Branding, Distribution and The Blurred Lines Between

Hey, guys. This week on hey Sudbury, I'm going to be answering two people's questions combined. Both Harry's, Harry Moby and Priyank Patwa. And this is what they have to say. And the reason I'm going to combine them two is you'll see they're very, very similar. I have a question about storytelling. Do you think branding and storytelling are better for people or business or both? And then print. Priyank's question. Hey, Sabri, what do you think? Should small businesses focus on branding, like doing all kinds of quirky social media posts and advertising basically, or things that basically move the needle? How to find a balance. And what's your take on branding overall? There's a good question. Good. Two questions. And basically the way that I look at. Let me first unpack the first question, which is around, should you be doing storytelling as an individual or as a business or both? The way that I see commerce and business now is that the lines have really been blurred in between somebody's personal brand and their company brand. And, you know, if you look at people like Richard Branson, John Paul DeJoria, these are all people that even Elon Musk like, and you look at their personal brands and the companies that they're building, like, a lot of that stuff, stuff is to do with the individual as well, as well as building a brand that has a lot of equity in the marketplace. And people want to know the person that's behind a company now. And if you look at, you know, we look over like the hundreds of clients that we service and we have a look at their website and we look at where the most traffic goes to. And more often than not, the second most visited page on any website is the About Us page. Why do you think that is? Because people want to know about that company, right? And most people just go in there and they'll be like, you know, this is XYZ Company. We've been in business since 1975 and we're so great. And you should really do business with us because we're so fantastic. Like, look how all these awards that we've won and why we're so great. And they don't tell their origin story and they don't tell anybody anything into the brand or why they're doing it or where their passion lies for doing it. And what you'll find is that companies that do a really great job of that is that story really builds equity in the marketplace and it allows you to facilitate a conversation between people, right? Because you always remember Stories, it's like a magic spell that happens when it's like, you know, you just hear those once upon a time or let me tell you a story, it automatically captivates your audience because our brain is wired full story, right. So you must really understand that. And you know, I have spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising and I have split tested all types of copy and creative and long form and short form and direct benefits and implied benefits and store and everything. Right. And without a doubt, in every single instance, right, when we're talking about advertising to cold traffic, story based copy converts the most because it does the first thing that an ads meant to do. It sells consumption. Right. And so when I'm looking at it across a website, an ad, any piece of copy that I'm putting out there, I'm always thinking about the story and I'm thinking about the story arc and I'm thinking about how to really portray exactly the origins of that and think about how does that relate to my prospect and where they are are on their journey. And so I think that it needs to be a hybrid of both. You need to certainly be known as the founder and you need to have some story. And that doesn't mean that you need to be front and center of everything. But people do want to know who is the driving force behind this organization. And then you need to tell the story of your company and your values and what you stand for and what it is that you're going and fighting for in the marketplace every single day. Right. So then we come to the next part of the question, which is around the branding. What do I feel of branding? My opinion on branding is that distribution is infinitely more powerful than branding. And if I think about all the people and all the business owners that I come into contact to every day, this is the typical scenario. They're like, okay, I'm going to start a business and they, they register their company and then what's the next step? They typically spend a lot of money on some branding company to design them acute logo and a set of business cards and a letterhead and some stationery. So they feel the part, they feel like that they're a business owner and they're an entrepreneur because they have something physical to show. And nine out of 10 of those businesses will die a very quick and sudden death. And that's because they've got their attention on the wrong thing. They've got their attention on branding and how their company looks rather than the problem that they look to solve. And in the beginning you know, typically, most people start a business because they experienced a problem, and then they had to solve that problem for themselves. And now that they're looking to solve that problem for their marketplace. So right there in itself is the story of yourself, your business journey. Where you are at today is okay, like, I was just like you, right? I was experiencing this problem. I didn't know where to get clients. I was very overweight. I couldn't sleep. I was having a horrible relationship with my significant other. And then I read a thousand books. I went to events and seminars. I tried all these different things, and most of that stuff didn't work for me until I found X. Right? So immediately that is more centered on your prospect and your story, and it's much more powerful. And if you look at the reason that most businesses fail, they fail because they run out of money. And that's just another way of saying that they don't know how to ring the cash register in large enough volumes with fat enough margins to sustain their business. It's not because they didn't have a really good logo or they didn't have business cards. Right? So that's the wrong area to focus. You really want to focus about how do I bring customers in the door? And telling your story and empathizing with people's problems and their pains and fears and their hopes and dreams allows you to have distribution. And if you don't have distribution, you have no brand. There is nothing to brand. You have no customers. So what are you branding? You're not doing anything. So my focus has always been, and my advice to anybody out there is, all you want to do is focus all of your time in the beginning to how do I bring revenue in the door? How do I move the money needle? How do I tell my story? How do I solve my market's problems? And how do I be completely obsessed with solving that problem for my prospect and for my customer? Better than anyone else in the marketplace. And if you do that, you will win. Hey, guys, if you enjoyed this video, make sure that you click the like button and subscribe. We're dropping a video on YouTube every other day, and if you've got any questions about any of the content that I covered in this video, just basically leave a comment with heysubree in the comment section. And every week, we're also trying to go through all those questions and get them answered. So go ahead, click subscribe, and we'll see you in the next video.