Branding Yourself: Rick Yvanovich on Building a Business with Balance

You are your brand, and every single decision you make is part of that unique story that you're crafting for yourself.

Welcome to the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast, a show where we interview high voltage entrepreneurs growing and scaling through e-commerce, real estate, and other wealth without Wall Street ventures, showing you the path to making your first or next million.

All right, folks, welcome back. We have another great conversation. I think we're gonna have a fun time today with this gentleman. We're gonna be talking about his book, Business as Unusual. We're going to talk about coaching and life purpose, and then maybe anything that he feels led to discuss today that you might find value from, because he's a wealth of knowledge and information. He's an architect of change, and I'm excited for him to come here today. So guys, buckle up, pay attention for the next 20 minutes or so as we go into details. As always, like, share, comment, engage, help us beat big tech. Comment something. I don't care if it's stupid on YouTube or IG. You're just going to help my Instagram. You're going to help him in gaining content. And of course, ask questions, like, and share this episode with anybody who might Uh, need to hear what we're about to talk about. I know everybody puts that at the end of the conversation, but let's get that outta the way at the beginning, and then at the end we'll get down to the good stuff. How about that, Rick?

Yeah, thanks for having me, Neil. Now, before we start, yes, I'd like to quickly share a core belief that I hold pretty dear. Okay.

Very well.

We, you know, you mentioned before, but we all have the potential to be architects of change. Now, in the era that we're all currently living in, it's defined by constant transformation. And our task is not just to keep up, but to actively shape the path forward.

Yeah.

Every day, our actions, whether they're big or small, they shape our future. And as we discuss stuff today, Neil, I want everybody listening to remember this. You are your brand, and every single decision you make is part of that unique story that you are crafting for yourself. How you react, how you adapt, and how you innovate in the face of all of this change will define your story and your legacy. And it's this belief inspiring each of us to aim for balanced fulfillment. That's what I call it. It's the cornerstone of my work.

Okay.

My life purpose. So as we dive into our conversation today, let's not just think about adapting to change. but about how we can define it. After all, when we each embrace our unique qualities, and we all have them, and strive for that personal growth, we're not just being participants, but catalysts in our ever-changing business-as-unusual world. So let's get started, Neil.

Thanks for having that intro. I appreciate it. Yeah, your strategy, your change, your narrative is very important to who you are and distinguishing yourself as a business person. Or as a product or a brand, which may be you personally, or maybe something you're trying to build into a brand, uh, that takes and pushes forward your, your value statement and then pulls you out personally. And that's one of the bigger things I think entrepreneurs, small business owners, you know, those aspiring to become one, uh, or those committing to becoming a better one, uh, always struggle with. What do you tell them when they are struggling with that concept? Let's start with 2 points.

One, branding.

Yourself, your product, your service? And 2, when I am branding those things, how do I pull myself out of it so the brand becomes more organic than just me?

I suppose that where we really need to start is like, as a brand, as an individual, what are people actually seeing? Okay. And that's actually quite hard to do yourself because maybe we're a little bit biased. We see ourselves as, as we see ourselves, but you know, that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for how other people see us. So one of the hard things to do is to go out there and do a little bit of brand testing on ourselves and find out what other people think of us. You know, something that I learned from one coach, I was at a conference, Brenda Bentz, she specializes on personal branding. And the exercise is called the 5 Words Exercise. So basically, you You ask people just as it, use 5 words to describe you and ask a bunch of people, maybe half a dozen or even a dozen, and then analyze all those words that have come back. See where they overlap because they'd be the same word or see where they don't overlap. And then, and then take it from there. And I remember when I did this with myself and I did it with a couple of other people that I knew who also wanted to do something about their brand. We did it together. And every single one of us thought we knew ourselves well, and we thought we had a pretty good brand and a good digital presence. And we blew that out of the water when we did this little exercise, 'cause it's really what about what other people think and maybe how they think of us, maybe a little bit different from how we think ourselves. And then the hard bit is, is that however they think of us, We might not like it, or we might not want ourselves to be seen that way. And then the work starts on how do we shape that story? How do we shape that brand? How come these people are saying these words and saying these things about us when we're trying to say something else, or we think we're saying something else? There's definitely a disconnect there. And so it's really a both an inward and an outward journey. You know, we reach outward and we pick up all those clues and then we might have an inward journey to reconcile with the fact that people are seeing us slightly different to who we are.

Yeah, no, that's well put. You know, their perception of brand value from yourself or from the business literally gets down to something that someone told me once, and it was very impacting on the way that I thought about it because everybody sees you differently, no matter whether or not you say the same thing or to the same people at the same time. They're both gonna see you as different people and they're both gonna have a different understanding of who you are.

Mm-hmm.

Isn't that, I always thought that was very fascinating to realize that, you know, we try to take consistent messaging and consistent branding and consistent look.

Mm-hmm.

And then you take that out into the world and in groups or people or online, you try to replicate that narrative and that conversation about your brand, your product, your service, whatever. And then you find some people completely disconnected from it. Like they don't, like they say one thing and you're like, how did you get that out of what I just said? And you'll get the other person who got it completely, or 2 of them will come up with something that's a little bit similar, but almost nuanced in nature. How do you try to make that consistent message something that almost everybody gets?

Well, with, with difficulty.

Yeah.

It'll take a while.

I personally find it—

With difficulty. I mean, it's something you said earlier. You said it's, it's consistency.

Yeah.

So it's consistency in your branding. So for example, Just as a very silly example, I love ties. I really, really love ties. I've recently relocated to Switzerland and before we moved, my wife said, hey, you know, maybe you need to tidy up some of these things in your cupboard, like these 100+ ties that you've got hanging there. And basically, despite how beautiful these ties were and some of them, you know, a treasured present from my wife and Really, really nice brands. I put them all away and I've ended up with this color and I have a few ties of this color and it's the only tie I wear. All right. It's a really small thing, but every time I turn up, you know, at a business meeting or whatever, I have exactly the same color suit on. I have 2 identical suits. I always wear a white shirt. I always wear this tie. You know, and that's just a silly thing. So now I'm trying to make sure that all the images of me, whether they're random ones by someone else at the event where I'm speaking, or the official ones that you got at a photo shoot, I look exactly the same. Same haircut, same everything. And I've been doing that now for 3 or 4 years. And if you go and Google my name, and funnily enough, You're gonna see it. I'm the— no, no, I'm the only person on the planet with this name. It's really weird.

Well, it's pretty unique.

That is unusual. And then you will see all those images and say, oh, look, look, look, Rick's changed. He's got this color suit and that color suit and his hair's changed and his tie's changed.

You know, you're going to be found.

It doesn't matter how hard you try. It's very, very hard.

Yeah.

Now the other thing is, is the repetition. You know, it used to be I remember decades ago, you know, going on management training. Hey, you need to, Rick, you know, as a leader, you need to repeat things several times. And the magic number was 3. Okay, well, 3 went out with the dinosaurs or last century. I mean, even if you say things 10 times, I'm using usually, you need to say the same thing 10 times. And maybe even if your audience has heard it 10 times, they might actually hear it once.

Yeah.

We have so much distraction every single day. I've lost count of how many distractions that we are subject to, you know, adverts and everything else. For your message to get through, you better be saying literally the same thing again and again and again across multiple platforms and multiple channels. And then maybe it gets through.

And that's funny that you mentioned that uniqueness in your name. It's one of the things I don't often get from individuals because there's not a lot of Neil Twa's on this planet. And so when you search, it's me and Twa Airlines. And it's all you find for a few, you know, 2, 3, 4 pages deep into the search results is just us. You share kind of a unique situation with that, which is kind of cool. The second thing, I personally don't wear ties anymore. I swore them off when I left my IBM days. I think I wore a tie to my wedding and I can't remember the last time I actually wore a tie. That was like 17 years ago. I'm sitting here racking my brain as I'm listening to you thinking, when's the last time I wore a tie outside of my wedding? And at this point, can't remember another time I did. So I kind of, I swore off ties, you know, so that's, it's very, um, you know, it's interesting though. You, you, you have a little bit of affect in that way, I think, and I'm not judging you, just clarifying an understanding I'm getting from listening to you.

Yeah.

That, you know, the suit makes the man, the clothes make the man, the tie is going to sort of make the consistent narrative approach that you're out there similar to to the way others would wear or do certain things that help define who they are. And so it becomes memorable, becomes visual, almost a visual mnemonic to who you are and what you are. And then obviously the conversation and consistency of your language and tonality and continued topic of conversation and saying the same thing over and over and over different ways 100 times is going to create that consistency, both look visually and audibly and, you know, in any other mechanism people will learn and bring consistency to the message, right?

Absolutely. The, I think the suit and the tie, I apologize. I didn't actually put my jacket on. I forgot.

Oh dude. I mean, how come you come slumming on my podcast? Seriously.

Yeah. I'm not comfortable. You know, I'm a bean counter. I'm an accountant. I'm a Brit.

Oh, now we get down to the truth of it.

You know, suits, you know, so think, you know, let's classify, you know, what, what is that British older accountant? Because I'm a baby boomer. older accountant look like? Well, that's the gray pinstripe suit, isn't it? Okay. But the only problem is if, okay, I know people have moved away from, well, okay, if I went back to London, maybe they haven't, but people have maybe moved away from that is even if you are that stereotypical person wearing that dark suit, blue suit, IBM, you know, blue suit, whatever, dark suit, pinstripe suit, you walk into a room of similar people, And you're all the same, you know. So taking a page out of, you know, The Purple Cow, I have an electric blue suit and I can guarantee I stand out in any room I walk into. And that's what it's about.

Yes.

Because, you know, you mentioned the old, it's about branding. So What are we trying to do? We want people to remember us. Okay?

Correct.

And is it what we said? Is it how we looked? It doesn't really matter. In order to remember us, they've got to latch onto something. Okay? If you haven't caught them, you know, with your words or your intent or, you know, maybe it's your body language or maybe it is something as simple as your dress.

Well, and what you're branding. So, you're a bit of a personal brand to some degree and the way that you present or For them. I started out that way and built the business off personal brand, built the relationships off personal brand. I, while I still podcast as a person of it, I'm podcasting as a person of the brand and the brand is going more ahead of me now. And I'm working that transition process to take Neil Twa off of the brand and push Voltage forward. And it's been a multi-year conservative effort to push Voltage, Voltage, Voltage, and all the communications, all the branding, all the mnemonics, all the memory, all the, all the colors, all the visuals, all the representation, all the client case studies, the conversations, the people that speak about us and go ahead of us. That's a large effort to make that churn in business. I can see why people don't want to do that really at the end of the day.

Yeah, I can. Let me throw something else at you. Or I have my own company, TRG, and, you know, the company is me and I am the company. Um, its values, company colors, everything that we do comes from me. Of course, it's my company. Yeah. Now I'm older, I'm older. So for sustainability of the company.

Yeah.

And it just doesn't just apply to me. I mean, you've been just been actually talking about it yourself, Neil, and anyone else listening, you know, who is that founder or head of company? At some point in time, we're gonna have to step down and step away because, you know, we're not immortal. We do actually have to get retired off at some point in time. Even if you wanna work into your 70s, 80s, 90s, it really doesn't matter. But at some point in time, it has to be handed over to others.

That's right.

If you have tied your own personal branding so much, so tight with a company, you walk away, there is no company.

There's nothing but you left. Yeah. Yeah. There's a company the other day I saw for sale that was like that. And it actually had really good metrics and business and profitability and their sale rate was good and their bank accounts and everything matched up. But the domain name running the entire company was this man's name.

Yeah.

And they're like, well, that hasn't got orange.

You have to, you have to divorce that. So, this import— this importance on personal branding, you can look at it from a business ownership perspective. Hey, the owner eventually is going to be stepping away. So the owner really ought to, to be establishing their own brand. So I've been working very hard over the last couple of years to establish my own brand. My, my new website with the new branding literally went live last week and it's completely alien branding from the company. And it's pushing me to the side deliberately.

Okay.

So the company can emerge and we can just continue enforcing the branding without me behind it.

I get it.

I am there, but I cannot be the face. That's one thing. Now let's flip it around another way. So even if you are not the owner of the company, Just as an individual, you know, as a leader, and we're all leaders irrelevant of what your job title is, is the stronger your personal brand, the more likely other people are going to listen.

Yes.

And to follow.

That's correct.

Okay.

And so, you know, if you wanna be that leader, even within your own organization, if you've got weak branding, you're sort of what, invisible?

The world.

And if you've got strong branding, well, you're visible.

I actually take it as a challenge when anybody comes in and says, you know, I've never heard of you before, or I haven't seen your brand. I take that as a challenge to keep pushing because they haven't heard of me yet. Oh yeah, I'll show you.

Yeah. But it is, it is important. It is important. And the other thing about, you know, whether However you position yourself is to look at it another way is if you consciously make the effort to shape your brand, then you are actually consciously deciding who you wanna be, how you wanna be interpreted. Okay. And your messaging and what you do, even your behaviors and who you associate with, you know, the business groups or whatever is all shaped around your brand. This all needs to be in alignment.

Yeah.

Which on the one hand, you said, God, that's really cold and calculating, isn't it?

Well, to some degree, no, it's purpose-driven. I mean, we're building assets that we value. We have emotional connectivity, there's financial connectivity, and we would like to see that asset and all the time and energy we spent in it not die just because we stepped away or because some other, you know, a thing we could have affected. stop that. Or it could be the inheritance of it. It could be handing it to kids. It could be selling it to somebody else who were like, hey, don't kill my baby. You know, like, here, take this and make it better, or take this and continue to work with it. We don't, you know, the idea that we become obsolete or, you know, just unforgotten is something that most of us are striving to keep from becoming, I guess, is the right way of saying that.

Absolutely. Now, look at it from another perspective. What if we don't establish a personal brand at all?

You know, well, that's what I've tried.

That's why that's not doing anybody any favors, is it?

Right. I mean, I see a lot of people that do that and I get it and they leverage it, but it's a little short-sighted to not have started with a brand, you know, and use themselves to leverage the brand when they come out with XYZ company and they're trying to sell, unless you get large enough, right? You know, if you're Warren Buffett, if you can get to that level of sales ability, you know, people are gonna buy on the name. But even he doesn't, you know, have a company per se that he owns directly except his holding company. The rest of the companies are already branded, right? In their own right. But I guess it's just, it's down to purpose and driving value at the end of the day, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And where, and so we're headed into the next year, or maybe this is already the new year. If by the time this comes out, it's very possible. So happy new year. We'll pretend we're in 2025 for a second. Where, where are you going this year? Where are you taking it? You moved to Switzerland recently. You've been revamping your branding and changing some things. What do you, you know, project yourself being at by the time we reach December of 2025?

My focus for 2025 is to really crack this balance thing. And I'm not talking about work-life balance or life-work balance, which is so sort of binary. It's not what I'm talking about. It's just feeling balanced. Okay. We all know when we feel good and we all know when we feel that, oh, something's off, but we don't know what's off. We're just sort of, you know, off-kilter, out of balance. And, but when we feel in balance and everything just seems good and everything is ticking away and everything is humming and, you know, Life is good. You know, we just enjoy what we're doing and we're achieving a lot. I mean, to try and achieve that on a sustainable ongoing basis is easier said than done because we're not just managing. I said it's not binary. It's not just work and life. There are many, many elements that we are juggling.

Yeah.

And there's certain elements that I am really, really focusing on to try and get just right. Okay. And so that's more, a little bit more of an inward journey, just a little bit more in the— I'm beginning to understand more the things that I do that energize me. The things that I do that recharge me and the things that I do that may energize me but absolutely drain me. And the things that I do that really, really, really don't recharge me at all. Because I'm getting at that age, as I said, I'm a baby boomer. I'm supposed to be retired off soon. Not that anybody will be able to do that.

Yeah.

But, you know, I don't want to be working 100-hour weeks. That's crazy.

Yeah. Well, no, I don't.

I want to work a 20-hour week. I want a 20-hour week.

What's wrong with that? That's your balance of 20 hours? Yeah.

Yeah.

And everybody defines that, you know, is the word passive. I think that's very overused, abused, and not 100% true. That's why mine is almost automated income because it really gets down to if I can make 20 hours a week work for me and it's balanced through life, family, purpose, you know, Uh-huh. Stress or stress reducers that keep that moving. But my output is, you know, 10 times my input. I'm gonna think that's a huge win.

Yeah.

Um, 'cause it's like, well, I don't need the 40 hours a week and I would be bored at 3 hours a week because that's just who I am. So I got, I have to have something to do that provides value and purpose and of course provides something to the market that is in demand and staying, you know, on top of that doesn't mean I have to work 100 hours a week. That's something I learned finally after trading time for money all those years. In that corporate job. I mean, I can hear where you're going. I can know that a lot of people listening to this podcast are obviously wanting to get there as they aspire to become you in that process of being able to start dictating their time and work-life balance for what is considered purpose. And kudos to you for seeing those changes, acting on them, and, you know, taking some steps to make it happen. Action, right? Very important action.

I agree with you. I don't like that word passive or passive income. That's—

Well, I like it.

I mean, I'm going to argue with you.

I love it.

The end result is somebody has to work for it.

Yeah. Yeah. The way that I look at it is I'm just looking at, you know, we have limited time and energy. If I decide I'm only going to put in 10 or 20 hours to work this week, I want to make sure that every single hour I put in has a huge result. So it's just focusing on the right things with that amount of effort and you still get that massive result. As in, I don't have to put in 100 hours to get the same result that I ideally could only get in a couple of hours.

Right.

So it's really, so whether you call that automation or however you're gonna do it, it's really directing your time and attention in the right way at the right time.

I agree.

To get that end result. And by doing that, all your machines, your businesses, they all run smoothly. Everyone's happy. Everything is growing. You know, life is good. And oh, look, I now have this time to do this other stuff that I wanted to do. And it's the other stuff, you know, a lot of the other stuff that I do brings me a lot of motivation. It helps recharge me. But it's not necessarily in line with what the company wants. You know, I like public speaking, I like doing podcasts, you know, I like writing, I like doing all of those things. But, you know, they're not always gonna be in alignment with what is good for the company because it could be a topic that is not in alignment with what the company does.

Okay.

And, you know, to get that alignment, yeah, I have to start compartmentalizing. And I say, all right, I'm still doing my all for the company. We're still doing very, very well. You know, I'm, we're still getting the output from my effort or even reduced effort. I get even more output because I have to be more effective. And I'm making time, I'm creating the time and the space to do these other pursuits.

Yeah.

Okay. Now, if those other pursuits are still lifting me and lifting my brand and I'm still linked to the company, I'm still lifting the company. It all works.

True story.

Okay. But to me, it's justifying to myself, okay, the time I'm spending in this thing, okay, that's not quite in alignment with what I should be doing for the company. You know, the company still comes first, but I will still do this thing anyway. But since I've done it on my own time, I can feel, you know, hold my own integrity that I'm not wasting company time.

Yeah.

Even though it's my company, you know, I, I, I have to— I'm holding myself accountable here. Yeah.

You're gonna pull yourself into the office and have a really strict call. Maybe even pull in HR while you're at it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Get your act together, buddy, or you're gonna get fired from your own company. Is there any question?

They can be fine. They can fire me. I don't mind.

Oh, that's— well, I'm getting my severance though, or I'm not going down without a fight. Is there any question or topic I didn't bring up maybe that you wanted to cover that we hadn't got to yet?

All right. I did touch on balance. Balance is, I touch on this concept in, in the book that I recently published last year, Business as Unusual. And when I talk about balance, it's balancing the different elements of the analogy that I've used or the metaphor I've used in the book. Which is life is a journey. And the metaphor I've used is a castle. So the castle has multiple buildings and each building is a different aspect of life. And it's keeping all of those in balance. That's why I say it's not a binary work-life thing.

Yeah, very well said. Well, Rick, thank you so much for coming and spending some time on and sharing a good word with me today.

Thanks very much, Neal. Thanks a lot. Now, as we are closing, everybody, please remember that we're not just participants in this ever-changing, crazy world, but we're architects, and we are shaping the course of our own lives, our own careers, and the world around us, the community around us. And I encourage everybody to embrace change and define it Not just wait and adapt to it, be that catalyst in your own business-as-unusual world. The transformation really starts with each one of us, and I'm eager to hear about your journeys. So, Neil, I'd really like to express my gratitude. Thank you so much for allowing me on your podcast today. It's been a blast of a conversation, and I hope our listeners have enjoyed it as much as I have.

No, I've actually enjoyed it too. I just realized the time was going so fast and I'm like, man, we could, we could keep going for an hour. We probably should pause. But guys, as always, thank you so much, Rick, for your time and knowledge and insight. Guys, if you gleaned something from this today, let us know in the comments. Check out his Business as Unusual book and resource and dig in a little bit more into what Rick is doing in his business and learn some of the life lessons he's learned that might lead you towards those opportunities to be more balanced in your time and action. And as always, as I like to end with on my podcast, remember your opportunity begins at the end of your excuses. So get out there and do something today. Even if it's imperfect, something perfect will happen along the way. All right guys, catch you on the next episode.

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