Sally Hogshead on I Love Marketing LIVE ~ 💡 Illuminate Fascination in Your Business 😍

Time.

That's great. That's great. Chad, have you had a vacation yet this year?

Yeah, I've had a couple.

All right, awesome. Who needs a vacation? That's great. That's great. Chad, have you had a vacation yet this year?

Yeah, I've had a couple.

Paul, how are you doing?

I'm doing fantastic.

I'm happy to see your face.

Well, thank you.

Happy to see so many of my favorite faces. Hi, everybody.

I have to jump out to something.

Else, but I'm not going to miss.

Just a few minutes with some Sally action. So the funny thing was. Go ahead.

Paul and I are working on a new. We're working on a new podcast. And the concept of the podcast is different, is better than better. So every episode is going to be different. And then the one that we're working on right now is the first scented podcast. So imagine. Remember they had in the 60s in movie theaters, they had smell O Vision. So we're working on how do we create that as one of the episodes of the podcast, Paul, we got the samples of the scents. It's like mildew, manure. Some of them are great, like freshly cut grass, and others are super nasty. So I'll try to work someone's freshly dried paint in there, too.

Oh, awesome. Awesome.

And you all heard it here first.

You are the first release of that information. You know, don't tell anybody and certainly don't stream this or anything.

Yeah. Yes. Well, hopefully it won't be too secret.

Well, not yet.

Gina, how are you?

It is so good to see you. Yay.

Oh, I miss you guys. Hey, Kayvon. Hi. Oh, Chad. Hey. Brett, Medina. Hey, Katherine. Oh, hey, you guys. Sue, I can't see you, but I know you're here in spirit.

Now, Sally, I think the last time that we saw you, at least the team in the office, the last time we saw you, you actually went to pre Covid. You went to our live I love marketing meetup group actually in Scottsdale with Joe Polish. And we all hung around.

Yes. And I actually think I was there afterwards where Joe spent an afternoon with my two sons, Asher and Quentin, and. And answered all their marketing questions. And it was one of the sweetest things he's ever done. You know how busy he is. And it was really touching to me because one of the things that Joe's so extraordinary at is not just investing in the members, but really investing in the members families and the members lives. And that definitely warmed the cockles of my heart. And I don't even know what cockles are it sounds vaguely sexual.

And they're in your heart, so that's okay.

Yes. Right, right.

Where exactly are the cockles of the heart? That's what I'm always.

Yeah.

Did you ever see that Jack in the Box commercial where they're asking. They're saying our competitors are featuring Angus burgers. Could you tell me where is the Angus section of the cow? Where does Angus beef come from?

Well, don't ask a vegetarian. Something tells me they wouldn't know.

Okay, perfect.

Dean, you'll get a kick out of this. We did an ad campaign one time for a steak restaurant in Minneapolis. And the steak restaurant was having a really hard time competing against Morton's and Ruth's Chris because it was this little mom and pop operation. Tiny. It had been around forever. So we did a campaign that was targeting vegetarians. And after we. The campaign said things like, how would you like it well done? Medium rare or semi conscious? A restaurant for carnivores. And so the lines were around the block. They were protesters. And it was through that highly differentiated, kind of extremist, love it or hate it kind of marketing that, you know, if you don't have a big budget, you have to make sure that you're competing on the basis of being the most different. It was a great way for them to position themselves because, yeah, they specialize in a 48 ounce porterhouse which is like. Remember Fred Flintstone?

Yes. The big pterodactyl. One of the big ribs.

Yeah, yeah. So another headline was, sorry, no vegetables on the menu. We feed them all to the animals whose flesh you'll be devouring.

I love it.

Yeah.

So speaking of new trends here, are we starting the left hand only?

Oh my God, it's so much better. The only thing is I have a gnarly scar here and I'm worried that people are going to think I'm post suicidal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully. Hopefully my countenance will contradict that.

Absolutely. So awesome.

Yes.

Welcome. It's good to see you too, Gina.

Hey, Tammy.

Russ, look at Special K. Dr. Kayvon K here.

Kayvon, last time I saw you, we were in New York, weren't we?

Yes, that was the last time. The last time we met. And I really looking forward to the next time. How are you guys doing?

Great.

We're great. Dean and I are lucky because we both live in Orlando, but we went to a movie. Like the day that movies were open down by Disney. Do I remember that correctly? And you guys were having a staycation.

That's right. What was the movie? Brett Beckman's here. Are you in Florida, Brett, or are you in. Hey, Dean. Yeah, I'm at the office, actually. Had a break in cases, so. Okay. It always looks like you're in the most comfy places. You're always in the comfy places, sitting out there.

Yeah.

This is one of our exam rooms, actually.

I love it. And Renee Nelson. Look at this. You ever guess?

Remember?

Was this a Canadian show or was it here? There was a show in Canada called Romper Room, and the lady would have the magic mirror, and she'd look through the mirror. She. I see Renee and I see Paul. Call again. That's right.

Okay.

I would always hide behind the chair to see if I could hide from her. One time, she called my name. I see. Dean. How did she see me?

Okay, trivia question. Who remembers Zoom? We're gonna zoom. Zoom. Okay. Raise your hand if you remember Zoom. Nobody? Okay.

I do. In the Electric Company. It was on right after Electric, I guess.

Exactly. Which was after Sesame Street. Okay. Do you remember this? Ready?

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I could never figure that out.

Right. You know what? You had to be a latchkey kid. And watching.

I could never get the whole Luba Bubba, Lubbo language.

Oh, oh. Abidubi. Nabo.

You're an overachiever. You were like, you're a gifted child.

An igpe Atenele.

Yes.

Raise your hand if you can speak Igpe Atenele. Yeah. Pig Latin.

Do you know, I remember. Here's an interesting. Eben Pagan, who a lot of you guys know, and I were on this. The Golden Gate Bridge. Eben picked me up at the airport in San Francisco. We were on our way to Sausalito, and it was 1997, and it was the time that Will Smith had the big Gettin Jiggy with It song on there. And I cracked the secret code because we were trying to figure out, what does he say in the middle of that song? And they said to Eben, it sounds like pig Latin. Let's think pig Latin. And it was, Il way to Anime on the Aunt's Day Orflay. And we cracked the code, and it's Will's the man on the dance floor. And that was. We felt like we cracked some secret code to get to. Yeah. Ilway the anime on the ants de orflay.

How does that generation break up? So if you think Zoom went off the air, probably, like when I was, I don't know, 12, or maybe I just stopped watching. So how, like, would a millennial have any idea I think this is.

I think that's a Generation X thing. I think we're all Generation X. 1965, I was born in 66. I think 65 to 83, I think, is officially what Generation X is. So that was rarely in our childhood.

In our house, it wasn't Pig Latin, it was Hog Latin.

Perfect. All right, so we're going to start. Everybody here?

Yeah.

Hey, Ford.

So il fay ute.

Okay. I'm going to print something out here and be right back for. For the. Start.

Brushing up on that pig Latin. Gina.

S. Yay.

Erive, erive, eisne.

I think it's very handy if you want to say something to your spouse when the kids are old enough to spell, so you can no longer say, let's go in the B, E, D, R, O, O, M. Once they can start to spell that, man. Pig Latin, crack it out. Never teach it to them.

I just like to be able to say I can speak another language. And big Latin.

Is that going to be on your LinkedIn profile?

It is, I think, actually, I believe it is. Yeah.

Okay, we are. Okay, who's ready?

Who's got their team members on today? Who's got people? Any entrepreneurs that have brought their team members, their marketing officers. Brett, did you bring. I think I saw Brendan on Brandon.

Yeah. I'm not sure if he is. I don't know about it, but I should have. I just got this text just a second ago, so. Stacy Penrose.

Look at this.

Wow. There we go. Sally, you would love Stacy. Look, she looks just like you. She's you. She's great. Yeah.

I'm going to cruise over on Zoom and see. Hey, Stacy. Hi. Well, what a compliment to me if I look like Stacy.

Yeah, you need these. Stacy needs your blue glasses. Here, you can borrow.

They're from Walmart.

You know, we also had a Sally Hollings head. I'm sorry, Sarah Hollings head.

Okay. That's kind of wimpy. You know, she wasn't beat up on the playground like I was. Nobody's like, hauling's head.

No, that's almost like a cool name.

It doesn't make it all the way around the lack of coolness.

That's so funny. Okay, Gina, let's have. Do we need just a second to set our.

And then streaming live on Facebook. So we're there. Yep. And then our awesome Mr. Kevin Banda is going to introduce today's I Love Marketing.

Yes. Well, in light of our beloved Timothy Paulson being in Atlanta right now, starting his doctorate program at Emory University for the School of Theology. I will be taking his place and doing the bio today, so.

Okay, that will be great.

Let me get that up here and we shall begin. Growing up with the last name Hogshead would give anyone an unconventional point of view since being tortured on the playground. Sally Hogshead is the creator of the Fascinate Personal Brand Test, the first personality assessment that measures how others perceive you. In her research, she's measured more than 1 million professionals with clients such as Facebook and Twitter. At the start of her career, Sally skyrocketed to the top for brands like Mini Cooper, Nike and Coca Cola. At only age 24, she was the most award winning copywriter in the U.S. she opened her first ad agency at the age of 27. And get this, by 30, her work was hung in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. How cool is that? Now she's got two New York Times bestsellers, How the world Sees you and fascinate. She's one of only 200 professional speakers inducted into the speaker hall of Fame. She's been twice named number one global brand guru. She's also a frequent guest on the Today show. And her company, Fascinate, has trained over 200 certified advisors around the globe. Sally's upcoming book is titled different is better than Better. So this conversation will be a different kind of I love marketing meetup. You'll even get a chance to grab a sneak peek of her book. Dean and Sally will give you all the scoop. So without further ado, please help me welcome Miss Sally Hogshead.

Jazz hands. Jaws. Hands.

Wait. Spirit fingers. Spirit fingers.

That's it. I can't wait to hear what you have to say. This is going to be great.

Thank you, Kevin. That was very generous of you. I appreciate it.

You know what I would love to hear, just because this is a different topic here is before we even get started on this, I'd love to see in the chat, if you had a choice right now and you could be better or you could be different, which one do you think is more valuable just without just thinking about it on your choice, what would be your choice? And that's. We just kind of set the tone there because I want you to think about that because this is a. It's a different way of thinking here. So, Sally, I'm so excited that we're going to get to chat here.

I'm able to see the comments as they're coming in and we have an overwhelming majority of different. Dean, I think we may have tipped the hat.

Yes.

The title Different Is better than better. What if we had said the title of the book Is better is better than better.

Exactly. That's what it is. We got a bunch of teacher pets here. Yes men. Yes men. Yeah. Better at being different. That's what Robbie Styles.

Yeah, Robbie.

All these clever ones. See, that's different. Like the way he thinks. So where do we start with this? Ali, you've been. I mean, the whole, your work around the whole idea of being fascinating is about fascinate is a. The beginning and that's the root of all of this. Right. So why don't you kind of maybe just set a little pre context for us and then we can take our conversation.

Sure.

Okay.

Well, I'll start with a somewhat personal story. When I was in the third grade, every day at 2:10pm I would get an intense stomach ache and nobody knew exactly what it was. I couldn't tell if it was a disease, a condition, was it physical, was it emotional? And finally my parents realized that 2:10pm when I was in the third grade was the time that PE started. And it was the same year that my sister, my older sister broke her first world record in swimming and my brother was at Harvard. And the experience of trying to figure out my place in the family and my place in the world as a little girl shut me down so deeply and so painfully because I learned at a very early age how hard it is to compete on the basis of better. And so every day I had this Pavlovian reaction. So I grew up with this concept that you really have to make a choice. Are you going to compete on the basis of being better, or are you going to find your place in the world and find your voice on the basis of being different? And this was reiterated when I was in advertising. I loved to work for underdog brands. Not VW, but Mini Cooper. Being able to look at the brands that couldn't beat on the. They couldn't compete on the basis of having the biggest budget. They had to be able to win people over without being the most famous. And what I saw was brands that have a very clear point of difference have a massive advantage in the marketplace because they don't have to spend as much on marketing. It doesn't take as long for them to gain awareness and talk value. But, but, but today we're going to be going deeper into this, Dean. We're not going to be talking about it just from a branding perspective, and we're actually not talking about differentiation. What we're going to be talking about is really Diving into who are you as an entrepreneur, as a leader, who are you at your absolute highest that you don't have to change and you don't have to fix? You have to identify it and articulate it and then not just build your brand around it, but build your entire identity.

I love it. So how do we start? Where do we even think like this? How do we start to recognize this in our own lives here?

Well, the first thing is to take a look at the way in which we were raised. We were raised with a myth, the myth of being better. Be better in school, be better looking, make sure that you can get better grades so you can get a better job, so you can have a better salary, have a better product, have a better service, have better marketing. And that worked until about 10 years ago. And then a fundamental shift happened. Better is something that can be replaced. If you're competing on the basis of better, you're competing on the same rules and the same playground as somebody else. I want you to think about better as being vertical. Better is incrementally trying to improve. Better is coming up with one idea and then tweaking it and making it incrementally better. Better is taking something that's already established and then building upon that, but staying tunnel vision. Better only there's only one person who's better. There's only one person who can be the best. So this is going to be introducing in our conversation, instead of being better, which works if you have the biggest budget, the most famous, instead going horizontally to think about being different, there isn't just one idea, there's a profusion of ideas. And the more you can come up with, the more you can make the bad ideas obsolete. It's not about having a reiteration of something that already exists. It's about being able to go through that journey and find a solution. That's the breakthrough.

As you were talking, I've been thinking about it because we've talked about other times about it. The what strikes me is that better is. Requires something to be quantitative.

Yes. Yeah. Better can be measured. That's why it's seductive.

Different is qualitative, I guess. Right. Can you. Wow.

Echoes. Yeah.

Somebody agrees. That's the universe thing. You're onto something that.

Yeah, well, better can be replaced with a new technology, a shinier brand, a new fan. It's a really dangerous place to be in. And so what I'd like to be able to unpack in this discussion is how do you evaluate whether you're competing on the basis of better or different. And if I may, I'll jump in with a story of how I experienced this in my own career, directly affected my quality of life, how much money I made, my health, my relationships.

I love it. Yes.

Yeah. So when I first started in the arena of speaking, I didn't have a bestseller. I didn't know anybody, I didn't have client contacts. And so I had the freedom that you have when you're an underdog to be aggressively different. I had a, a jump of a trajectory from $3,000 per speech to $35,000 per speech in just a year because I focused on being different. And part of why I was doing that is I didn't have anything to lose. And I thought back to my days in advertising and before I would take on a client, I had a phrase that they had to agree with. And the phrase was, it's not working if it doesn't get hate mail. If I do my job, you will get hate mail. So I don't want you to freak out now, if it's 80% hate mail, then let's take a look at it. But if we're not alienating people, you have to know who you're not as much as who you are. And the problem is that when we lose that fearlessness that falls to the wall, understanding that we have to be able to get hate mail not just in business, but for the people that we surround ourselves with, we live in a smaller, confined reality. And so for me, how that looked when I, after about five or six years, I started chasing the bigger checks, the bigger audiences instead of marketers and entrepreneurs, I was speaking to insurance, pharmaceuticals, agriculture. And here's the problem with the feedback loop. If you're around somebody who doesn't think you're funny, you notice how you. You're not funny. They get right really quickly. And so if you begin to modify yourself to be what somebody else thinks you should be, it's not just brand damaging, it's devastating. And so I tried to be better. I stopped trying to be different. My fees went down, my hair started falling out from the stress, and my hair was falling out so quickly that I became incredibly self conscious about it. Because a lot of us know the importance of having a headshot. Your headshot on your website, that photo of your face. And in speaking especially or anything where you have a personal brand that's built on your own identity, there's an expectation that you are going to look like your headshot when you walk in the room or you show up on the podcast. And Dean, do you know the term catfishing?

Catfishing, yeah, catfishing. Yes. Yes, of course.

Put in the chat. What is the term catfishing? Like for example, I went on online dating and I was catfishing.

Yeah.

Now, okay, Dean, what is catfishing?

Oh, depending if you're saying if I'm doing the catfishing or being catfishing. I think what if people are doing the catfishing? What that means is you're putting up pictures of other people. You're pretending to be someone that you're not because you're putting up what you think the person that you're trying to attract would want that person to be. And then you're communicating with them under that false pretense of being this person that you're putting forward.

Yeah, false pretense. And, and, and it can also be yourself that the you that lives on.

Instagram, there's a great show on filtered MTV or somewhere.

The Circle.

Yeah, yeah. And it's never ends well. It never ends well. It never ends that once they fall in love with you and you're the real person they're going to be, you know that you're going to meet them and all of a sudden they're going to go, oh, you come here. It doesn't matter that you're totally different than the person I fell in love with.

And I think for a lot of us it can be scary to get new headshots and pick the right photo because neurologically we're so good about being able to read faces. And if you have a client and something like keynote speaking, that is going to make a decision based on all the subtleties of your facial expression, your body posture, Are you wearing Armani suit or cool black Soho jeans? Is it a brick background or are you in a white sterile environment? And all of those nuances mean there's a huge amount of pressure because the client's going to say yes or no to a certain degree just based on that photo. It's not a photo of you. It is you. It is you in two dimensional form. And so I got so self conscious and down on myself, I didn't take a new photo for seven years. I was catfishing. So I was using my 2013 photo through to 2020. So I would show up and guess what? I don't look exactly the same as I did seven years ago. And one of the things was my hair was a lot longer, but I wouldn't cut my hair because I didn't want. I wanted to look like I did then and spanx can only do so much. So I didn't cut my hair, but when my hair was falling out in clumps, I decided the solution was to try to look like I did seven years ago by wearing hair extens. Dean, have you ever worn hair extensions?

No, not recently.

They're hot as a mofo when you're on stage. So you're basically trading having sweat dripping down your face versus having hair that looks a little thicker. So, long story short, this is an existential identity crisis that I think a lot of us are going through, especially with COVID Not necessarily related to a photo, but that we feel trapped by the brand that we built for ourselves. And the reason why we feel trapp trapped in a cage is because we are trying to compete on the basis of being better than our competitors or better than we were. It was only until I started realizing that I was doing the very thing that I had always told my clients. I wasn't getting any hate mail, and I wasn't getting love letters either. So I had to stop and reinvent. And part of that process was understanding, like, okay, universe, I get it. I can't just say be different. I have to really deeply embraced that.

That sounds like the perfect time for a Sally Batical.

Yes, it was.

Do you love this? I remember being just a delightful participant in Sally Batical. Day one. We had the. The very first order of business was lunch.

Bohemian Hotel. It was day 001.

Yes.

Yeah. And I had no idea what I was going to do. And I was scared shitless.

Yes. And that was. That seems like yesterday, but it was now three years ago. I mean, two Covid. It was. Yeah. And it was. Tell me the story.

Because it was two years ago.

Okay, two years.

It was two years ago. I. In 2018, I was so miserable. I just. I think a lot of us can identify with this. Not just feeling depressed, but feeling like nothing we do matters. And the harder we work, the bigger our overhead gets. And we're not able to have quality relationships with anybody because it's exhausting to be inauthentic. Wearing a mask is like wearing hair extensions. Yeah. You're catfishing.

Yeah.

So I finished my sabbatical in April of 2020, which means then I just kept it rolling.

Yeah.

Right.

And I did a tremendous amount of contemplation. And you were a really great part of that, Dean, that you and I would check in consistently and I would come to you with. With, like, not so sophisticated questions, like, I don't know what to do with my life. And you were really great about helping me get back to not only what do you love to do and what do you make money at, but what are the things that you do that define who you are? What is your cow that can self milk and how do you build your entire business around it? And I want to say thank you. Thank you, thank you. Based on our discussions, I was able to turn my company from me like pulling the wagon, being on the road to it that I've. My. My team operates completely separately from me and in fact my team is having a team retreat today in Montana and I wasn't invited.

I love that. Right. So that's the whole thing. As we joked, your team has embraced your bovinity and they allow you to all the creative ideas and build around it. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Just you do your thing. Because what is so in your reinvention then or in your. Your Sally Batical. What was the. Did that when you started really fully contemplating this whole like going further with the. This being the platform better is or different is better than better? Is that because I know you've always said that and you've always kind of had that approach, but you now leading with this message, is that as a result of your contemplation?

It is.

How did it evolve? It's important now for you.

Thank you. Yeah. It didn't start as a book concept. It started as a way that I needed to completely restructure my business. And so I took a step back and I took a really, really hard, painful, brutal look at what I was doing and who I was being at my brand inside and out. And I realized I wasn't getting hate mail. And so I saw, for example, as a microcosm, I looked at my Instagram feed and my kids have always said my Instagram feed sucks. But I realized that I was posting really boring content that had nothing to do with anything. It wasn't adding any value. It was just taking up space in my feed. And it would be a photo of my dinner. And here's the irony. If the value that you add in the conversation in the world is to have a message about being different and then you know, your social media is neither different nor better. It's not adding value, it's just taking up space, then it's time to have a good hard look at yourself. And so I took my social media and completely blew it up from the very beginning. And you can. I unfollowed everybody. I deleted every post and completely started over. And I said, I feel like I have spinach in my teeth. Nobody told me or nobody followed me.

Right, right.

And that was incredibly freeing. And I began to think of some of our conversations, Dean, where you and I have talked about brands that. The brands that you and I talk about, not just marketing, but, you know, behavior, decision making that the ones that we have that we've talked about, it's always like, can you freaking believe they did that? And the fact that we were talking about it is the greatest form of. Of media. So I started looking at what are brands that over time they have not changed the product, they just changed the positioning of the product. So I wasn't changing who I am. I was becoming more getting back to who I am, scraping off the layers, taking off the hair extension. And so I'll give you an example. Did you know that Lysol. Do you know what Lysol used to be when it was first introduced?

I seem to remember, like in my mind when I think about Lysol, if I go back to the recesses of my weaning on the television that Lysol was pine fresh or some. I think it was about that. That's what I remember about Lysol. Is that right?

Does any put in the chat if you know what Lysol was at from like 1900 to like 1950?

Okay. No, I don't think I know what that.

Okay. Lysol was a douche.

Okay?

I'm not kidding. Lysol was a douche. And it was the same formulation. And it said, there's a reason why he's not attracted anymore. And it's your response. Look at Jamie. Omg.

Omg.

And so it was this incredibly misogynistic product. Can you imagine being like pine fresh? Not your floors, but your carpet? It's unthinkable. Google it.

I mean, really. Yeah.

And here's another example. When Play Doh was originally created as a soot cleaner, before the invention of electricity, houses had these horrible soot stains from the wood fired stoves and there was this rubbery substance that you would clean it. And when electricity came, their sales went down. And so they repositioned. And not only did they keep the product the same, the reason why Plato has such a distinctive scent is because that was the original scent. But Marlboro was originally targeted to women, and then sales were going down, so they changed to the cowboy image. Viagra was originally positioned to impotence. Well, nobody wants to have impotence, but erectile dysfunction. Okay, that sounds a lot better. All of that is simply changing the wrapper without changing the product, we individually, not just in our companies, we individually, we shouldn't change who we are. We should become more of who we are. We don't have to fix ourselves. We have to figure out what we're already doing right, and then do more of it. Like Lysol was not doing it right, But I like that pine fresh scent on my floors.

Do you know the example I use of that same product is Excedrin Migraine. That there's no difference at all between the ingredients in Excedrin Extra Strength and Excedrin Migraine. It is exactly the same pill in the box. And people pay a premium for Excedrin Migraine because it says migraine right on the can. So it's different in a way that is only emotionally responsive to me if I've got a migraine, I guess. Is that. I mean.

Yeah, that's right. That's the easiest, cheapest. Although what those brands are doing that we just talked about, they're just changing the wrapper. And so that's the easiest way to be different than you were. And not necessarily different. Being extremist.

Oh, you're gonna kick out of this one. There's one.

Do tell.

There's a. You know what a pumice stone is like? Okay, so this was like. Imagine the marriage of a pumice stone and a toilet brush. Okay. The little one and the toilet. The pumice stone at the bottom. And in pink packaging, they had it packaged and presented as the heel beanie. So for your heels, Right. To get them for the dead skin. And then in blue packaging, they had the same exact wand positioned as the magic toilet scrubber gets out rust stains off of your toilet. So it was. Let's test the market here. The magic the Heel Genie or the Magic toilet wand. And it's like, holy cow, I wonder which one won.

I have to be in that focus group. Like in room 101. We've got the pink one.

Yeah.

So, Dean, what I found was there are four different ways to compete in the Battle Royale between different and better. And I'll briefly take you through it. Imagine we're looking at an axis.

That's right.

So, Dean, if you can draw this, that would be helpful. So remember, better is vertical. It's an incremental improvement that is always about trying to do one step more than you just did. You will never have a breakthrough simply by trying to be better. The only way to win at competing on the basis of better is to have the bigger budget or have more fame or have an asset. So underdogs, entrepreneurs, college graduates, anybody who's not already performing at the top of their game and doesn't have decades and decades of logo awareness behind them will never be able to win on the basis of better. Now, there's different, which is horizontal. Different is where different is where the magic happens. Different is looking ahead to what's next. Now, I want you to think there's so there's better and horizontally there's different. Of course, everybody, everybody would love to be different and better. That's the holy grail. Different and better. And that's where that's kind of the category, the upper quadrant, where so for.

Every different, there once somebody says, oh, I'm different like that too, now that starts the race. But I'm different like that. Better than they're different like that. That's interesting. Like if there's all of a sudden another Excite, another Migraine competitor, if they were the first ones, now somebody else comes out with it, oh, me too. We're this too. Now. Then the race is who's the better of the different, uniquely ones. That's amazing.

Yeah. So to use your example, when Excedrin Migraine came out, that was different, but it fundamentally didn't have an actual difference in it. And so it would be replicated and outdone. Tylenol Migraine xl. So this upper quadrant, different and better, is where Elon Musk and Tesla, it's Ted speeches, Disney, Rolling Stones. It's these iconic brands that have achieved that over time with their credibility of being both. And they're constantly reinventing, are constantly reinvesting as well. Now, let's imagine there's better but not different. That's the next quadrant over. Better but not different. Those are brands that are mature and they're established and they have a place in the market, but they're at risk of becoming obsolete. These are brands like Toyota, Burberry, Olive Garden, have high name awareness at&t. So the brands are healthy, but if they don't keep re injecting different into them, then they're really putting themselves in a vulnerable position because they can just be outdone by the next better. Let's look at the bottom two quadrants. There's not different, not better. This is branding hell. This is where brands go to die. Kmart, Blockbuster, they no longer have a differentiating feature and they're not better. So not only are they a commodity, they have no way to compete, so the market just eats them alive. And the only way they can stay in Business is by pumping extraordinary amount of money into their overhead, their man hours. If you're an entrepreneur and you're not different and you're not better, at least as defined by your ideal customer, then the only way you're gonna survive is by killing yourself and slave driving your talent. Now. But let's come over to the final quadrant, and that is different, but not yet better. So strategically, these brands, they don't focus on being better, yet they focus on being different. And this is the magic zone of where entrepreneurial brands come into their own. This is where brands have the highest likelihood of achieving the greatest growth in the minimum amount of time, with the least marketing budget and the fewest number of people. So these are the brands that focus on being different, that are no longer competing head to head with the market leaders. Instead, they're alienating part of the market by intentionally figuring out who they're not for and instead having a much smaller, highly defined niche that they can turn into not just advocates, but fanatics. These are the cult brands. And so when we look at how brands move around these four different quadrants, sometimes a brand will come into the market. When Burberry introduced the plaid trench coat, They were different. They had a plaid that nobody else had. They rode that plaid wave for, for 200 years and the plaid became so ubiquitous that they lost their copyright on the plaid. So they were better, but not different. They became a commodity. They were not different, not better. They moved down. And it wasn't until they got a whole new creative director and they actually burned their stock of plaid raincoats. They literally burned them at the end of the year so that they wouldn't be counterfeited, that they now were crawling their way back up.

Wow, that's interesting. That's an interesting thing when you're saying people getting ready to start, that's a good place to aim to land is in that different, but not yet better.

Because you can't have. When you have to choose, which we all do, unless we have unlimited funds. When you have to choose, you have to choose. You have to choose different. Because different allows you to make sure that you're not trying to outdo somebody else at their own game, you're not.

Chasing right, who's done it. Let's move into a couple of examples, recent time here of something who's done it right.

Billie Eilish. She has a really polarizing brand and when she first came out, people just didn't get it. Carlos says Red Bull, when Red Bull first came over from Europe, Remember, it was Red Bull gives you wings. Americans had no idea what that. What that was about. Why would I want a carbonated drink? I've got coffee. And then it became. It became so mainstream that it was better, not different. And there were so many irritant.

Everything about Red Bull is different, isn't it? I mean, the size and shape of the can is different. The where it's sold is different. Everything the whole approach was different.

Was. And was is the key word because it was. It was incredibly, incredibly easy to copy.

Now Rockstar. Now everybody's energy. Yeah. Energy drinks. That's. Yeah. And I guess smart water was in that same. Now everybody's kind of improving, making water different. That's. Yeah, I like that. So any other examples?

Well, let's take a look at entrepreneurs in the marketplace. Why don't we take a look at Joe Polish.

Okay. So remember when.

Let's talk about carpet cleaning.

Not here to chime in.

Yeah. One of my favorite stories that Joe ever told was that every square foot of carpet has like 2 pounds of. Of human skin cell debris. Did I get that right?

Yes.

So when he started within carpet cleaning, though, what a commoditized business, and he wasn't able to really successfully compete because even though he was better than other carpet cleaners, he didn't have a way to be able to get his message out. And so he was just schlepping all around without air conditioning and killing himself because nobody understood why they should pay more for his product. And instead, then he started creating those conferences where he would. He became a leader of other carpet cleaners. And Dean, you probably know this better than I do, that the way he differentiated is by being able to find, literally this tribe that was so rabid that pretty soon he was giving away his white Teslas at the event. And now he lives in the world of different and better.

Yeah. And that was the thing, really bringing marketing specifically to carpet cleaners. That was for them. That was a. That was different than other marketers that were not in that world.

And that's. That's the thing that. What I found is there are six different ways that you can be different. There's no one right way to be different. You can be different than you were. You can be different than your competition. And it doesn't have to be a massive difference. It doesn't. You don't have to reinvent yourself at all.

But.

Of the six, an example is your heritage. A lot of times, there are parts of your heritage that are exquisitely unusual that are the mythology of how you came to be and how your company came to be. Nobody else has your heritage. You have to be able to go back and find that. I was a copywriter on Nike and all the Nike business cards have a tiny waffle iron on them. Dean, why do they have a waffle iron?

Yeah, that's interesting because the very first shoes that they did were made in the waffle iron. That was how he did it, right?

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

So heritage. Another one is your actions. What are you doing that's so unlike what anybody else is doing that people are going to notice. Another is culture. What's a practice of who you are for your community and for your employees. An example of a brand that did this very badly is Ed Hardy. Remember when Ed Hardy first came out that, you know, like the tattoo, love kills slowly. The birds and the heart. When they first came out, I remember I was living in LA and the Viper Room would have, you know, Johnny Depp coming out after his. His night on the town wearing his Ed Hardy. And it was hot, hot, hot. But then because they. So they focused on culture, but they didn't focus on their heritage, they didn't focus on their actions. And so the brand became one dimensional. So pretty soon the Ed Hardy brand, in order to stay alive, they had to go into line extensions like Ed Hardy pacifiers, Ed Hardy airline, Ed Hardy, things that had absolutely nothing to do with the brand. And I was just looking in Macy's catalog and now ed Hardy is 95% off for their cotton duvet covers.

Oh my goodness.

Now there are people who made a lot of money and definitely cashed out. But as brands, we can't just differentiate by having line extensions, which is what Red Bull's doing.

Have you seen thinking now like this has been the last little while a real opportunity for new things to emerge and things to reinvent. Are there any? Because you're probably on the. Observing all of this right now. Is there anybody who's kind of in the middle of this right now? Is there anybody, any examples or companies that are. Or people that are sort of re turning themselves, differentiating themselves in this way?

Well, there are some. There's some really juicy political examples that we won't get into today. Well, speaking of politics, let me get first to counterbalance. Let me give a couple of examples. Do you remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger was an actor?

Right.

How's that for repositioning? When your brand starts becoming obsolete? Do you remember when Ronald Reagan was an actor? So that's like a. That's a radical pivot when we look, when we look at what brands are doing. Cult 45 started having a problem because their malt liquor was, you know, it was starting to become super obsolete. And so what they did is they tapped back into that heritage emblem, the heritage that they had, and they created a line of custom bags that when Colt 45 is purchased, it goes into the bag, which is kind of the iconic mythology, the lore of what Colt 45 had stood for. But they took that and they owned that and they started doing it on purpose.

That's interesting.

Wow.

So what would be the Crimson, the action kit for somebody who's thinking, I want to start maybe exploring about. Or maybe it feels like, because you'd probably know it when you're in the middle of it. If people, on reflection right now, thinking about their own situation and where they're positioned in the marketplace on that matrix or they're struggling, maybe they're trying to keep up. What's the.

What.

What's the first kind of where do we start to maybe explore this or think about this?

Well, it's so funny you should ask, Dean.

Well, wouldn't it be great if there was something process for this?

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe if somebody who's written the New York Times.

Yeah, Just, you know, kind of, for.

Instance, on a journey through it.

I, you know, Dean, I was so excited when you invited me to be. To be here. And so I talked to my team and I said, I have an idea of something that is different than a traditional book launch. The book is not finished. Not only does the book not have a publication date, but I want to give away kind of a sampler platter to the people who are joining us today who are listening to our conversation.

I like this.

I'm going to give you a URL. And when you go to the URL, you're going to be able to download a mini sample of the book. So you can. You can tell me what you think. And here it is.

Okay.

It's SallyHogshead.com IloveMarketing. All one word. Not case sensitive. Well, that's SallyHogshead.com ilovemarketing. And now my team, as you know, they're off on their team retreat. But before they left yesterday, they showed me the page. And it's simple. And it makes the point that you can't just say different. You have to be different. And how do you take the concept of a book launch and deconstruct it? What if there's no cover? What if there are 10,000 different covers. What if we have a.

What I'm excited about is to see that, you know, that now there's. Yeah, there's very. You know, you've. I loved, because you and I have had a conversation about this launch. Creating the book, that you're going through it and creating the book as we go kind of thing.

Yes.

Which is really kind of great. I love that.

And so here's what it is. I took, I don't know, 10 or 12 pages that are sort of representative of the content of the book and put it together in a PDF, and then at the end, I'll say, if you want to give me feedback on this, then here's. Just click the link, go into the Google Doc, and it's asking you five questions. How would you apply this? What did you find most useful? Is this concept valuable to you? And I also go through that process. I start to give a hint of what does it mean to be different? Which of those six emblems, those six emblems of being different, could you tap into? And here's how that you can begin to apply them. And once you understand what makes you different, how can you continue to take that further and further and further and further? So it becomes so refined that people become obsessed with you instead of just mildly interested in you.

I love it. I mean, that's so great. You want to get, like, instead of hate mail, you want to get hate mail, but also stalker mail. Is that what you're saying?

Yes.

Yes.

Fan mail. Yeah, that is funny.

And, Dean, in one of our conversations, I was saying, I know I want to write a book, but I really hate book launches. I get really. It feels like you're throwing a birthday party and you don't know if anybody's actually going to show up. So I said, well, if I don't do a book launch, what if I just release the book over the course of. Of limited editions, where each edition is.

I was very excited about doing a limited edition.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, we're gonna do. We're gonna do a Dean Jackson limited edition. And the only way that you can. You can get the Dean Jackson limited edition is through you. And so it's gonna be customized. I'm gonna. I'm gonna spill all the beans. I'm gonna give so much dirt. Dean, you're gonna. You're gonna. You're gonna wish you burned them.

You hear that? This is good. This is good. Now, you know, the fun thing is that these are things that are completely possible. Now that we embrace this mic We've been talking about this migration to Cloudlandia now that this is where we are. Like, you know, you talk about even something that you're going through right now, everybody is. We're on Zoom.

This is.

We used to have meetup groups that people would meet all over the world and they'd meet for an I love marketing group to talk about marketing and meet people and hang out. And we started doing these meetups as a place for all of us to come and be here now. But Zoom is all part of Cloudlandia. In Cloudlandia, there's only one place. It's here. We're all here there. It doesn't matter where we are on the mainland. We're here in. In Cloudlandia. We're gathering. So the rules are a little bit different now. You as a speaker, as one of your primary things that you do that drives everything have gone through. You know, there's not a lot of people having big events that are doing live events where you're speaking on stages. And do you want to talk about what you did to be different and embrace that here it's easy to think.

Of different as being scrappy or low rent. And I decided that one of my differences was that with my background, I knew how to create ultra premium experiences, ultra white glove speeches and experiences. So I decided that I wanted to translate this ultra premium experience, not just for the audience, but for the clients and the meeting planners into the virtual world. So I decided that I wasn't going to change my speaking fee for virtual events. I was going to keep my fee at between 30 and $35,000. And in order to do that, you can charge as much as you want as long as you're over delivering. The question is not how much is a speech worth. The question is how can you constantly exceed expectations? And so the first thing that I did is I looked at what are the elements of a live keynote speech that have not yet been replicated. And one of the things that I saw was that a lot of people were using. They would open up their computer and be doing the Zoom there, kind of like we are right now, or they would be standing up in front of their iPhone video. And so I am here in my. I built a. A complete home studio. I have two team members who are over here. Hi, guys. Say hi. So we have a director, a teleprompter machine. We always have somebody who's the second tech. And then I have an executive assistant who's here to make sure that if the client has Any questions? And then my, that I, our strategic liaison is on the phone with the client and with the studio so that if there are any concerns with audio or visual or they're moderating to chat, does that raise overhead? Absolutely. And kind of hyper finessing the quality. But we looked at how can you replace, how do you replace Q and A? I love ad lib and it's really hard to do that sometimes with a speech, especially with slides. And so what we've been doing is we do zoom interviews with either the customers or the team members of a client. We take those, we edit them and then we incorporate it into the speech so that as people are watching, they've got familiar faces. Or it has that same proximity effect of a live in person event. And then we shoot behind the scenes B roll and we give it to them. We have somebody who's on social media. Gina, our director of communication, she'll be live on social media. So if people are posting questions like, okay, how do I apply this? Then she's there to constantly respond. So what that's allowed me to do is now that we're coming back into live events, that I feel really lucky and I feel blessed to have the team that I do because we never compromised on fee. I don't have to crawl back up out of that hole. And here's the point that I want to make. This isn't about me and my fees. It's about how you lead your business. Is one way to differentiate is on price. And differentiating on the basis of being different doesn't mean that you go downscale. It doesn't mean that you're cheaper. In some cases, price elasticity allows you to not just charge more, but to differentiate. And Dean, you and I have the perfect example of this policy.

Yes, exactly.

You're the one who told me about this. So can you give that example that you shared with me a while back?

Well, so this was right at the beginning of Sally Baticol, that this, and I'm remembering the details now, but it was Payless shoe source, right. Was going out of business. Remind me the rest because I know that.

Yeah, sure, no problem. I love it so much. Well, hey, forget what Dean said and pretend you don't know. It's Bayless. This, this ultra high end Kocher shoe store opened up. I'm kidding. They opened up in stores and they had, they had really high end celebrities coming in and you know, the paparazzi and they would have these social media influencers and tastemakers looking at the shoes and saying, this is exquisite. This is representing what the fashion is going towards. And they all had $800, 12,000, $1,200 price tags. And then they took the price and then what did they do?

Then they revealed that it was Payless and they peeled.

So they peeled off the $800 price tag and underneath was the 1299 price tag. But they let it go on for, like, six weeks. So there was a lot of buildup in the press, huge presence on social media, until it. It was revealed. It's not police y, it's Payless. Now, what that demonstrates is price elasticity. That the way in which Payless was. It was the death rattle of the brand. So they were kudos to them. They were not different, not better. And they were trying to get themselves over to different, not better, and then up. Now, unfortunately, the case study doesn't have a very happy ending because they did end up going into bankruptcy. Bankruptcy. It'd be so much, Dean, you and I could prop that brand up and then we'd have a better story.

It's just so amazing that that's. He really wants that. Once the reveal is out, though, now it's like nobody can do it because that would make them look like, oh, I wasn't on board. Now that I know this, but often wondered about things like that. Like how. Yeah, how you. You know, how people do things. I'm sure there's lots of examples of that we don't know about the same product in.

I have a couple of versions. You do?

I knew it.

Morton salt is literally the exact same product as generic salt. If you send it to a lab, they can't tell the difference, but Morton's able to charge 187% more. I did an experiment to try to understand what is a commodity. When somebody buys a commodity product, are they paying more? When two things that are exactly the same and they're willing to pay more for one, are they paying for the brand? Are they paying for their perception of the product? So to test this, I gave people two pairs of sunglasses that were exactly the same. I said, okay, one pair had no logo and the other pair had a Chanel logo. And I said, how much would you be willing to pay for these two glasses? And they were willing to pay 400% more for the pair with Chanel logo, which means they were buying sunglasses, but they were paying for their perception of the product or more importantly, how other people would perceive them. So the way this relates to entrepreneurs, to small business owners, to leaders, is it's about. It's about the perception that you're creating on your differentiation. And there's no one right way to differentiate in the speaking world. When I started, I couldn't figure out what's the correlation between a speaking fee and how much that speaker is willing to charge. Is it reputation? Is it reviews? Is it connections? Status? And so I looked at top speakers, and on speaking sites, there's a dropdown menu just like Amazon. Which category are you looking for? Right. In speaking, the category is economics, politics, comedy. And what I found was that speakers who used the word innovation to describe their topic made on average $5,000 more per keynote than speakers who used the category creativity.

Oh, wow.

Innovation and creativity, you could take the same speech and simply change the word, but innovation had a much higher perception because innovation is a means to an end, whereas creativity is perceived as a process that doesn't necessarily have a benefit.

Boy, that's really. That is interesting.

And so it's an example of different. How to make your product. By a very subtle nuance, the product becomes different, which thereby makes it be perceived as better through marketing.

I love it. I love it. I want to see what kind of questions maybe people.

Hey, Dean, can I get in this conversation real briefly? Hi, Sally.

Is that really you, or are we being catfished right now?

So, first of all, Sally, I was going to introduce you on this, and I got delayed flying, and I'm such a huge fan of everything you do. You know, it's probably. What was it, Sally? Three or four years ago at a Genius Network annual event, you were on the stage with a panel of female spectacular entrepreneurs. You, JJ Virgin and Kelly, Robin Roberts.

Lisa Sasevich.

Robin. That's right. But I heard you say, and your book title's a little different than I remember, but you said, it's better to be different than it is to be better. And that was like the highlight for me for that annual event. I wrote it down. I've quoted you so many times since that time, but here's one that kind of a case study, Sally, I'd love for you to comment about. So back in the 20th century, I worked. That's kind of funny to put it that way. Yeah, I worked for Hair Club for Men. I was actually. I became vice president of Hair Club for Men. And when I joined them, they were doing about 8 billion a year. Then we took it to $120 million a year. So we did well. But Cy Sperling, 1976, he says, I want to get into the hairpiece business. Hairpiece business and it was a commodity. Dean's Hairpieces, Schwa's Wigs, Russ's Toupees, it was all the same. And Cy Sperling comes along and he says he was selling the exact same thing. But he called his company Hair Club for Men. So that was the first thing. That was the first thing, Hair Club for Men. And Cy didn't call it Schwa's Wigs or Dean's Toupees or Russ's Hairpieces. He called it the strand by strand method. It was the same thing, but he called it. He named it. He unique. Let's see, what does Dan Sullivan say? Unique naming process.

Right.

And then Schwa's Wigs and Dean's Toupees and Russ's hairpieces, they sell for $500 size, strand by strand system. He sold for between $2,500 and $4,000.

So.

And people flocked to it. Oh, my goodness. They would go from states away, they would come to get the strand by strand method. Now, by the time I joined the company, they were different and better. They used a lot of that money and research and development and made something that was better than a hairpiece. But when I think of what you are talking about and I think of this case study, he entered a commodity, but he named his company really well. I think you can comment. He called it something different, gave it a unique trademark name and he priced it on a high level and it became an incredibly successful company.

That's a great example. If you think of Certs with Retsen. There's no such thing as Retzen. The Pons Institute. There's no Pons Institute. Those women in lab coats we did. Wait a second.

Wait a second.

Blew my mind. I thought there was a Pons Institute.

Yeah, let's Google the address and go visit. And it's going to be on Madison Avenue.

So they do tours.

Yeah, yeah. Within my company, how to Fascinate, we had a lot of people who wanted to be affiliates, to be able to train and to coach. And when we thought of them as affiliates, it was sort of like they were customers. They were. And so we created the Fascinate Certified Advisor program with certification. And now because we made it a thing with a program and with steps.

Now.

We'Ve certified over 200 people. It's been required in Singapore. The government pays for it. There are dozens of them in Germany and in countries all over the world. And what that comes back to is that when you take something, it's an abstract process or you take something that doesn't have a clear, a clear benefit and with subtle changes, you can make it ownable. You can make it not only trademarkable, but we just got our International Coaching Federation approval, which is incredibly exciting for us because now it means that. Yeah, so now our trainers and coaches are coming from that pool. So, yeah. I encourage all of us to be thinking about what is something that you're already doing right, that you're not getting credit for because you haven't named it, but you haven't done what Tim said. Strand by strand is a way of taking a look at something that's happening as part of a process that's a commoditized process, but looking at it through the eyes of the consumer and that consumer wants a strand by strand process, they just, they don't know. They wouldn't know how they're. They wouldn't be able to understand the benefit to them through, through what other people were doing in that category. So that's a great example, Tim.

That's awesome. Thank you know, I always say that's. That, that was. If you remember how he sold. That was a different strategy too, that I remember seeing because that's right around the time I met you. Tim was 1997. Ish. 98 maybe. Yeah. And at the time he was running infomercials and saying how he got the idea from the cell phone industry where they give people the cell phone. When you buy the plan, the, the, the ongoing plan, and it was the same for them. They would give you the hair which has the value and you sign up for. Because every month you have to go and get it adjusted or tightened. Is that what they would call it, say adjusted? Adjusted, not tightened, but they.

Your hair.

And as your hair grows, it gets, it loosens and you've got to batting down the hatches. I guess.

That'S the terminology consumers are thinking.

Immediately in my mind, I immediately conceived of it. I'm going to share it here, world premiere. I've carried this around. I've told a select group of people individually in private conversations about my movie idea that that inspired and I'm going to reveal it here in case anybody has the ability to help us get this movie made. So in my mind, as he's explaining this, I thought that's brilliant because once people get the hair, they're going to want to keep the hair. So I bet that their hair payment, they make the payment, they continue on with the process. I bet the lifetime value of a client is very high. And then I thought but what if they don't pay? What happens then? Do they come and pull the plugs? Do they come and, like, repossess the hair? How does that happen? And that immediately led me to this culture and underworld of these hair repossessors that work out of back of the barber shop kind of thing, like straight out of Quentin Tarantino movie, like Repo and that. I thought about doing a part documentary mockumentary of this world of these people, but then it evolved into tying it into sort of a Weekend at Bernie's, kind of this political candidate who's running for office, but he didn't make his hair payments. And they're going to pull the plugs on him while he's on the.

Literally pull the plugs, tracking him down.

And they're going to pull the plugs like the hair repo men. So there's my 30 seconds elevator pitch for the movie. If anybody would like to collaborate and make that happen.

Oh, I thought you were gonna show it. I thought you're gonna show us like a teaser.

But that is the teaser.

Oh, okay. That is so.

So, I mean, you know, I'm gonna tell you something that I'm gonna say if any. Let's. Is that a good movie idea? If that. If we're gonna make this movie, let's say plugs yes or plugs no in the comments here. Plugs yes or plugs no. And let's see what we're going to. What we're dealing with here, because I think it's at a million. I think it's a great idea.

It's a brilliant, brilliant idea.

Dean, can we join forces? Remember a moment ago I was describing that I'm about to begin a podcast, the different is better than better podcast. And one of our first episodes is going to be scented, like a la Scratch and sniff, where if you sign up for. If you sign up for that episode of the podcast, we're going to mail you your scented. So like we all remember from 1960s movies. And so I would like to do that. The scratch off scents for that. For example, there's the scent of money, which would be one of the first scratch offs. And then you go over to cologne, which is you're like, you're attracting women, and then you have the smell of smoke, which is when you're going through your midlife crisis and you cheat on your wife. And we can continue it from there.

I love this.

Are you a game?

I am. This is amazing. Yeah. It's interactive, live, multisensory podcasting where it takes to a new level. Spotify is going to pick it up, I can tell already. Cool, well, let's. What is the consensus here? We look in plugs. Yes. Plugs, yes. Plugs, Yes. I don't see any plugs. No. So this is good. Just offbeat. Enough plugs. Yes. Okay.

Sniffify.

Sniffify. So okay, that's silliness, but wonderful silliness. So let's see, what kind of questions or things does this bring up for us here? If anybody has a question or anything, we want to get some discussion with Sally here. Let's type in the comments here and we can go in that direction here and clarify or expand. And I'd love, you know, we were talking, Sally, about a couple of examples that I remember of, you know, different. And I was telling you about a hotel in Amsterdam called the Hans Brinker Hotel, which billed themselves as the worst hotel in the world. And they own it. And they embrace this in the most, you know, the most wonderful way in that they're funny about it and, you know, embracing it, but they take, they make fun of their lack of amenities or their. Any luxury things and they really own it that you're, you're taking your life into your hands, basically, if you come and stay here.

But it's under promise, under deliver.

That's exactly what it is. Yeah.

And that and that level of extremism, if you, if you, if you think of different, if you think of it as a strata at the top, is uncommon and then noteworthy, remarkable, odd, peculiar, bizarre, freakish, you know, you can. So, so these are great.

I love the emotional, like.

Yeah, yeah, you know, we all remember. Oh, your haircut is different versus.

Well, that's interesting. Yeah, neutral.

So when we were joking about this a little while ago, I described that there was a theme park named Action park that just like the Hans Brinker Hotel, which is the worst hotel in the world, it was the most dangerous theme park in the world. And the rides were designed by teenagers. And in some cases they would send people through these loop de loops, but they weren't finished. And so they would have dozens of injuries a day, including, including broken bones, they had almost 10 deaths. And so the hospital stopped taking people from the theme park and their insurance was canceled. And so the theme park named Action park, which was then nicknamed Traction park, they developed their own insurance company and their own ambulance carrier so that they could just shuttle people back and forth. And it was wildly successful until they were, they were finally shut down by the government. But in the same way, if you Think if you think of this gradation of different, the further down you go, the more you alienate a certain percentage, the more attractive you become to your ideal customer.

I love that. Okay, let's see what we've got here. Tim, are you looking? Help me out here with the comments here.

There's a question. Let me see here. Eric Kuvolo, how do you stay different if your product service is like Red Bull?

Eric, that is a great question. And that's kind of the magic question. The thing is you have to stop looking at what your competitors are doing and trying to come up with, in their case, a different flavor. When Hooters started to have all kinds of me too products, they tried to initiate Hooters airlines where the product that was lethal for them. Product extensions aren't necessarily the answer. You need to find one thing that you're already doing differently, that you're not just velcroing onto your brand. One thing that you're already doing differently. According to those emblems that I mentioned that we talked about, the emblem for culture, the emblem for actions, the emblem for benefit. When we first started, they had. They had a very differentiated benefit, which was a soda that was highly caffeinated. And then they could no longer stick with that because it wasn't different anymore. When you download the sample for the book, I'll take you through what the six emblems are and how to start applying that. The first step for you is to look at what is something that you don't even realize that you're doing differently, something even subtle, and then capitalize upon that. We have a beach house in a little sleepy surf town named New Smyrna Beach. There's a restaurant that's in a terrible location at the base of a drawbridge. And ding, ding, ding. You never know when the bridge is going to go up or go down. So they were going out of business until they started the bridge Up Beer down special. Anytime the bridge goes up, ding, ding, ding. Beer is down to 25 cents. And when the bridge goes back down, yeah, the beer goes back up. So even taking a perceived liability like a poor location, if you think of what's the target audience, how do you market to the ideal customer?

That's interesting. I like this. As I was thinking about this, Red Bull started out as different and then became the same as there's a lot of competitors there. I was thinking about Blockbuster. I'm thinking about like as we went as Generation X, we've seen the complete, like this newcomer Blockbuster, where you could get Every, you know, all the movies at. And watch them at home. That was different in the beginning. And they swept the nation and as you know, for had a good, probably what would you say their run was? Maybe 15 years, maybe 20 years of having that great position to themselves. But then Netflix came behind them saying, well, we'll send you the DVDs to your house. That's different than what, what Blockbusters are doing. And they shooed that away. And so it's an interesting thing. How would a company like that. Yeah, am I on the right track with that or what?

Yeah, yeah. Remember we talked about a quadrant there's different and better.

Better.

Not different, not better, not different. And that brands are living breathing things as are we as individuals, our identities and we travel around that quadrant. Tiffany and company, they decided that they were going to target with lower end price points. And so they released a sterling silver bracelet that cost under $100. And it was so successful that their stock price started falling because nobody is going to buy $100,000 brooch that they're going to keep in their safe if their daughter is wearing $100 bracelet. And so they made a really bold move. They discontinued all of those lower priced items in order to be able to keep the long term. So you can see how they had to move around. And the goal is always to be different and better. But it's an interplay. Sometimes you have to accelerate on the better and sometimes you can't just keep doing that. You got to keep adding it in.

Yeah, amazing. Okay, Tim.

Tim's not here, but I'll go ahead and help you out.

Jamie. Jamie said Timothy, I'm so sorry. And it's a, it's gonna have to be Dr. Timothy pretty soon, so I better get used to it.

Get used to it. So, so Sally, you've got to stay ahead. So I, I go by Timothy. It's better to be different than it is to be better. So anyway, so, so Jamie asks if you're just starting out, what's a good process to bake in your difference, your uniqueness? Right from the beginning, the first thing.

That I would do is take a look at who you are not and who is the absolute wrong target audience for you? If you're familiar with an Italian restaurant named Buca di Beppo. Buca di Beppo and Dean, you're familiar with them, right?

Of course.

And how would you describe the Buca di Beppa brand Italian restaurant?

How would I describe the brand? Well, I think I describe brands of how I think about them is a family style Italian restaurant that's.

Over the top. And they don't call their waitstaff servers, they call them cast members. And their waitstaff has to audition.

And.

And they play Italian lessons in the bathroom with the little statue of the cherub who's peeing into the fountain. And so when we were relaunching Buca di Beppo, we took a list of everything that Olive Garden is and then simply did a counterpoint. So if Olive Garden would give away unlimited free bread, how do you take that and turn it into a doggy bag? So we. The doggy bag became one of the big symbols of what we did for Buca di Beppo because the portions are so big that everybody would always take it home. So we created a line of to go containers takeaway that in order to keep people in your office from eating your leftovers because they smell so good and they're so desirable, it would say things like fecal sample results to follow that would be stamped on the top of the doggy back. Now, of course, there were some that were not that extreme, but the point is, we know you're not going to be able to finish your dish because the servings are too big. It's family style. But how do we help you protect them because they're so delicious? So that's an example of. Make a list of what your competitors or other people in your set are doing or even the. That the people that you might be confused with use everything they do. And then find the counterpoint to that and keep pushing it. Keep pushing it as hard, as much as you can. You can borrow the fecal sample idea if you want to.

I like that. No, it's really good.

I love.

I love that example.

Next question. So Russ Hanish, he has a tutoring company in California, tutors high school students and chemistry and physics and all sorts of stuff. He asks Sally, can you talk about differentiating yourself in an uptight, reserved, more formal business like education?

That's an awesome question. And an example that we can all relate to is imagine a team before COVID and there's the guy who's funny and witty and motivating and always kind of brings some fresh energy to the status meeting. Well, all of a sudden, when Covid hit and fear struck and budgets were tight, being the funny guy is a liability. It's seen as a negative because you're taken as not being serious. So if you're in an environment in which you are forced to compete on the basis of criteria for which you will never rise to your highest potential. It is a death trap. So here's what to do. Instead, identify the types of parents, students, teachers, other decision makers in the tutoring process who don't want serious, conservative, academic, stiff types of tutors. And in order to do that, you're going to have to think back on who were your favorite students, families, schools where you had a wildly successful experience that was profitable, valuable, and you were perceived at your absolute best. Then create your marketing so that you aren't even competing against the people who are like what you described as the category norm.

That's great. This is such a great topic. I mean, I'm loving this. I think it's gonna be fun to brainstorm with you and do some.

Yeah, yeah.

Watch this evolve. So I love it. Timothy, have we got one last. This will be the last. The last one.

Okay, so Schwa asked a question. I think he's in Nebraska. Is that right?

Somewhere?

No, it's like Dominican Republic or something. Anyway, he wrote, I want to know whether the focus should be on a packaging difference or a difference in the perception that is created in your client's mind.

That's fantastic. So let me repeat what I heard, because I love this. Is it about a packaging difference or is it pure perception? Timothy, did I get that right?

Is that right? Shua.

Okay, about changing the packaging or purely changing the perception, which is more artificial, Is that right?

I think that's what he's asking is which can you do? Yeah.

Okay. Either one will work. Just simply changing the perception is going to be temporary because it's so superficial. It's going to be exhausting and you'll never be able to reach your highest potential. Changing the packaging is cool and slick, and it works with a lot of the examples that we talked about, like Marlboro being for women and then they shifted, or Plato being a soot cleaner. But there's a third option, and the option is this. What are the qualities that you already have intrinsically in you? So on an individual basis, fundamentally, if who you are is, you're an introvert who's an excellent listener who carefully thinks through solutions and analyzes it. There are a lot of ways that that can end up being valuable. In one example, this person, the personality that I described would be great in complicated IT processes being able to think through a lot of answers before jumping in with brainstorming. But in other situations, it would say a car salesman, that same person would listen to what the customer wants. Let me rephrase that. The Qualities about you, the deepest qualities, those not the tip of the iceberg that everybody sees, but those deepest foundational, fundamental qualities within you, with a company within a product are not one dimensional. They can pivot, but they always have to come back to that same thing. So the guy that we were describing a moment ago who was in the office, happy, go, lucky. Funny, spirited, motivating, a great hit in meetings. When he takes a step back and he pivots and he thinks, okay, well, really, it's not about me being funny. It's that I'm a relationship builder. And during this time, what people need more than anything is to build relationships, to establish security, and to foster connection. So think of this like a formula. At my highest value, what I deliver is blank. And I go into this in the book, the world needs this right now or my customer needs this right now because there isn't enough blank. The way I deliver that is fill in the action step or the benefit that you take. And that's why I'm the ideal solution for my ideal client or customer.

I love it.

Why are you the ideal solution for your ideal client?

That's how you bake it in right at the beginning. I love it.

That's so good.

Well, Sally, wow. As they say, you know this. Okay, so I'm going to say first thing that we need to do is go to sallyhogshead.com forward slash. Ilove marketing. That's where everything's happening. That's where you're going to get on the train to this world. We're going to watch it all unfold. We got big plans for unfolding the development of this book. I'm happy, so happy to be part of the brainstorming and the process of making it come to life here. So. And you coming on here, it's been lovely. I love.

I know.

I love spending time with you.

I've never been on before.

Yeah.

Longtime listener, first time participant.

Well, you know, we put one of your talks. You've never been on the podcast. That's right.

I never, never been.

Oh, this is great.

You popped my I love marketing cherry.

There we go. Perfect. I love it. And everybody who joined us, thank you so much for participating. Let's give Sally some jazz hands for coming on. This is great Fingers.

Can I say two quick things before you sign off? One is, so I've noticed Genius Network members with us today. First of all, Sally, I vote you're so good. You're so. We love you. But anyway, Genius Network members have been on. Renee, Stefan, donis John. John. Others, you can go into the genius network group site. We have a website with all the talks that have ever been given in genius network search for that panel that Sally was on. And also, Sally, you gave at least two or three talks in genius network search for those. That's a great resource for genius network members. So now that you've been exposed more to Sally, you say, I want more. That's where you can get it. And I'm going to rewatch this. Dean and Sal, I'm going to rewatch this multiple times. This was so dang good. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yeah, go back to the part about how Lysol was a douche.

That's right.

And I don't mean attitude. Also, I invite people to connect on social media. You'll see I just deleted and restarted my accounts to not be better and instead be different. I'm at Sally. I'm Ali Hogshead in all forms of social media except on TikTok where somebody is holding my handle hostage. A 13 year old kid.

Well, there we go. We need to write them a strongly worded letter.

That's right.

That's right. But to pull the plugs there.

Yeah.

Okay, this is good. I'm gonna. If you want to save all the comments, there's lots of. Gina is always putting up good links in there. So down at the bottom right, you click on those three little dots below the chat, there's a option to save the chat. I'd recommend that you do that before we sign off. And then next month, September the third Wednesday of September, we'll be back again. What's the date then? Just to put it in your calendar now.

I'll bet Gina has it in the chat in less than five seconds.

I bet you're right three. I bet you're right one. September. There it is. Eunice did it. September 15th, same time, same channel. Always exciting. Sally, thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gina. Everybody. Everybody that we got to see here. So that's it. Go have fun for the rest of the day. Okay, we'll see you next time.

Thank you, Gina's network.

Thank you, everybody.

Sally.

Bye.

Dave. String, you're on my screen all of a sudden.

Good to see you. Hey, Timothy.

Always good to see you.

You guys too.

Kevin, Tim.

See you, Swa. Good to see you.

Thanks.

What do you have on your shirt? Schwa. I had a feeling. Yes.

Yeah.

He finally got one.

Yes.

Russ Hannis is going to get one one of these days.

There you go. Bye, guys.

Thank you. Dean.