I mean, to me, look, I'm 45 years old. Like, I'm not perfect. Someone once said, it takes you 40 years to figure out who you are in the next 40 to be that person. And I haven't always been team, team, team. There's definitely been times in my career where, like, I think I'm talented. I want a Shot. I want to get an opportunity. I want to be seen. And now it's like, you know, it's like, I always want what's best. Like, the best work. I just think the best work works. And so when you. When you run into talented people like that team that I mentioned, it's like, you got to give them love. You know, you want people to know, like, this wasn't the Ryan Berman show, not the Eric Berman show, the Ryan Berman show. It was other people that. And you want to empower their ideas, too. And I will say this. I mean, what a surprise when your company is called courageous. Like, one of the first things out of my mouth always is, courageous ideas are the only ones that matter. And, you know, again, if it's not a courageous idea, you're going to. You're going to run into problems. And where that came from, honestly, was just like looking at our own team. And I'm like, wow, when I had people working on a courageous idea, they would stay later, they would be happier, and it would also work. And every time I had someone working on, like, well, the client picked the safe idea. They would. Couldn't wait till 5pm showed up.

It didn't work as well, and I had pissed off people. And so even with my first book return on Courage, it kind of came from that premise that. Wait a minute. Why is it that. What is everybody really afraid of with the courageous idea? And also, like, wow, I'm wasting a lot of time. Like, we would present three ideas to clients. We would. We knew what we were doing. Like, we'd have, like, the safe idea. It's like walking the plank. Like, the safe idea, the middle. And then. Okay, yeah. And anytime we had a client, like, pacing with sweaty palms, we're like, that's the one you want to buy.

Interesting. Can you, like, in. Would you, like. Could you tell that during the conversation? Like, okay, they're getting a little antsy here.

Yeah.

And.

And I think the courage on our side, on the service side, is to acknowledge that. Right. So there's so many things that has to go right to get a courageous idea out in the world. Like, somehow someone has to think of it. Then everybody has to get egos out of the way because everyone wants to touch it. And like, 1%, 1%. And it's like, well, now it's not as good. Then the client has to actually see it. And then they're like, oh, shit, can I present this to the CEO? Am I going to get fired? Then you got to pick the right execution Partner to actually bring it to life. So, like, there's so many places where a courageous idea, just the little, little things.

Can die, you know, it's not as good. And so the minute you can be honest with your client and be like, all right, let's. That's. This is the one you want out. Look, what's the stuff that you love? What's the stuff that you remember? Right.

Yeah.

It's not the first time you see an ad. Like, when you see an ad the ninth time, if you're actually still acknowledging it. Like when Michael B. Jordan plays Alexa.

Yeah.

And it's the ninth time you've seen it and you're still smiling. You're like, yeah, that was probably an ad. When someone was pacing in a room, not sure if that's the one they should go with.

Well, the funner California ad that we spent the first five minutes talking about on this episode, I mean, how. How old of an idea is that? How. When was the genesis of that?

Yeah, I'd say so again, if you strategically follow how we got there, it's pretty cool to see. You know, we. We always. You know, we always. So first what happened was, was. So we're talking about Harris. We're talking about Harris Southern California Casino and the casino. And they were about. I'd say now it's probably seven years. Wow. Seven, eight years ago, they received what's called resort status. Okay. So they weren't. Now they could rebrand as Harris Resort, not just casino.

Yeah.

So the new news back then is, hey, Lazy river swim up Bar.

Right?

This. This is. I want to go there.

Yeah.

Our strategy was Palm Vegas.

Palm Vegas.

Right Between.

Yeah, right.

It was like Palm Springs meets Las Vegas. Right. It was right between LA and Vegas. And so that was like, well, how do we. How do we actually. And you guys know this. We're lazy in San Diego. We don't like to do things.

I'm wearing sand right now.

I'm not wearing shoes at all.

I love that we've, like, we've had no pants, no shoes.

It's true.

So how do you actually make a lazy group of people drive 50 minutes? It's like, to a pool.

They probably already have a pool in their backyard. So it's like, right.

The ocean's right there. And so, like, that's not an easy thing to short circuit somebody and create that much desirability that they want to go. So the first. The first few years, it's like, okay, resort. The actual line was your first resort for fun. So Instead of the last resort, this is your first resort. And obviously we met the double entendre and we launched your first resort for fun. And you might remember we launched Dive Dave Dive Day Club on Saturdays. So we made it like a bring out the pool party. Make it desirable, make it cool. And so the whole first part of the campaign, it's like, you know, we can't jump directly to Funner. Let's just start to establish fun. Let's. As a destination, as a resort. And as that started to work, the second part of the campaign was like, wait a minute. We've always said it's a destination. Well, let's make it a real city and Funner itself. It's the, the actual property, because it's on native land, is. It's, it's. You can. You have some different rules that you can play by. So we could legally change the property boundaries to Funner California.

No kidding. I didn't know that.

Does it have like, its own zip code and everything? I.

You know what? I don't know if it has its own zip code. I think it does. I really do. I could be getting this wrong. But that's, that's why do it. When you Google Funner California, it pops up. We have those green signs that say, like, funner 11 miles, dude.

Literally a weather report in front of California.

I just put in Funner ca and Google and it kicked out. What's. What's the weather like? Funner California weather. Mayor, map commercial.

Well, that's, that's why I said Mayor. Mayor Hoff, because if you're going to have a city, you need a mayor. And so Mayor Hoff, of course, had a he piece at the first rule he's got. Gives out keys to the city and now they're on to.

Yeah, that's funny.

So it's. And by the way, you know, when, when you go back to, not only has it worked for the business, but like, think about, like, if you work there.

Yeah.

The, the attrition's lower because, you know, people like, yeah, how awesome is it that you. To work for Funner? And, and then what it also does is, you know, you know what, what isn't Funner a pit boss with his arms crossed trying to take your money. So, like, then you have to think about how does Funner come to life in all the different touch points? And to me, that is brand. Right? If we say the decision making is very easy, if it's Funner, you do it. If it isn't, you don't. And so you go to a casino and a guy's in a suit, and you feel like, well, that's not fun. Well, what are we wearing? Let's talk about the uniform that you should be wearing. Maybe it's like, Hawaiian shirts. Maybe it's something different. Let's think about it, like, burrows in a city. So this is all the stuff that goes into brand and, like, imagining a whole universe.

I'm so curious about, like, what the brainstorming sessions look like at your place. Or, like, I. I'm sure it's huge. Like. But, like, can you walk us through kind of some of the. I don't know, just how you do this or the constraints you look at the perspectives. It looks like you're kind of like flipping common perspectives that you see. Like, that the norm is just. Yeah. How does that look?

I mean, I think. I think that's what it is. You again, first of all, you have to.

I'm on the other side of a. It's sad because one of my good friends said it like, that everybody's creative. And I think that that's almost like everybody gets a trophy. And so I don't disagree that we all should be able to wonder. But, like, there's a definite craft, it's a muscle that's built over time where creativity, like, really flourishes from. And it's not creative for the sake of creativity. It's strategic, creative business ideas.

Yeah.

And so that's how. How we're looking at this. And so when you think about the branding and the creative process, it always starts with what we call a strategic brief. And it's just like, what it sounds. It's short and strategic. And then off of that, hopefully there's an insight there that we can run with. So for. For fun or California. Right. It's. It's a destination. Well, if it's a destination, maybe it's a real city, and that's one place we explore. And then down the rabbit hole you go again, a lot of this comes down to just pure trust with your client too. And do they know you have their best intentions? And again, go back to behavior change. So that's really what is. There's a strategy component to what we do, there's an ideation component to what we do, and then there's an execution component to what we do. And they're all very, very different parts of the process. I'm sure there's been great ideas we'll never know about because they just. The execution was so shitty.

Oh, yeah.

That it's just like, well, that could have been a funny idea. But you know, the money wasn't there. They didn't get like the casted it wrong or the the language is wrong or they tried to say everything at once. And I think it's like that's where the discipline with creativity really comes in on like what works on you and how do I just get you to the next part of the story?

And I think that's the beauty of marketing today is there's so many places where you could tell your story. Maybe you tell the first inning of your story. Since we talked about baseball already, the first inning could be a content piece on YouTube trying to get somebody laugh on social. But then you drive them into an experience that, you know, they pass go if they want to learn more. And then what's the next part of the experience in the next video or the next maybe website? That's the beauty of marketing today. And I think brand lives in all those arenas.

Yeah.

Now with your idea phase is that like you get a bunch of people into a room and there's no bad ideas. Just throw everything at the whiteboard. Or is it a collaborative process or people kind of individually going off, coming up with ideas and then bringing them to the table? What does that look like?

I'm more of the.

Mindset that committees like brainstorms, nobody commits in those committees. So I like little teams working separately and then coming back and sharing. So the brainstorm might be go away, go away three teams. Then come back and let's start putting stuff on the wall. And then. Okay, what do we think? We like this idea. We like this. What do we like about this idea? You know, we're not there yet, so there's almost like a maybe a vetting or a massaging. And in our business, there's, there's creative directors that are really good at like taking a B minus idea and turning into a B plus or an A minus idea turning into an A, which is really hard to do. You know, taking a C idea and making it into a B is not so bad. No, it's not. That's not that hard. But when you have like a. Well, that's. You're onto something and knowing when you're onto something and. Or like, hey, you know what? I don't think you're there. Like go back to the drawing board or keep pushing in this arena. That's actually somebody's job as a creative director to think through that.

That's interesting. Is there much input from. And I'm sure it's client by client basis, but, you know, with who you're working with, obviously, like you said, you kind of know, like, the spectrum of what you're able to do with them. But do you, like, input from a client or an outside source like that or is like, not.

It just depends. It just depends. And it depends on the assignment. You know, I'm working right now on. I'll give you a few examples. I'm working with Johnson and Johnson on a.

A.

It's a diversity equity inclusion program for in house. This is, this is the opposite of funner, right? For the outside world, it's like, hey, like, they want to be better as an organization, right? You've got a lot of people that, you know. Again, I think this is not just J and J. It's like there's this ivory tower syndrome for white privilege that exists. It's just real. It's, It's. It might not even be your fault. Like, we live in California, San Diego. I live in Encinitas. I'm like, I live in a bubble. In a bubble, in a bubble. You know, like, we're so far away from, from reality for certain people. And so when you're in the empathy business, how do you actually start to, like, help people step into the shoes of somebody very different than them? And I think that's really, again, we're back to, like, the goal of the exercises. You create stories that genuinely land that just for a second, help you escape your. Your life and see what the life. Life looks like through the eyes of somebody else. And, and I think that's where compassion comes from. And again, we're still back to like, did you. Did you make somebody move? Like, did they actually feel different or feel something from the work that they saw? So in a case like that.

It'S more like, hey, here are the stories we want to tell. Here's how they work together, right? So just like, almost like a Netflix arc, right? If we're telling this story with our first one, well, we just told that story. So how do we build on that? Let's tell a different note. And two, so at this point, it's less looking for them to be part of the creative process, and they're keeping us very honest on, like, well, in our organization, be careful of X, Y and Z or. Oh, we love this story. Is there something here? Like, they brought. They did bring forward an idea. I'm like, this is great. Yeah, let's turn this into a video. So again, it just depends on the client for sure.

How would you go about like uncovering a story or creating a story for a company that has like a seemingly pretty boring background? You know, a lot of company stories like, aren't that exciting, but you know, with some branding and some, some marketing, you could, you could create some exciting stories. So I'm curious, you know, what sort of processes do you go through to kind of uncover where these stories lie?

So I'm going to, I'm going to do, I'm going to do this the way I would do it. So I'm going to tell a story about uncovering stories. And, and so, so when I. So for my book, I was down to two final titles. I ended up with Return on Courage because I actually felt the problem was Showcase. Like if I'm a leader and I'm busy, that I have to, I have to as fast as possible showcase the return. What's the business win by being courageous. Right. Roc is how you maximize your roi. Return on Courage, but the other title that I loved, but I felt it was too narrow was Willing Courage Brands.

Will encourage brand brands.

So Courage Brands, you know, that's like what we do. We think every brand on the planet somewhere between a coward brand and a courage brand. And that's a, that we, we let them know that in the first 10 minutes. Like where do you think you are on the spectrum? Are you a coward brand, a stasis brand, an iterative brand, an aspirational brand, or a courage brand? And like you talk about therapy out of the gate like it's crickets. And then usually someone's like, well, I don't know how everybody else feels, but we used to be this and now we're that. Which is why our phone rang in the first place. Place. So what I loved about Willing Courage Brands is the word willing and the double meaning of it. And you know, first that means you have a leader that's actually opening open minded to hearing somebody else's perspective. And I'm actually willing to hear someone else's take on this. And then once you decide on a direction, the grit and the will that it takes to see something through, like we're going to will this to be successful. Like we know we have an idea here. And one of my favorite quotes is all truth passes through three phases. First, it's ridiculed. Second, it's wildly opposed. Third, it's deemed self evident.

Right? Yeah, that's true.

And that's what happens when you put a courageous idea into the world is like at first there's pushback and then second, there's little quiet conversations in Reddit. And then third's like, well, everyone, anybody could come up with Google, right? It's like, what? So I think it starts with a leader that is willing to address change. And you have to start by looking at, well, why have you been so boring for so long? Who's causing that? Is it the product or the people deciding on the marketing? And that is a hard pill for most to swallow.

Right?

Because, like, wait, you, you know, what works at you at all? And I'll say this all the time, I'm like, what works on you at home? That's called marketing. Yeah, but, but when you get to work, you're wearing khakis and a button down and something went away. And now you've got your professional. You.

Yeah.

And you're making sure your data. I'm like, well, why did you watch that Netflix show? Why did you go to Great Wolf Lodge or why'd you go to Disney? What did you see? What, what emotion happened in your mind? And so I don't, that's not off limits to any business or brand on the planet. You know, I mean, look, insurance, the most boring category has a duck, an ostrich, I mean, like whatever it is, a gecko, you know, like, so if insurance can be somewhat entertaining, this is the problem. You could take a boring category. In fact, please give me a willing leader in a commodity boring category where that is where the white space is. It's just having the courage to actually follow the trail and not being afraid that the board's going to come down on you or your boss is going to come down on you. And to me, that that's where the opportunities are. If you brought another animal into insurance, we've seen that at this point. Right. So, but I think that's, it just comes down to the person running marketing.

Yeah. And this goes back to empathy as well. It's kind of, you know, you said running an empathy business, like now you're, you're totally, you're taking the ego out of it. You're, you're probably looking at, well, you are looking at other people's, you know, the way they're looking at the world. But really look at yourself. Like you just said, outside of your business, if you feel like your story is not creative or just catching the attention of everyone, that there is white space potentially had for you, you know, to capture. But it's, Yeah, I feel like that empathy piece you mentioned before, your question is everything in branding here and obviously courage Actually leading something new, busting through it.

Yeah. Our second value is magic. It's like we have our core values and it's like magic is such a perfect sort of for us because it's like when you see magic and creative, you're like, do it again. Make me laugh again. I want to do it again. But the, the behind the scenes, the magician knows it's a trick. Like the magician has been prepared to, to like, do the craft to create a response. Yeah, but you feel the magic and you want to see it again and again and again. And I think, I think that's what, what great storytelling is all about. And again, I'm afraid to even say great marketing because I don't want someone to confuse that. Your marketing should be boring. There's a way to tell the story in a way that has the magic that moves people.

I mean, it's, I think it's just as power. You know, when you say you're not a marketing guy, at least in the mastermind, you know, we're just joking around, but it's like, man, this is like so smart marketing because it's memorable. It's these little things here and there stick out to, I mean, the funner thing that was way before I ever knew you, and that was just random things that stuck out in both of our minds and who knows how many millions of, of people in San Diego. And it was just an idea. You know, it's thought up in a room by a bunch of group of folks and actually acted upon. You know, it's interesting, but that's marketing in a nutshell. And you just like created a whole thing that doesn't exist in someone's mind, and now you placed it there for whatever to happen, you know, any kind of thing afterwards.

Yeah, again, and if you're a CEO, there's actually one of the comments that have come up in LinkedIn in a lot of marketing forums is like, if your CEO doesn't understand marketing, get out.

Because it's, it's, you know, now you're educating up on the CEO. If you're a CEO, though, again, we're back to willing. If you're willing to, like, see it differently and you're like, you know what? I, I really don't understand this next generation and the amount of content they're consuming and the places that they're consuming it, that's where I think marketing can win. And, and I think the mistake that many make, and we haven't talked about this much quite yet, is that if you look at marketing as, hey, go get us customers. And that's all they are. Then you've also missed that they're supposed to be the eyes and ears of your customer and they should be reporting back in and you should be pivoting off of what they're learning. My fear is that, you know, bad relationships at companies start with transactional relationships between C suites and marketers. And it's like, just go, go get us, go get us a client, go tell our story. And it's like, well, hold on, are you open to hearing what's actually being said? Like, I'm actually on the ground with the consumer. I can report back to you. And what I'm hearing, it's two way street. That's when you know you have a good relationship.

Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. Well, I was going to ask, when it comes to branding and let's say a company is just starting out, they're just kind of getting off the ground. What are like the first elements you would tell them to focus on? I know you' you've helped us with some of the pod hacker stuff that we've created. Like, what are some of the, like initial things? Like, you know, it could be like real basics, like the logos and the imagery and stuff. Like, where do you put the focus first when you're starting to create the brand in the beginning?

Yeah, I mean, I would, I know it's so hard because you want to jump right to execution, but I would keep it so strategic. I would keep it like high level strategy. Like for one, like what we already talked about, like, start by, start by stepping into the shoes of the people that need what you have. Where do they, what are they consuming? You know, what aisles are they walking down? Right. Like, like just reverse engineer it. If you have to take your shoes off and put them on the wall, do it. Take your wife's shoes, take your husband's, whatever, to put other shoes on the wall and start walking down those shoes. And that is the hardest. Like it's so hard for us to get out of our own way and contextually think about it from somebody else. And then comes the next hard part, is like, well, is this actually the customer we want in three years from now? What do those shoes look like?

Yeah, that's tough.

Yeah, right, right. So you have to be, again, all you're doing is trying to stay wide enough on your idea that there's, there's multiple revenue streams that you can look at. And then from there, I believe marketing is only an exercise of two things, clarity and controlling the price point.

So how fast are people getting what you do? Is it clear? If you think, I'm Eric Berman, I haven't done a good job, I got a chance.

Jacob's gonna expose who's the truth.

And then. So that's it. Like, this is why I think URLs are so important. Website domains are so important. Like, in a second, does it say who you are? Can you do it in a cool way? I'll tell you one of the side projects I'm working on, it's not the one you think. We can get to that too, if you want. So my son and I are working on a kids book, and I think I want to turn it into a TV series. So where I always start, I had the idea, and then I'm like, is this a good idea? And I didn't see it anywhere. And then I'm like, okay, if the URL is available, I'm moving forward. And then it's like the moment of truth as I go to Network Solutions and, like, put it in. And so the idea is called Opposite town.

And so oppositetown.com is what I bought.

So it was available. Good.

It was available, yeah. And the idea is unwelcome to Opposite Town will be the first book because obviously in Opposite Town, the opposite happens. So you're born old and you die young. So you can imagine, like Benjamin Button, right? Like baggy clothes, but old. You got to be 61 years old to drive a car, Right. You got to be this short to ride this ride, you know?

Oh, yeah.

Cats chase the dogs, mice chase the cats. On the moral side of the story, I think in life, often the opposite happens.

We mentioned that earlier. Yeah. With ideas as well.

Yeah, yeah. So that's. So that's an example. It's like, okay, Opposite Town. Like, it's succinct. I can remember it right. If you go to oppositetown.com right now, nothing is there. It's okay. But, like, you get it. You get it in a second. I don't need to show you a picture. It's memorable enough. And then the next part is again, controlling the price point. So how fast can you hold value on different things? And I think this is so hard for clients to see. It's just like, discount it. Discounted. Discounted. Like, you're, you're, you're killing your value. Like, brand is about trust. And, and if you have a brand that people trust, they're willing to pay for it. So I think again, it's just those two things. Time, clarity.

Time and clarity. So on the price point, I mean. Yeah. Discounts, I mean, that's almost like the easy way to do something there, you know, it. Be it a promotion or just staying relevant or whatever it is. Do you have some principles that you like to keep your clients or at least that you kind of guide people on, on the pricing side of things?

Yeah. Again, I think it's a tricky arena. Right. Because if you have a really good product, there are times when you want to make sure people try you out. And we already discussed how hard it is to short circuit somebody and their behavior into trying something new. Right. So you've got to figure out that balance.

Number one thing always is word of mouth. Right. So how do you figure out a way to. If you've got a genuine product, it's a legitimate, you know, you've got a great event that you're throwing. Right. Okay, if I tell you about two events you've never heard about. Let's, let's, let's do this right now.

Yeah.

So let's. We're throwing. We're throwing Beer Fest. And we're throwing. We're throwing Craft Fest. Okay. Beer Fest and Craft Fest, they're the same weekend. Beer Fest, it's 99 bucks. All you can drink from 1 to 4pm Craft Fest, it's 299, but like barrels of brown drinks and they're going to also pick you up and drop you off. Okay. That's all you know. Which one, which one you going with?

I'm going craft.

I'd probably say I'd go the first one.

Again, there's no right or wrong.

Right.

But let's say we. Let's say was the 299. 1. Let's say it was Craft Fest. And I'm like, hey, just today we're going to cut that price to 240. Okay. There's margin there. Without really messing up your brand at 99 bucks, it's like the day shows up. It's like 20 bucks. Beer Fest.

Yeah.

Okay, now, now I'm in with you probably for sure.

Right.

But like, again, I think that this is where people get it wrong. And I think that the hopeful takeaway is that that price point is nothing more than a brand validator.

Yeah. It's got to be in that connection. It can't stand alone. Right. It's got to go in conjunction with the clarity of the brand itself. What the mission is. Yeah.

Have you guys bought anything like a brand you've never heard of before on Amazon?

I'm actually quite frequently actually.

But I would say there's a price point attached to it. Like you just said. Like, it's like, okay. Under like a $30 threshold and it's like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

No problem.

Yeah, right.

Because if worst case scenario breaks on you in the first week, like, well, that's what I get for paying.

Exactly.

Well, usually it's like commodity type products. Right. Like if I'm going to go buy Spatula, for instance, I'm not worried about brand.

Yeah, right, right. I just bought. Have you guys like got into the whole pickleball craze?

Oh, dear. I have. Yeah.

Okay. Me too.

I've fallen out of it since then. It was like a year. But it's amazing.

Yeah, we're. I'm in it right now and I bought my pickleball paddle on Amazon and. And you know how I made my decision?

Price.

Just price. Okay.

I'm like, well, this must be a good paddle. It's 60 bucks.

60. From what I know about pickleball, it's pretty good. It's decent.

Pretty good. Right?

It's good to start out with. Yeah.

2919. So again, the, the exercise here is, is, is connecting that again, if you never get it for, you know, the whole first impression, you never get another chance to make a first impression that they're going to judge you on how you price it.

Yeah, no, it's.

That matters.

And then you have Amazon, you know, that's basically all pushing the price and price only. So it's, it's kind of a. I wonder how that plays into the whole thing of other brands actually trying to create a brand. And then you have, you know, Amazon over here that's just getting the price as low as possible.

Well, then you have Amazon Basics, who's attaching their brand to all those commodity type products. And then people go, well, I know Amazon's brand. I don't know that other brand. And Amazon's to trying charging the same price. I'll go with Amazon's brand. Yeah.

Yep. And there lies the challenge. And so again, it just depends on where you are in the journey. Right. And how price plays. How clear are you? And again, the dinosaur brain. And all of us don't have to tell the whole story. Like, how do you just get to the next part of the story?

Right.

And to teach them something else.

Well, that's what it sounds like in going back to how everything's kind of connected. Like when you were talking about the whole funner ideation and how that came to be. It wasn't like it was just funner. You had almost like these stair step approach into things and I'm sure that that happens across.

Could you imagine, could you imagine if we would have put on a billboard, we show it's hoff, but then we have like the price and then we have like the 18 things you could do. Like you wouldn't pay attention to.

I would have.

No.

Yeah. Like that must be a joke. That that's not real. Someone just had a lot of cash they threw on a billboard and. Yeah.

So that maybe the last point on this is. Is the discipline as a, as a leader. It doesn't matter if it's a new. New company. The discipline to not over like populate a billboard or your marketing, like be really, really thoughtful and disciplined on not trying to say too much and lead with the big stuff and know then how to drive people to your website. Where maybe the next part might be or again from the web or maybe it's social media or whatnot. It's just recognizing that it's an ecosystem. They all play together, they all work together.

Yeah. Is there a. With direct response, there's a lot. Totally different angle of how that's approached in copy. Is there kind of a happy blend that you've figured out on the same.

Point of what you're saying? There's actually a quote that I actually wrote down on my notes here that you put on your blog that I really liked that was. I don't know if this is the word for word quote, but it was something. The effect of the best advertising is no longer recognized as advertising. It's now called content. And I think that's kind of what you're getting at is like the sort of blend between like direct response, marketing and branding. And how does that all blend together? So.

Yeah.

Yeah. Do you want to speak into that for a minute? Like what do you mean by that?

You have some killer content, man. So I'll just give you like a couple things. Is just your website itself. It's like this guy has this unique experience. Plus you have this video that I won't say what the.

But it's just like, like MergeBrands.com website is badass. Like it's just everybody needs to go to that site and just for sure what's there.

Yeah.

Again, I find it fascinating when agencies say that they're gonna help you differentiate and then everyone's website looks the same 100%.

Yeah.

It's like Come on, Come on. So look, I just think we're back to context. Like, just really, really think about. How are you gonna differentiate yourself? I didn't come up with this line. I love it. It's a woman named Sally Hogshead. She says different is better than better.

And I think, you know, in terms of, like, how do you unlock something in someone's brain? Like, if every. If everything you need, everything you think you need is in your brain? Like. Like food.

Yeah, right.

Sushi. When I say Sushi, what's the first restaurant you think of for you?

Taboo. That.

Taboo is the first one that came to mind for me because I was there two days ago.

Okay. So, like, you're, like. When I. When I'm. When I want that, I'm going there. Okay, how do I knock that off your brain? That's what we're talking about. When I say. When I say pickleball shoes. Okay. That doesn't exist. When I say, you know, running shoes.

Sure. Asics.

How do I knock that off your brain? Why does that work for you? I mean, we're. We're cavemen and cave women. It's usually like New Balance for me. I always used to be like, well, because of widths, right? It was all like, great fit.

That's right.

Asics Tiger. Sounds cool.

Yeah.

That's what we're competing with. Right, right, right. That's that. And so you have to knock this off somebody's brain.

Yeah.

And. And I'll tell you guys this too. Like, the reason I even went and wrote my book in the first place, we would have clients, marketers come down to our office. They would see we were prepared. They would see we'd have the storytelling. But when they would have to go back to their CEOs in other cities and sell us. I called it the Golf Course Conversation. They're like, wait a minute, you want to use a company in San Diego that I've never heard of before? So I actually think you have to be better. I don't think you can be even. If we were in New York or San Francisco, la. You can be even because you have you again. You're using the brand. You're leveraging the equity of New York, of. Of la. That's a brand too, right? That plays into this. So I'm like, wait, I have to be better. I can't be even. All right? Now I got to go write a book. I got to go write blog posts. I got to write videos. I gotta. I gotta go buy a 10 by 10 step and repeat for my house. Right.

Looks beautiful.

Thank you. And so I think that's. It's being thoughtful and mindful of, like, when you interact with the potential decision maker on day one. Decision maker, by the way, is customer. And when. Right. There's only two ways it goes. They look at you and they say yes, or they look at you and they say no.

That's it.

And I can tell you, I don't ever. And I'm sure I'm not for them either. I. I already know that I'll never buy ikea.

Right. They've just swayed. They've dissuaded me.

Was there one thing, or was it a series of events?

Because I never saw myself as a hamster.

Yeah, good point.

All right, so they spent their money to remind me that they're not for me. Okay. Just like courageous. When your company is called courageous. I. I do hope that we turn off the 60 to 70% of business that doesn't want to be courageous. They don't. They don't get it. They don't see the value in it. It saves my time. It saves my team time. But the 30 to 40%, that's curious. That's like, we know. We know we need to change. We know we need to do something. That's when I want my phone to ring, when there's genuine willingness on both sides.

Yeah, dude. What better way to start off any conversation as courageous being the. It's in your signature, it's in your emails. It's in every possible thing I'm sure that you touch. I mean, you have courage boot camp behind you right now in the step and repeat. So it's like you're immediately weeding away most of the people for good, for everyone's benefit.

Absolutely. And again. And what it's also done is it's brought a wide range of work. And.

This week, I was honestly, it's not just marketing. I'm coaching executive teams on how to be more courageous and have our conversations. And I never thought I'd be in the coaching space. Monday, I fly to Idaho to go give a keynote. And then, yes, we're rolling up our sleeves, and we're helping J and J. We're helping Kraft Heinz right now with some. Some courageous storytelling. So I like the different. I like that. It's not. It's like, where's courage needed? And how can we help you apply it? And maybe that's the secret. Like, maybe life is very simply.

How.

Do you get compensated to do the things you love the most? And for me, that's what I'm attempting to design.

Yeah. I actually want to dive into that, what you just said there a little bit more in a minute. But before we do, I actually want to ask if you. What are some brands that you see as being, like, really courageous brands? Like, what are some examples of? Like, that company did something bold as hell, and it paid off big for them.

Yeah. I always talk about dominoes, and it's a weird. It's a weird one to bring up, and. Which is why I bring it up.

Right.

You've got a Midwest company that has 30,000 employees. Right. Like, it's easy to think about garage brands.

Sure.

Like, you know, like, everyone in a hooded sweatshirt with seven of you with popcorn everywhere, like. But I love the fact that this was not a small company. And, you know, about a decade ago, they had the courage to change everything from the crust up, and they really did. They changed the cheese, the sauce, the dough. Now they had the resources to do it. And then the courageous piece was not only did they nail their. Get their product right, which, by the way, should be another part of this brand conversation. How about make a good product? You know, start, Start. Yeah, let's start there. But off of that, then it comes to. They basically spent money on national television during the NFL playoffs to tell America their pizza sucked.

And they showed all the ways. Like, they showed focus groups of people hating on their pizza. They showed it the cheese sticking to the box.

Yep.

And, like, just imagine for one sec. I mean, the NFL playoffs. So somewhere in the Midwest is a very drunk franchisee owner. Right. Who's five beers in, screaming at this point.

Exactly.

And, like, this commercial runs, and you know that. That he's like, you just spent our own money to tell the world our pizza sucked. And the cmo, who is now the president, which tells you that this obviously worked out. Right. Taking risks works out. He said he got some pretty tough phone calls in the first week. And. And then there were two days to run out of pepperoni. And so if they would have been more prepared, he thinks they would have even jumped up more points. So you take a company that was three years of negative sales, stock price under $3.

And. And today the stock price is over $400. Turn on courage. And it's cheese, sauce, and dough. It's. That's all it is. So, again, don't tell me that a boring category of cheese, sauce, and dough, by the way, if I could have been there the day that someone put those three ingredients together, I would have Paid a lot of money for that to be there on that day.

Yeah. Now, isn't Domino's is kind of even sort of pivoting a little bit now into, like, this kind of tech company kind of thing, too? Because they've got the. Well, now the commercials are all about, like, the drone delivery. Like the little driving drones that deliver the pizza to your house now.

Well, they were the one that. I mean, that was the first courageous thing was the whole delivery thing back.

In the day, the 30 minutes.

It was like, a long time ago. Yeah.

So there. But again, think about it. So let's go back to the whole strategy talk. Congratulations. In the 31st minute, your shitty pizza arrives and it's free.

Yeah. Yeah.

That was what they just. That's what. That was the message.

Right, right.

So they're playing in the value space, not the quality space.

Right.

And. And to Matt's point, now it's like they see themselves not as a pizza company, but as a tech company.

Yeah. Well, that's your point. I heard you say it on another.

Podcast, but.

There you go.

Take it.

You should take it.

Your chance, man.

Got to give credit where credit's due.

All right, so again, that's a shift. That. That's a big. And that's a big shift. And imagine trying to communicate that to 30,000 employees that the investments we're going to make are about advancing the tech side of the business.

I got to see some of those commercials. I don't see enough commercials to keep up with what Domino's is doing these days.

That's true. Yeah.

I don't think you're alone, and I think that's. Again, we're back to why it's content. It's not advertising anymore.

Yeah. Well, now we live in a YouTube, Netflix, Amazon prime world. Right. Like, cable's kind of slowly going away.

But then you have YouTube, you know, premium. If you're. And you're just like, nope, bypass all that.

Again, I paid to not even see ads on YouTube.

Right.

So, I mean, Ryan Burton. Just kidding you like that.

There was something I just wanted to add because. Running out of time here. I want to mention the passion project you're working on, because right before your last question, you mentioned how, like, it's, like, the best possible thing to be making money doing something you absolutely love. And the project you're working on right now is. Seems like that in a nutshell, like, perfectly.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. So the last 18 months, I've had the. The honor of working with Landon Donovan on his Memoir. And, you know, it's. It's just if you, if you asked me to, like, what if you could do anything, what would you do? It would be the intersection of sports and stories, you know, and so the fact that the universe for some reason allowed this to fall into my, you know, my lap is amazing. And, and it's also a testament to, like, that everything really does lead to the next thing. So, like, if I, I was New York City for a long time and thought I was coming out here to write movies, not live one, and like, the next thing you know, it's chaos and stubbornness is what starts my first company. Survive that, you know, merge it with the PR and social media company. That leads to my first to return on Courage, the book. Then that book. Landon reads that book. It's a very different book, but he likes the book. I'm hired by the San Diego Loyal to help them set the values. We have an off site. I'm like, hey, would you ever come on my podcast? He comes on my podcast, one thing leads to the next. And so now, yeah, like I said, it's been a little over 18 months. I got about 70 hours worth of footage of interviews. Everybody from Landon to Bruce Arena, Tim Howard, Michael Bradley, obviously his family, just really trying to.

Honor who he is as a human. And people always said to me, and I'm, I'm so skeptical, maybe as a creature, but like, he's an amazing soccer player and a better human. And you're like, yeah, right. And then, and then you get a chance to sit with him and, you know, I don't think I'm giving anything away here, but like, Landon made a very specific choice.

When he realized, if I can, if I could commit myself to being a world class athlete, I can commit myself to being a world class human. And it's sort of the choices that he eventually made when he finally realized it was a choice. And the book will come out during World cup, so we got still a year and a half away. Year and four months away. And please USA make it. And because it's in Qatar also, and it's like a thousand degrees there, they've moved the World cup to end of November. So I imagine we'll launch the book right around like Cyber Monday is what we're thinking.

2022, I guess.

2022.

Right on, man, that's so cool.

My life is still crazy. I want the audible to be different than the book itself because I've got all these amazing interviews, you know, a book I.

Who is it? Running the Navy seal, The book that we both.

Oh, Goggins.

Goggins, yeah, his audiobook. I'm sure you've heard it or I'm sure you read the book. But he had the. What? The co author with Goggins. And it was like probably triple the length of the book. But it was like the most interesting thing. Cause it was just like. Hold on, pause the book. We gotta dive deep into this story, bro. You know, it's like if you guys pull something like that off, that could be interesting.

Well, that is the plan. And again, I have. I mean, there's some shit that said and from some of his teammates about some of his stories that are just, they're fascinating. It's just. I'm not selling the book. I mean, it's like I said, it's. It's a. I was surprised like when he was like, oh, I have a story. I'm like, I'm gonna be writing about soccer for the next. And I love soccer. Great. But then to see, you know, should any 17 year old human be living by himself in a foreign country.

You know, like doesn't learn the language, you know, like having to figure that out, you know, with a ged and like that's basically what Landon was like. His parents didn't move there he was by himself.

Jesus.

All right, let's. Let's keep it there. I do want to ask more questions, but we have no more time and you can't talk about it. And that's okay.

I mean, if you're open to it. I would to love to do a round two at some point because I mean, I feel like there's so many more rabbit holes we could have gone down and yeah, you're just so fun to talk to.

So. Right. Where you have a million places online that are just fascinating. I'm looking at the courageous podcast right here and you have just rock stars on there. But give us the lineup of where people should check you out.

I go to ericbuhrman.com that's Eric Berman.

No, he's going to get so much, so much love from this one.

Yeah, I know. Well, I think it depends on who you are, right? So like if you're, if you're running a company and, and you want more out of the mentality of the business, I would go to couragebrands.com.

Or if you're like, you know what, I want to make sure I really trust the way this person thinks, then I'd go to ReturnOnCourage.com and I grabbed the book, and I didn't see that coming. But the book is such an easy way to be. Like, you know what? Read the book. If you like the book, let's work together. If you don't, I'm the wrong guy. And if you need a keynote speaker, probably Ryan Berman dot com. Like, if you need someone to, like, maybe kick your. Your team in the. In the teeth with a smile and. Because in some ways, I'm just sharing what I learned from Apple and Google and Amazon and all those guys, and. And it's like I am sort of fascinated by how the largest companies on the planet are also the most agile. You think it'd be the little guy. So a lot of this is. It's like giving them the tools they need to move faster. And that's in a crazy way, that is courage.

Oh, yeah, it is. All right, my man. Well, this has been very interesting. And the book. I've read the book two years ago or something. I think it was like, right when we got connected or something like that. But, yeah, it's a deep dive on all of these. We didn't touch on a lot of them. You have all these different principles around courage and cool stories. So dive in. It's an easy. It's an easy read, and it's a lot of different insights you're not going to get from us doing the direct marketing thing all the time. So. Appreciate you, my friend.

Thanks, guys. I'll see you at Beer Fest.

Okay, Sounds great. Looking forward to it.

Craft.

Outro. Outro.

Outro. Outro.

This is an outro.

This is an outro. We're not lying about it this time. No, we've lied about it in the past, but this time we're going to about talk about what we just talked about. I like it. DJ Matt, you guys would go for.

A minute and a half, so I should probably fade it out.

Just a nice little quietness. Yeah. So you. You were just saying, you're like, man, I really love that flow of the episode.

Yeah.

And the time flew. That's why I was like, yeah, the time flew on that one. It was like five. Till I was like, no.

Yeah. Well, you know, we. We did a few things slightly different in that one. I feel like we kind of skipped the whole intro phase of Tell us about Yourself. And I think we chose to kind of let that stuff happen more organically in the conversation. Shout out to Travis Chappell, who basically gave the advice to. Instead of saying, so how did you get to where you are today? Let the sort of stories interweave into.

The episode percolates in there when it comes up.

Yeah, we've sort of noticed that most of our guests, you say, so tell us about yourself. How did you get to where you are today? What are you doing? People just kind of go into that stock response mode.

Right.

Like you and I, we've started to do quite a bit more research before the episodes and listening to other podcasts. That was one of the things I was noticing last night, is that people would ask someone like Ryan, like, tell us about how you got doing what you're doing, and it would be kind of the same story repeated each time.

Boring. Yeah. It's repetitive. It's like one of those. When you hear sometimes some ads or whatnot. Shouldn't be saying this podcast, but sometimes, you know, you do like, fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. Yeah, it's like. Yeah, I don't know. It just kind of gets old after a while. You want to kind of get into it, you know?

Yeah. So we're kind of. I feel like we're actively trying to change up the flow a little bit to make it feel a little more organic. And hopefully, you know, you can give us some feedback over@flowchart group.com instead of our Facebook group if you give us some feedback on what you think. Because you're going to hear a bunch of episodes where the flow is probably shifted a little bit, I think.

Think. And you can also, if you enjoyed it, go leave a review. If you don't mind, if you haven't already. Not if it's bad. Bad review, though. Yeah.

If you're gonna leave a bad review.

Five stars only, huh? Yeah, exactly. We love you forever. Yeah.

I was gonna name another. I was gonna be like, if you. If you're gonna leave a bad review, do a search for. And I was gonna name a podcast and I'm like, I don't want to throw anybody.

We're not gonna buy this.

That ain't cool. Oh, man. But that would be kind of funny.

I was gonna shout out a friend's podcast.

That's even worse.

I was gonna be like, if you're gonna leave a negative review, go leave it on. The podcast is called don't throw a.

Friend under the Bus. That's even worse.

It's a joke.

I know. Okay. Till the watchers roll in for Mr.

I won't give any of our podcast friends a free shout out.

Free shout out with a negative bin.

All the reviews are gonna be like, matt, Joe told me to leave A negative review on your show. So I'm doing it.

That would be interesting. Yeah, we just bomb someone's reviews on their podcast. But how about for good? We could spin this around like Ryan was saying. Yes, spin it for good. You know, you can. Like, hey, let's just show our friends some love with some, you know, with some good reviews. Hey, if you haven't checked out Brad Costanzo's Bacon. Bacon. Bacon business.

Bacon wrap business.

Bacon wrap business. I'm like, there's actually another bacon podcast out there too. So go to Brad Costanza's. Yeah, that's our buddy.

So if you like this episode, go leave a review on bacon wrapped Business. On superfast business.

All of our buddies, Tell them we sent you.

Tell them we sent you.

There we go.

All right, we're sharing the review. Love.

Tell me about Ryan. Not Eric Ryan. Jesus, I'm a horrible person. Horrible friend.

Yeah, I actually didn't catch it, but I didn't either.

But I.

But when he said it, I thought back and I'm like, yeah, he did just say that, didn't he?

Maybe I did. I was to. I was like, literally staring him right in the face through.

You said, I don't want this to just be the Eric Berman show.

Well, it's not. So it's good.

Yeah, it's not the Eric Berman show. Never was.

I didn't call him that.

Oh, damn it.

It was accurate. It didn't turn into be the Eric Berman show.

I didn't lie. Come on, Ryan.

Has Eric Berman been on our show? I think he has. Huh?

Eric has.

Yeah. So we'll actually link to Eric's episode in the show notes because he's mentioned in this episode a few times.

But I think we've. We've already fulfilled our Eric Berman quota, so. Yeah, we never had one.

Have you filled the Dan Ryan quota yet?

No, but we have enough quotas on this one filled. Sorry, Dan. Wait till the next one. There you go. But Ryan, couple things that stood out are. Let's say, let's start with one that I got. I like the fact that he is, you know, the whole funner San Diego thing, I think opened up a lot of different ways of how he thinks of branding, but also how interesting ideas kind of come to be. And the whole fact that it's not like you just jump to an idea right from the go, you know, maybe that's when it actually gets mass appeal or gets them a lot of traction. But the whole, like, stair step approach and how everything's connected, you Know, and it just seemed very clear after he started telling all these stories. But it really started with that whole Funner San Diego thing, and then the fact that he actually created a location. Like, it's a location. And that was all just from an idea.

Yeah.

Like now.

Now you can literally Google it and see the weather in Funder, California, and.

There'S a mayor and everything. And Hasselhoff was the first.

It was Hasselhoff and Rob Riggles.

But yeah. Yeah.

I'm not sure if they have any.

Active duties, but probably not. But it's like the fact that it's listed in Google as. Yeah, as such, it's really. It's official, right?

Yeah.

Cause Google says it, so I thought that was interesting. You know, a way to look at branding, or at least just marketing in general, is kind of like, hey, like, create a space. Not that one's a physical space, but we can all kind of create a space in our minds. And, you know, it's probably putting on someone else's shoes or putting your shoes on when you're at home, or maybe taking your shoes off when you're out of the whole work mode thing. Thinking of your business, you can definitely start to see the different ways that you can kind of inject different ideas and ways to present your brand. If you start to look at, like, the stuff you're consuming outside of business, which you're interested in, interested in music, all that stuff.

Yeah.

What engages you?

Yeah, I mean, he made a comment about, start by stepping into the shoes of what. Of who you're selling to.

Right.

And I really, really liked that quote. And, you know, I feel like it's something that we kind of intuitively know, but most people don't practice.

Right.

Like, so many people are focused on, like, what's the next tactic I can try? What's the latest, greatest Facebook ad tactic? How do I. Like, how do I do this through SEO? How do I. Right. But they're not. Not going back and looking at the most basic level of, like, why would somebody want this damn thing in the first place? Where are these people hanging out? What are they doing? What are their thoughts? What are their fears? What are they excited about? What are they worried? Like, people don't do that analysis of, like, who am I even talking to? And how do I get my brain into the shoes of who I'm talking to so I can see it from their perspective. How would I want to be marketed to? And, you know, it's something that I feel like it's been a theme in the past, we've talked about it, but it's still something that a lot of people don't internalize in practice. They're just looking for the next tactic.

Yeah. I mean, he even said it. That's one of the toughest things, is kind of getting out of your own way, dropping the ego, leaning into being empathetic. And like he was saying, the customers are the ones that are holding all the cards. They're the ones that are actually the bosses of this whole operation, the gatekeepers to make something happen or not.

Yeah.

So it's stepping into their shoes and really understanding what they're all about.

Yeah. And, you know, as far as, like, a brand starting and creating a story, even if they're kind of a boring brand to start. You know, he didn't say this, but this is kind of my takeaway from that, is like, if you're a boring brand, do something to freaking change the fact that you're a boring brand.

You know, like, do you enjoy looking at your brand being so boring?

Yeah.

You were not.

You do something with the brand that makes stories. You know, like, create the stories around your brand so you have something to tell. Figure out, like, how do I make this exciting? Because if it's not an exciting brand, then maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe. Maybe you should be looking elsewhere.

I dig it. Yeah. It's. Yeah. Fun first, man. I mean, that's kind of been a theme lately for a lot of what we're doing. Funner first. We'll use the funner.

Give some free branding to them.

Yeah. And oppositetown.com. i mean, when that thing is live, let's give Ryan's son and Ryan some love there. I think that's just a cool concept. Everything's kind of flipped. And that actually goes back to the point of, like, usually with thinking of creative ideas and stuff, it's like, think of the opposite of what you've been doing. Maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, approach something. Just flip it and see what happens. Maybe that's not the answer, but maybe it's closer.

Yeah.

Something different. Yeah.

Hey, pull up chartable.com real quick. So anybody listening to this episode, make sure you go to flowchart group.com grab the action guide for this episode. Flowchartgroup.com is our Facebook group where you join the group and we share a whole bunch of cool insights. People ask us questions. We stream cool stuff to that channel all the time. We post videos. We share links to cool resources so you get to be a part of A really cool Facebook group. But also when you join the Facebook group, we give you one of our action guides to. Well, we actually give you four action guides, four most recent episodes when you give us your email address. So go to flowchartgroup.com fill out the little questionnaire to join the group. You get access to that group, and you'll get access to the four most recent action guides.

All them action guides are there. And I pulled up Chartable Matt, and we have a new review here.

We do have a new review.

And what do you know? It's. That's five stars. What?

They're following our instructions. High five, people. Listen to us when we say only five star reviews, people.

One of these days someone's gonna sneak in, we're gonna publicly shame. No, we're not gonna do that.

No.

But let's give some love here. So actually, I don't know this person. Oh, no. RDG Reality. I like that. What does RDG stand for, though? I'm curious.

Are they in the Philippines?

They're in the Philippines. It says here. And this was post the other day two days ago. It says insightful and amazing audio content. Five stars. That's the Hustle and Flowchart podcast we're talking about, by the way. This is amazing audio content. It's extremely useful for me to hear. And your guests are amazing.

We try to only find amazing guests.

I like that. It's kind of ticking all the boxes of what we shot out to do with this podcast.

We have a lot of shitty guests, too. We just don't release them a lot.

A lot.

I mean, we probably interviewed. We probably interviewed 100 people this month, and we've only picked the, you know, the four to eight best ones.

I mean, we do a lot of. We podcast pretty much 24. 7.

We don't sleep anymore.

Why would we? I mean, with so many people that we could possibly have as guests, you know?

Yeah, and we just interview them all, but only release the best ones.

Well, we do that for you, everyone. So that's why we really hope that the five star thing is really making sense to you because, I mean, we're. We don't sleep. Yeah, it's wild. I don't know how we're awake right now. That's probably why I got really gray, really young. I mean, you're getting pretty gray too.

It's getting grayer. Not really gray grayer.

You just don't like it when I point it out.

All right, and last shout out is to our friends over at Easy Webinar. You know why? Because they're sponsoring this podcast and they've been doing this for a long time. Because a lot of folks love their tool and they solve a lot of big problems for you, your brand and your company. Easywebinar.com hub creating amazing experiences, funner experiences going on the interwebs, that is. But there's a lot of type of experiences you can.

Easy Webinar is not just easy.

That's right.

It's funner than the rest.

I would agree with that statement. Yeah. And it's funner to do things like live streaming. And you can even.

We're just adding that to the lexicon now.

Why not? I mean, a lot of cool stuff you could do with. A lot of cool stuff you can do with Easy Webinar. That was a horrible statement, Yoda, but.

It'S a true statement.

It is extremely true.

A lot of good stuff you can.

Do at the Easy webinars.

I'm a horrible Yoda as well. Go for it. Do your best Yoda.

My best Yoda I'll do for Easy Webinar. Oh, I can't do the voices. I can't do it.

No, no. Just go for it.

My best Yoda. I'll do.

So why would someone want Easy Webinar and why should they get it@easywebinar.com hustle?

Well, you should want Easy Webinar because Easy Webinar is the easiest of the webinar platforms. It does live webinars, automated webinars, hybrid webinars, all of the webinars it does streaming, you can, you can replace it with Zoom. My kids were using it in place of Zoom with their school. So it's the easiest and the funnest, funnerest webinar tool of them all. And if you get it@easywebinar.com hustle, he's hooking you up with a discount. So if you just go to EasyWebinar.com you can buy it and you could get it and you'll use it. You'll just pay more. If you go to easywebinar.com hustle he's hooking up Hustle and Flowchart listeners. So go to easywebinar.com hustle easywebinar.com let's read one more review. I like hearing praise.

Let's do that. You didn't speak like Yoda, by the way, during that ad read, I asked.

Oh, I didn't know I was going to say.

You did not follow the directions, Mr. Matt. I'm trying to figure out where our reviews are because chartable. We're not paying for the paid one anymore.

What? How do we have to pay now to see them? I thought it was free to see them all.

There we go. You know what? Luckily Apple is just a platform that has a lot of reviews here. I'm just gonna pick one at random. All right. Must Listen. Five stars. Hands down, one of the best business podcasts.

Woo. Who's that from?

Dr. O.C. all.

Thank you, Dr. O.C.

All. Thanks, doc. That was cool.

Chris Ross, episode 284. And this is by PA Consulting Firm.

Oh, so he's specifically speaking to that episode.

To that episode.

Wow.

The value and knowledge on this guy. Great episode. And a must listen for anyone involved in sales. That is a very true statement. That was a killer episode. That was a little while ago, but yeah, there's a couple.

Yeah, some good ones. We'll read more on the next one.

We'll read more. All right, so, you know, if you want to share some love and if you want to be heard on this podcast, just head on over to probably Apple's the best place Stitcher possibly leave a nice little review for us. We'd love to read it.

Yeah, we're probably just less likely to.

See it on Stitcher.

Let's be honest.

That's very true. Go to Apple. Come on, more people will see it. All right, well, till next time. This was fun. We'll do it again.

Share it around. Let us know what you think. Hustleandflowchart.com, flowchartgroup.com Also, I don't know why.

I'm just saying all the URLs.

I'm just saying URLs now. HustleAndFlowchart TV if you wanna watch the video version.

Google.com Google.com they don't need more shout outs.

No, but HustlinFlowchart TV you could legit watch the video on.

So head over to YouTube, man. Yeah. Hustle and Flow or gal. Hustle and Flowchart tv. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell. We're trying our best to go smash it. Or you can just dink it with your finger as you're passing by. It doesn't need to be a big smash or anything. We want to break all the bells.

Or gong it.

Gong. Yeah, hit the gong. I like that. You got to replace it with a gong. April Fool's Day or something. Yeah, sure.

Why not?

Why not? All right, so we'll see you over there. We'll see you here next time. Till then, love you. Bye Bye.

Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast for taking the time to listen. We want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do, we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a CliffsNotes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out, all of the resources that they laid out, all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits.com find this episode that you just listened to, and give us your email address and we'll send you the notes. Thanks for listening.

Go get it.

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