Scott Duffy interviews Julie Cottineau: How To Stand Out In A Crowded Market, Episode 43

Good morning, everybody, and welcome. Welcome to what now with Scott Duffy, presented by SAP. Concur. It is so great to see you. We have a really busy Monday and I look forward to reconnecting with all of you. To all of you who are going to join us live on our live stream. You can join us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Periscope, LinkedIn every day. You can also watch us on Apple TV and Roku starting today as well. So really excited to have all of you who are joining us live. You can also list nationwide on DASH throughout the day or.

You can download the podcast again. This is Scott Duffy and the show is what now with Scott Duffy, presented by SAP. Concur. And I'm so happy to be here with. We have a lot to talk about today. Had an amazing weekend, a lot of breakthroughs this weekend, and I had a chance to talk to a lot of you. I had a chance to reach out and talk to a lot of my family, my friends, business colleagues, former business colleagues, and kind of get their sense on what they're doing, how they're adapting right now, their businesses for this, this new, new. For this new reality that all of us are in. So I have a lot of great things to share. We also are going to start off our show today with our first guest. Thank goodness. It's about time. Our first guest. I have been promising that every day we would be bringing you celebrity entrepreneurs, athletes and entertainers, people who are the very best of the best at what they do so that they can share their stories, their inspiring stories that really aren't much different than all of ours and what it took them in order to succeed. And what's more important is today they're going to share what now, what they're doing now in order to pivot, adapt, adjust in order to keep moving forward. And so we have got a heck of a lineup for you today. We're going to kick off strong today with my old friend Julie Coutinho, who will be here in just a little bit. We have about one more minute. We're going to let this propagate for just another minute across the Internet again. You can watch live on YouTube and on Facebook. You can also see us on Periscope, on Instagram and LinkedIn. And starting today, you can see us on Apple TV and on Roku. You can listen live on Dash Radio across the country throughout the day or you can download the podcast. And so.

Here we go. Good morning. My name is Scott Duffy and this is what now with Scott Duffy, presented by SAP Concurrent. I want to welcome you from wherever you're listening. You can tune in each day at 10am Pacific Time to watch the live broadcast on YouTube and Facebook or download the podcast. Now, this show is for entrepreneurs, small businesses and those thinking about starting their own company. It's for people affected by this, this economy. Maybe they lost their business, they lost their job, they were furloughed or they saw their consulting contracts canceled. It's for people asking, what do I do now and how do I come out of this even stronger? Now, our focus today is going to be on how to stand out in a really crowded market because there has never been so much noise, never been as much noise as there is today. Everyone has a camera, a microphone and can publish like super easy and without it costing anything to the world. So it doesn't matter what you're doing today, growing a brand or a business, whether you're looking for a job, you're trying to get some extra consulting contracts. The question that we're going to answer for you today is how do you stand out, which is so important? Now, our special guest, who I'm going to bring on in just a little bit, is Julie Coutino. Julie is amazing. She is the founder of Twist of Brand Twist and the former vice president of Brand at Virginia, you know, like the Virgin Group, Richard Branson. Like, there are hundreds of companies that he's involved in. Julie is amazing at what she does. But even before she was at Virgin, she was the head of consumer brand for Intra Brand. And for those of you who don't know, Interbrand is the number one brand consultancy company in the world. So she has a lot to share with us. And by the way, if you're just joining us, make sure to share this share this episode with your friends, with your families, with your colleagues, with your coworkers, because we have got some great information to share with you today, but first, the news. So over the weekend, the number of COVID cases worldwide jumped to three and a half million confirmed, with 250,000 deaths in the U.S. we now have just over 1 million confirmed and 68,000 have died from COVID 19. Now, early on, we were told by President Trump that the initial projected number of deaths in the United States would be between 100 to 250,000. Now, a couple weeks ago, he came back and he readjusted the figures. He said that we're beating this thing and he reduced his projections to 60,000 deaths. Well, again, over the weekend, all that changed. So over the weekend, he's now increased the projected number of deaths from 60 to 100,000. So depending on who you listen to, what, we're winning or we're losing. We're, you know, we're beating this thing or we're not beating this thing. Look, the thing is, there is so much news and there's so much noise out there. I don't want you to focus on that. What I want you to focus is on two things. I want you to focus on what you focus on, where you're putting your energy and attention and what you do. We want you to make the right actions for this economy. So that's number one. Number two, new employment figures came out last week, and those were worse than they expected. On Friday, this Friday, the April jobs report is going to come out and it is expected, unfortunately, to be the worst on record. Now, here's the thing. It's not that we had to stop working. It's not that we wanted to stop working. It's, you know, that the country was effectively shut down and we all want to go back to work. But the question is, what will it look like when we get back to work? You know, when the stores open, will you head into the stores? Will you head back to the beach? You know, will it be a lot different? What should you expect? And really, not only what should you expect, but what can you learn from the market? What do you hear in the market? What opportunities are going to arise in the market so that you can pivot and adapt and you can adjust your business? Because it's so interesting right now. People are terrified of people. It's such a trip. And, you know, we don't know how long it's going to take for all of that to change in the next few weeks. We're going to get back outside, we're going to get back to work, we're going to go out, we're going to grab a bite to eat. The question is, what is that going to feel like? What is that going to look like? What's that going to sound like? And what can we do as entrepreneurs in order to address the new needs that emerge and come out stronger? You know, it's interesting because public spaces are going to open back up and they're going to open back up soon. But we're going to be asked to Social distance schools are going to open back up, but the classrooms are going to look a lot different because the kids are going to be separated even further and asked to social distance Sports are going to kick off real soon, but the Stadiums are going to be empty, which is such a trip. Now imagine this. Imagine that you want to go out, you want to go to a restaurant, or you want to go shop in a store, or you want to go to Target or wherever. And what you're given at the door is you're given a vibrating pager, or you're asked to check in to Target with a vibrating app so that you don't have to wait in line and that you don't crowd lobbies. Imagine arrows on the ground virtually everywhere you go. Other physical markers to encourage physical distance and think about social distanced eating spaces. You know, here at Fashion island in Newport beach, it's really interesting how they are already trying to figure out ways to separate people. Where they sit, where the chairs are located, how they dine. Restaurants, in fact, fast food's really leading the way. Fast food restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King and Del Taco, they are all coming up with new concepts and new designs that they plan on rolling out this summer, as soon as this summer to help encourage social distancing inside of their restaurants. And so the question is, with these types of changes, what does this mean for you, and what does this mean for your business? And what types of opportunities out there lie there for you and for other innovators and entrepreneurs? Now, I got to say that some of this social distancing sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. And I think that what I get more concerned about than social distancing from COVID is I get concerned about our bodies, our beautiful body temples, natural ability to develop immunity over time. If everything is sterilized and everybody is separated, it reduces our ability to do that. And so I know that we have this virus on us now, and I know that we have to get through this period, But I hope that we can get through it as quickly as possible. And I hope we can get back together again. And I hope that we can get close to each other as soon as possible.

And I know that you do too. And then the question is, what's it going to look like when we do go back to work? What's it going to look like to go on a business trip? And again, I'm always thinking about all of these questions from the perspective of an entrepreneur, of an innovator, of somebody who's ready to adapt. Today we learned that in order to fly in the United States, all the major airlines are going to require you to wear masks. But it doesn't just start on the plane. You're going to be asked to wear a Mask once you get into the airport, as you go through security, as you check in at the gate, and then the entire trip on the plane. And the question I have is, does that make you want to fly? Because it doesn't make me want to fly. And it doesn't make Warren Buffett feel comfortable either. You know, Warren Buffett had up to a 10% ownership stake in four of the five major airlines in the United States. And over the past few days, he sold all of it. He sold all of it because he thinks that this type of social distancing and really the fact that there's not many places that we can go right now is going to have such a long term impact on air travel and the way that we do business, that what he's looking for is the innovation. He's looking for the people that somehow maybe five years from now, we're not getting on a plane, but we're doing something different. Maybe it's zoom, maybe it's something that hasn't emerged. But for you as an entrepreneur, how can you use that information to ideate and to come up with new innovation and new ways that you can grow or scale a business? So you've been told. You've been told, let's say that you can go back to work, you can go outside, you can go to a restaurant. The next time you go to a restaurant and it's open, the odds are that only 25% of the capacity of that restaurant can be used. 75% of the tables are going to be somewhere else, and the food is going to be more expensive because the restaurant owner is going to have to make up for that lost revenue when their store is open.

So the question is, what kind of opportunities does this create for you? What kind of innovation in this new world that we're about to step into?

One of the areas that I think is really going to take off is budget gourmet. It's budget luxury. I was at Trader Joe's over the weekend and I was shopping around and.

I don't know, maybe some of you guys have heard of Two Buck Chuck. So Two Buck Chuck is this really inexpensive wine that I don't drink wine, but I hear is okay. I hear it's pretty good. But when they launched it at Trader Joe's and it was so expensive, a lot of people thought that there's no way that this wine is going to take off, that people will be afraid by the price point. But they sold it is kind of this luxury type of wine, and it became one of the biggest things, the biggest hits of their store. And the question I have for you is how can we use that lesson, the lesson of two buck Chuck? How can we take this idea of maybe selling luxury or selling something that is a treat to us? It's something that is a.

It'S a small indulgence. Faith Popcorn used to talk about small indulgences. How can we, how can we sell small indulgences in a budget world like on budget at an inexpensive price that made people feel great? I think that's a really great opportunity over the next couple of years. And how can you apply that to your business? Or if you're looking for something to do, is there an opportunity there for you that, you know, that may be, that may be interesting.

I saw some news this morning about China and I thought that was encouraging. What they found in China is a couple months, you know, they're a couple months further along than we are battling coronavirus. But spending is up between 50 and 70%, depending where you are in China. And that's really good news because that means that consumers can have started to get out and they've gone out to the stores, they've gone out to the restaurants, and they're starting to spend money. And this is an amazing thing for their economy. And hopefully it's a telltale sign for our economy as well. What we have to watch out for though, is what is called revenge spending. Revenge spending is when you go and you've been held back from doing something, so you've been held back from going out or going to the restaurant or spending. So what you do is when you have that first chance, you go shop, you, you go drink, you go party, you go do all that stuff and you blow what you got. So the challenge with revenge spending and this happens, revenge spending happens in every down market at some point in the cycle is people tend to spend most of their money. And so it's kind of like a short term gain that we see in the overall economy. And so hopefully that's not what we're seeing in China, but it is great to see people getting back to work and getting back into the store.

So I think my point around all of this this morning, you know, these ideas that I've been sharing is we are about, as this country opens up to walk into a new world and instead of being afraid of it and being on our heels, this is a great time to get on our toes. Now what lies ahead for us is a lot of uncertainty. But uncertainty is awesome because it's a breeding ground for innovation.

And what I want you guys to be able to do is to walk into anew. It's to walk into a different paradigm. And this is so important because I know in my life there have been two times I've gone through down economies, down cycles where I held on so tight to what I knew, I held on so tight to my old paradigm that I really suffered when I didn't have to. When the market crashed in 2008 and 2009 and I hopped back in and I was ready to start new companies. Well, what had happened over the previous, you know, 10 years, 12 years, is I developed a formula. I developed a formula for how to basically take an idea to market and scale it quickly. And the challenge is what I did in the way that I did it changed. But I wasn't keeping up with the change. Instead, I was holding on to what worked before. And so while I was stuck that what the rest of the world was changing, I kept getting further behind. And so what's really important for all of you to understand now is that now is the time to understand that the paradigm is shifting and let go. Remember the things that worked for you eight weeks ago. Your superhero powers eight weeks ago. Maybe your baggage today. So keep learning, keep adjusting, keep adapting, and don't be afraid of stepping in to a new paradigm. Now. I'm going to bring Julian in just a second. But I wanted to just hit on cash really quickly because I do every day. I have a bunch of friends that received unemployment last week. So yes, unemployment checks are still being sent out. If you applied and you hadn't received it, don't give up hope. Keep going to your state site and making sure that there isn't any listed message or problem with your application. Personal stimulus checks. I had two people on Friday who are very close to me get received checks. And by the way, the checks for both of them came in the mail. So I know that we've been hearing about checks just coming electronically. So they weren't physical checks. It was a deposit. Well, both of these came as paper. And so make sure you're not just tearing up and throwing out your mail. Make sure you're looking at your mail if you expect a check. The Eidl. I applied for the emergency Injury Disaster Loan eight weeks ago. I would like whenever it opened up. Like an hour or two later, I got a call from somebody at the SBDC who said, go online right now. This just opened up. I applied within two hours and I never heard anything back until yesterday. Yesterday I got an email that said your application is still being processed. So maybe that's good news. I just wanted to share. If you've had this kind of experience, you haven't heard back. You're not alone. And on the ppp, just another reminder to keep going to your community banks, your regional banks, and using online services like Kabbage and Lendio that can take your deal and they can push that to lots of banks for you. That's where you're going to see most of the movement. Okay, enough for me. I'm excited. I am really excited because I am just about to bring in a very special guest. And this guest, let's pop her in. There she is, is Julie. Now, Julie Catino is awesome. When it comes to brand, there is no better brand master or brand guru than Julie. She is the founder and CEO of Brand Twist. But prior to Brand Twist, she was the VP of brand at Virgin, you know, Richard Branson and Virgin in the Virgin Group. And prior to that, she had a consumer for Interbrand, which is the number one branding consultancy, and they have been for years in the world. And so I reached out to Julie over the weekend and I said, you know, Julie, it is so hard to stand out right now. It is such a crowded market. It is so hard to stand out. What do we do? And she said, scott, let me just come and talk to the group. And so, Julie, I'm really happy to have you today. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

So, Julie, in this crowded market, what are you telling people? What are you sharing?

You need to twist. You need to stop marketing and branding as usual and twist and find new strategies. And in order to do that, you need to observe all the brands that are out there that are doing interesting things, especially the brands that have nothing to do with your business. Because we always learn the most when we look the furthest away and twist those lessons and apply them to your brand.

So that's really important. So what you're suggesting is as opposed, oh, my gosh, someone just hit it. Okay, so this happens every time I talk to you. So what you're suggesting is.

Most people, when they're trying to figure out how to adapt, what they do is they spend all of their time looking at their competition. They look in their industry at what everybody else is doing. I call this black T shirt syndrome. I went to an event, I spoke at it. Every guy was wearing a black vneck V neck T shirt. Yeah, but you can't innovate out of that. If you're just doing the same thing. So what questions should you be asking as you're thinking about a twist and you're looking outside of your industry at what others are doing?

Yeah. And I actually call it taking off your brand blinders. But I love the black T shirt, so I totally relate to that. I mean, I think you have to do three things. I think first of all, you have to become aware. I call this the three A's. AAA twisting. Just become aware as a consumer of what brands are speaking to you. Like, I love your, your two buck Chuck example. That's an industry that has nothing to do what I do. But I would that.

Where then the second A is you, like, why is that working? You know, it's the name, it's the branding, it's affordable luxury. And then the third A is you apply that to your business.

So you've got to look and see not as a marketer all the time, but just as a human being. We're all getting bombarded right now in our mailbox with tons of marketing messages. What are the ones that we actually click on? Why do we actually pause and say, maybe I do want to buy that and then analyze it and apply it? And I think there's also three core areas that you can do that in. I think number one, we have to all twist our offerings.

Oh, we lost Julie. So this is what happens in the age of coronavirus, where we are all at home and we are all online and we're all live casting. You just got to roll with it. You know, I've got a good buddy. His name is Greg Reed. And Greg has an event called Secret Knock. And the first rule of Secret Knock is to be cool. And here's what he means. What he means is when you're at a big event, let's say you're, you know, you're at his event. And let's say it's too hot, you just go in the back and you turn on the air. If it's too cold, you just, you know, you turn it up, you turn up the heat. You know, if, if the water is whatever, just go bring over, you know, a new palette of water. The idea is just to be cool. And I think that, you know, this time is such a test for our patients and our ability to adapt. I mean, like just right now. So Julie, she's back. I'm going to bring her back. Grandmaster Julie. Here she is.

I'm having a wi Fi day. So the first.

Wait, I have to tell you, Julie. So last night Yesterday we were recording, right? So yesterday we were recording. And.

So I had eight people that I was recording for these videos yesterday. And the first. The first one, it was. It was online just like this. And when I started to record the first one, my Internet went out. Just out, dead. So I'm wrestling and wrestling. I'm on the phone, get the Internet going. Then I get the first interview person, we're back on the phone, and his Internet went out.

Oh, God.

Just dead. But not like coming off, just like outage in the area. So I'm like banging my head. So that's okay. So then we start going. So then we start recording something on zoom. And it kept breaking off in the middle of the recording. It stopped recording and would quit out. And so it's so easy with all this because we're all going through some form of this right now. And it maybe isn't necessarily on live and live stream. It could be in whatever it is that we do. But what we really have to do is just learn to take a beat and understand that this is a time and that these things are happening to everybody and just be cool and just roll with it. That's all we can do.

Yep. Just twist and get over it.

Twist and get over it. So go back to it. So you were talking about the A's.

That's where you're talking about is twisting your offering, right? Here's the example that we talked about this weekend that I. That I love. So Walmart, right? They're selling tops now. They're seeing a whole huge uptick in tops because we're all doing business from the waist up, right. They're not selling any bottoms. A lot of us are still pushing the whole outfit. Got to stop pushing the whole outfit. You got to twist your offering. You got to say now more than ever. And this is always good branding, but now more than ever, what does your customer need? Focus on that. If you have a coaching process that's eight weeks and two hours, that's maybe not what people need right now. We have very short expense attention spans. We can't afford that. Do power coaching. Do micro coaching. Right? If you. If you have a business that people need to come to you, it's very upscale, you know, you create a whole experience. Well, unfortunately, no one can come to you right now. So twist and figure out how you can deliver your offering.

I just want to share as you're talking about twisting. I think I shared this story last week. It was another story that I learned from my buddy Greg, and it's about a spider monkey because this is all about the twist. This is all about the twist. Spider monkey is the fastest animal. It's the fastest thing in the jungle. Choppers could never catch this thing until one day they figured out a plan. And the plan was they're going to take a log and bore a hole in it, just a small hole, and put peanuts inside of the hole. And the reason is these monkeys, they like peanuts. And so what would happen is a spider monkey would come along and they would reach into the hole. I see my hand. They reach in the hole, and when they grab the stuff, they make a fist. Look, here it is. They make a fist. And now they've got this fist, this big fist. That fist won't come back out of the hole. A clenched fist is too big to get outside of the hole that you just kind of got your hand in. So what happens is the spider monkey is stuck, and it tries to pull itself out. And here's the thing. All it has to do is let go of the peanuts, the food, the thing that's saving it, and it can just take its hand out. But instead, it holds on to what's really killing it.

Yeah.

And that's the thing, I think, with twisting that I love that you talk about is that. Is that sometimes we hold on to what worked for so long.

Yeah.

How do you look at that from a brand and a marketer's perspective?

Yeah. I mean, I think letting go of the norms in the category, the way it has to be, you know, the way that we like to sell is super important. And again, looking at other brands gives us the freedom of consumers. Right. Maybe two Buck Chuck feels alien to me, you know, as a. As a brand consultant, but it sticks in my head, and it makes me think, you know, there's something there. And I think that, you know, twisting your offering is the number one thing, but the thing is also twist your target audience. I've been doing this for a long time. I've written books about it. And I'm a big believer in having a very, very narrow target audience. Right. Very specific. But I'm giving myself permission right now and all my clients to twist the target, to break our own rules. Because I've seen this, you know, I've seen brands target older people. Right. In marketing, we always say, you can't target anybody older. You have to be very, very young. And then you'll get the older people. Now, 70 plus is suddenly, you know, an attractive target. People are doing this, you know, letting older people in Supermarkets earlier or they're targeting much younger. You know, enterprise rent a car always had this rule, 25 and older. 25 and older. Now they're targeting younger because they're realizing that college students are stranded. Right?

Yes.

You know, so twist your target. Give yourself permission to say target that I love Brand new Target quarantines.

Whether you're business to business or business consumer, all of a sudden there's this brand new target. How often does that happen in the marketing world?

Sure.

People that are forced to learn how to collaborate, not just once a week when you might work from home, but 24, seven.

And what can your brand do to help those quarantines work better together? To stay connected, to stay motivated. Right. To reward them when they do well. So each business out there, I would say, how can I twist my offering to appeal to a quarantine? Is there something that I could offer that would allow these people to do better? If you're a leadership coach, maybe offer something now. 30 minute session on how to lead better on zoom.

Right.

I mean, those are great ideas. I love the idea of the quarantine. I haven't heard that. That is a great idea. For the first time, everyone is managing the team remotely. It's not like some people. Everyone is imagining the team remotely. And we didn't learn how to do that in school. They certainly didn't teach us in elementary or high school if we went to college. I didn't graduate. They didn't teach me that. I haven't heard that in any of the business training programs. Tony Robbins didn't teach me how to lead a quarantine. So this is a great opportunity for somebody that, you know, for somebody who is in the training space. Let go of what may have worked in the past if you're not selling that today. And look at this new opportunity. Look at the opportunity to simply set people up at their homes. Like the quarantine is really a. I mean, for those of you who aren't managing people, I'm just going to tell you, it is really hard to manage your quarantine just to get the equipment that they need.

Yeah.

Just to get the. I've had to buy laptops and printers and then the cables and then the this and then the that and then it's like Amazon is like six weeks on that. So the person can't print because they can't connect it. Like what would it, what would happen if you started a company and that company just got people set up?

Right. And that's a big twist. Is just take your first step. I know photographers right now who, unfortunately all their gigs are canceled. Right. They're not live events. They can't. I know photographers who have twisted to offer 30 minute sessions to help people frame themselves to look better on their webinars.

That is such an awesome idea. That's such an awesome idea. So, yeah, if you're a photographer, what kind of business could you have? Like, if you're looking for some extra income right now, number one, is there a way for you to take people's. Maybe they take like headshots of themselves. Maybe they do it on their phone, but they send it to you and you fix it up and you make it look amazing. Maybe there's something you can do with it. If you could teach them, like Julie was saying, how to frame themselves inside of a webinar or inside the side of a zoom or something like that, maybe there's a business for you there. Maybe what you do is you do like a. You set up like a training program. You know, kids are at home and you teach kids to be photographers, to give their parents some time to do something.

That's a whole other target that is underutilized right now because in the spring, most college seniors have externships.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Most high school seniors have externships. Our high schools here on the east coast do it last six weeks of school. We know you're already in college. You're not going to study, go work somewhere. Those kids could all be hired to do brand experience audits, right? Wow.

Yeah.

We know this from our time at Virgin. Hire somebody to go on your website, to look at your Google, to Look at your LinkedIn, to come back to you with a report on how easy it was to find you, how easy it was to engage, what links are broken on your site that you might not even know. Right. Hire an intern. I believe in paying interns $15 an hour. You know, get them to do a brand experience audit. That's a great use of your time. And if you're a consultant, offer to do that for your clients, for your corporate clients. Now, they may not want to invest right now, but this is a great time to only do the discovery phase. Right? Just ask them to commit to, you know, I have four month rebranding projects. I'm only talking to people about discovery right now, about phase one. I know that their heads, that's where their head is, right? So twisting your offering is about meeting people where they are and they want things that are shorter, less expensive and More immediately impactful.

You know, what is your shorter, less expensive and more immediately impactful?

Yeah. Like myself, for example, I usually do hour long strategy sessions. Right. $350, you know, get a lot of insight. Right now I'm doing brand booster sessions. They're 30 minutes. Yep. They're 50 bucks. A portion of that money goes to Doctors Without Borders, which is my third strategy, which I've talked about in a second. And I'm really focused on just giving people one or two branding ideas that they can use right now. Now I talked to a lot of these people and I know they need much more brand strategy help. But it's like we're first responders. We're business first responders. Right. People are coming in an urgent care. You know, I know that they need to change their diet and exercise more and all the long term stuff, but right now their fingers bleeding. That's right. So that's what I'm doing. I'm stitching that up. You know, I'm putting the band aid on there.

And I know it's interesting what you just said because as founders, like founders, CEOs, what we do is we have this vision that's a long term vision that we're planning for. If we're more professional, CEOs and presidents of companies, the companies are bigger or looking out 10 years. And we're planning backwards. We're not trained or not taught to just plan for right now. And that's really what crisis management is all about. It's about how do you get not from A to Z, but how do you get from A to B?

Yeah.

And how, how do you do that? And so I like. So that I think kind of ties to what you just said. Also, I want to ask you a question.

So in, in 2008.

We were at Necker and it was, it was the, it was one of those things that was the market had. It was before the market crashed. It was a. And it was, it was like a, like a training thing, you know. Right. Community training kind of thing. And I remember talking to Richard and I said to him, I've always been in companies that were really early stage, like in an industry. Like we created the market to find it where the leading brand smart charter was something that just hadn't been done yet. And it's really hard because you have to build a plane while you're flying it. Yeah, it's expensive. There's a lot of lessons. I said to him, I said, you're the opposite. You go into the biggest markets with the most entrenched competitors, with the most money to spend to fight you. And he, I said, explain. And this is what he said. He said, I always look for really big markets. I never try and convince anybody to spend, like to, to use their wallet to spend. So I look for big markets where people are already spending money. And then he said, I find one person, and if I solve one problem for one person in a really big market, it's a billion dollar business. Can you talk about focus and the kind of focus you need to have on your target in today's market?

Yeah, and I think that's really true in general right now. When people ask me, is it okay to market right now? Is it insensitive to market to sell? And I said, is it? Well, none of us should be selling. All of us should. Solving and serving.

We're not selling because selling implies, again, I've got this whole outfit I want you to buy, right? Solving and serving implies that I'm really paying attention to what your issues are. And I'm giving you a twist, a new way that I can serve you. And when you do, when you think about like that, your energy will 100% shift. You won't be afraid to put the message out or to, you know, to get, to get on a sales call or to, you know, to ring someone up or text them whatever it is. Because if you believe in what you do, and you should or you shouldn't be in business, and I know Richard does. I know you do. I know I do. Then why wouldn't you want to solve and serve right now? And I think that a lot of people need to do that in a way that I don't want to say dumb it down. But now is not the time for jargon. Now is not the time for what I call my book $10 words. You know, it's $5 words. I think Richard's also saying is, I'm not convincing you by going into that market that you need this thing, right? I'm just convincing you that you need it better. You know, you need it delivered better, different, you know, the consumer champion, in a way that's paying attention to you. And that's what Virgin has always done, is shaking up tired markets. And I think that right now, I look at this time as a gift. I mean, I know it's really difficult and I want everybody to stay. I know there are real concerns. But if you can twist the way that you think right now and say, this is a time for me to experiment, to try things with my business that I haven't done before, to play around with my prices, to play around with my delivery, to twist my target, then what have you got to lose, honestly? I mean, a lot of us, we get nothing to lose because things are pretty bad. But what you have to gain is some immediate income, which. Something you said two episodes again, you have to, you know, you have to stay in business to be in business.

That's right.

And I. That you get immediate income and you get some different ideas. And I think when the dust settles, maybe you'll go back to the whole outfit, right? To selling the whole epic. But you'll have in your back pocket, for those people who still need, you know, the shirt, you'll have a different way to market and different way to sell and different way to brand, you know, with the twist. And I think that's. That's huge. And I. I've noticed myself that a lot of the conversations that I'm doing on the booster sessions, a lot of them end after 30 minutes, but a good amount of them, we uncover some.

Thing and need to work with you longer term right now. And so for those people, I'm still going back to more, you know, traditional brand coaching. So, yeah, conversations turn into clients. I'd be having conversations right now.

Yeah. And, you know, when. When everyone was home, when everyone first kind of was. Was at home, staying safe, I guess we're doing all that.

You know, it seemed like I go down my Facebook feed and every other thing was like a Zoom call. It was a webinar. It was the Zoom cocktail parties. It's all this video chat and video connection. By the way, Julie, from a branding perspective, it's really like when you think about Zoom, you know, Kleenex is Kleenex. Doesn't matter. If you're using Kleenex, you're using tissue. You know, we didn't. We used to do a search on Yahoo. Now we just Google it. And now I don't think it even matters what video service we're on. We say we have a zoom call.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah. They've become like an Uber or Google or. Yeah. And. And I do. But I do think, like a way to twist away from that. I mean, I do think there's going to be webinar fatigue, virtual fatigue. So what I'm doing lately is I'm sending out handwritten notes to people.

Handwritten notes. I'm mailing copies of my book. I'm calling people. Sometimes I call them when I'm walking my dog. Because that's the only time that I have. And I'm just honest about it, like you said. I said if you hear some barking, that's Teddy, my chief barking officer, my. And I'm. I just wanted to check in with you and I'm doing it now because I need to get some fresh air. How are you doing? Sure. And you know, and then we talk about business. So I think in terms of personal branding, you know, I, I always think that we should merge, which I know is something you do. You talk about your personal brand a lot, which I love. But I, I think it's okay. We're learning it's okay now to twist our personal professional brands. And I think that's another thing that we're going to end up coming out stronger on the other side of this is we're going to be more human at work.

I think so. I believe that. I think that we all have a shared experience which brings humanity out. I think this pandemic is a great equalizer for so many that I think it will bring out humanity. I think that people will, will start to find the love in business again. They'll start to, you know, in the companies that come out of this period even stronger are the ones that don't just fake it. I got to tell you, I, I'm in this.

I was in this space with all of these business trainer, business influencers and there's people that, they've got huge followings and they've got, you know, at least for this space, they're big fish in a small pond. You know, when we think about the kind of markets that you and I have been a part of. So, you know, they've got these big brands and they've got these awesome books and they've got these great slogans and they're so full of shit. And they really are. They're so full of shit. And some of the most self centered people I've ever met in my life. And I'm not going to name names, but I know who you are, you know who you are. But, but here, here's the thing. I think that the opportunity, not just in this space, but in every space is who's really bringing the love into business. Because if you really show that you care, and caring means that you're selling the tops, not the whole outfit, because it means that you're listening. So if you're listening and you can demonstrate that you care, that communicates that you love your customer and you're bringing love into business. And on the other side of that, that's what people are going to remember, and that's what's going to resonate. And so I really root for you. I root for the person that comes from that space. And by the way, when you do that, the only way you can do that is to be a great listener. The only way you can do that is approach every day with a beginner's mind, an open framework. Because maybe, and I said this earlier today, maybe the framework that you've been living in isn't the framework that actually supports you, like, enables you to live the goals that you want to live. Maybe you're around the wrong people, you're asking the wrong questions, you're delivering the wrong product. You're coming at it from a different perspective. But, man, when you start to listen, that's where the magic happens.

Yeah. And that's what I love about your brand. Because by asking the question, what now? You're staying in the present moment with me. Right. And how many change, I mean, over the past, I don't know how even how many weeks this has been, but, like, daily, you know, are what now's change. Right? That's right. And I think that just makes you stronger. Brander marketer, you know, just to. Just to stay.

Oh, we're about to lose her again. There we go. There she is.

Okay. Just, you know, you don't need this big thing. Just focus on. On what now. Focus on the twist that'll keep you in business to the next moment. And, you know, and I hope things. I don't think things are going to go back to normal. I think things are going to go forward to a new normal. But I think new normal is going to be a really interesting place. I mean, I'm excited about it because I think we're gonna do things. It's gonna be awkward at first. It's gonna be so, like, I'm a huge sports fan, and just to hear you talk about, like, not being able to go to an NFL game or, you know, but it's okay, you know.

Oh, there she goes. All right, we're gonna be cool. Remember, we talked about this? We're rolling with it, because that's what this is all about, you know.

Today. Hashtag COVID19. Oh, my gosh. Zoom call. So one of the things that Julie was talking about is. She was talking about. I'm just pull this back here. She was talking about.

She was talking about zoom fatigue, and we were talking about video fatigue and training fatigue. If you are a. If you're in the business space, if you are, if you're a trainer, if you're a coach, if you're a consultant, if what you want to do is you want to provide value and you want me to bring her back in here real quick.

There we go. And you want to provide value. The key right now is everyone has zoom fatigue. It is like if. And I was saying this earlier, I started to talk about it. I went through my stream over the weekend and, you know, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, it seemed that it didn't matter. The time of the day. Every other thing in my stream was, was a live stream. Well, you know what's happening? People are running out of content, number one. Number two, they're seeing only a few people show up and they're in it for the short term. This is a long game. Right. Number three, they're just bored of it, they're tired of it, They've had enough of it. And this goes for the trainers as well. I mean, I've spoke to so many teachers and trainers and coaches and people like that, and, you know, I've asked them what they're up to, and most of them are starting to completely distance themselves from this, from, from a lot of the live stream stuff. And the reason is, again, it's that, that zoom fatigue. So what they're doing is they're delivering training, which is closed training, and it's all in short spurts, just like you were saying, Julie. It's not an hour long and it's not 30 minutes long. It's like 15 to 15 to 20 or 15 to 30. And that's it because that's, that's the attention span, you know, so my, I was with my daughters this weekend. Sita and I were with my kids and, and, and when we were kids, Julie, you have 30 seconds to make a first impression. And then it went to 20, and then it went to TikTok, and then it went to whatever. And I'm really afraid that all of this and all of this live and all this media is going to reduce the attention span, not just of the younger person, but of the person 40 and up. And we are all going to have to change the game. Like, one more thing. And I also, I was going through Netflix this weekend and I looked at their top 10, and I watched the preview for all the top 10. You know what, those trailers and just the texture and the look and the feel of the, of the movies is so much different than it was five years ago. And I think what you're Talking about is that kind of radical change. How do you. If you're an existing business and you're a big business and you see all this going on around you, this change, how do you hold on? Like, how do you. I would be. If I were a big brand, I would be afraid of all of the entrepreneurs who haven't even emerged yet. They're going to come and try and eat my lunch.

Yeah. But that's why, I mean, I work with a lot of big businesses and I. And I help them think like an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

That's why, you know, that's why I think this is actually an opportunity for big businesses also to twist and say, let's pretend we don't have 40 years. Let's pretend we're launching. You know, everything crashes like it is for me today and we're launching tomorrow. Right. What would we do? What would we do tomorrow? Right. That would be different than how would we set it up from day one? And, you know, most big businesses don't have the courage to do that because they have a certain inertia because they have to keep going. But now we have this gift, right, where you can say, you know what? I have to have a plan B. And my plan B is, you know, how would I twist to address today's consumer and the future? And I can't say this enough. It starts with thinking about your target. What do they need? They're isolated, so they need to feel more connected. They're worried about money, so they need more accessible options. Right. They can't beyond. You know, when I try to talk to my family about anything that's more than 24 hours, you know, like, what should we do for dinner this weekend? They're like, whoa, you know, let's get through today. Right. So they are not comfortable with projecting too far in the future. So that's why you have to make your offering more. More affordable. Right. Shorter and focused on what the issue is today. What problem am I trying to solve today? And, you know, people say to me, well, then what'll happen when things go back to normal again? They're not going back to normal. They're going forward to a new normal.

That's right.

Will I ever be able to raise my prices again? Will I ever be able to do whatever? And my answer is, I think so. I really do. Because I think if you're engineering, if you're twisting your offering. Right. They'll understand that right now is not, you know, we're doing this because this is what we have to do. Right now. But if they're invested in me and they want to and, you know, continue with a relationship with me, I'm going to be able to go back to hopefully doing more of the things. And then, you know, the last thing I'll just say is I think you also have to twist for the greater good. I think you do have to show, like we were talking about before, more humanity. So that's why, for example, when I'm doing my booster sessions, I'm giving a portion of the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders. Right. And I think whatever the causes that you believe in, whether it's first responders or local small businesses, it feels good to do that. It feels easier to market when you're supporting something. And also for the people that are going to engage you, they were probably going to make a donation somewhere anyway. So, you know, let your business be that vessel, but also try to connect whatever you're supporting to your business. Right. So, you know, if you're in the. I don't know, if you're in the food business, that's an easier one. Do it with food. But if you're in the business of coaching, offer for a coaching session with you that you're going to help coach an executive of a nonprofit, do the toms, one for one twist with toms, with the shoes, because you're using your skill, which is helping people coach and get their message out. But to somebody who really needs it right now, which are the nonprofits, which are hurting even more than the businesses because no one's donating beyond, you know, first responders right now. And there's still a lot of good nonprofits out there in education and other diseases, you know, that. That need help.

Sure. You know, one of the things that you talked about was, you know, kind of focusing on the now and kind of what's here right now. You know, a lot of the times entrepreneurs are thinking about starting something that is going to be around for a long time. And I think that during uncertain times, what we see is that companies that do well, they launch fast, they launch often, which means you launch one thing at a time. You suit you. Like, you really mitigate your risk. You do everything that you possibly can to mitigate the amount of time that you spend on something, the amount of money that you put out on something, and. And the amount of potential risk if something goes sideways. And so, you know, this time is all about launching fast and launching often. What is launching fast? Launching fast. I used to say if you're 85% of the way done with your minimum viable product. The simplest, most basic version of what you want to get in people's hands. That was the way to do it. Now I say 65%, like the rest of the time, and the money isn't worth it. Instead, get something done quickly, get it into people's hands. Be amazing at, like, helping, like, watching them, like Julie was saying, like, listening to them. We used to pay people to go through our website and find stuff. How do people find stuff with the people and then take that information, don't take it personally, don't think that they're wrong. Don't argue with them, don't try and tell them what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to use it. Don't do any of that stuff. Listen to it and take that feedback and improve and iterate and keep doing that. And then once you've done that, put it back out. Put it back out. And then once you've done that enough, you're going to find a product that you get really consistent feedback on. Either throw it out or keep it. I want to buy it. And then you start to focus on the product market fit. Like, what's the price that you sell this for? And go out to a bunch of people and try and sell it for different prices and see where, where people connect and then. But the whole point of this is that, like, sloppy is good right now. And I cannot believe I'm saying that sloppy isn't a bad thing if it means you can get fast feedback. Or am I wrong, Julie, from a branding standpoint, am I totally wrong?

No, I think you're totally right. I want to hear your daughters that sloppy is okay, but that'll be interesting.

But no, I think you're 100% right. Richard Branson always said, you know, fail harder. Yeah, live in beta. The only thing that I would add to that is keep it simple, you know, And I think that that's a lot of, you know, kiss. Keep it simple, stupid. That's a lot that I'm saying to my clients right now is, you know, I've got an idea out here, an idea out there. Yeah, we'll get to those ideas. But launch one thing, you know, do it as best you can. Not perfect, but. And learn from the feedback and keep at it a little while. That's the only other thing that I would add to that. I think that people are really distracted right now. So it used to be that we would send one email and we'd get a response or not. You got to Communicate the same thing three times you do. You know, people say, oh, I saw that webinar, maybe I'm interested. But they forget because they move on to the next thing. And then, you know, there's no, you are not nagging somebody. You're not being pushy again. If you believe in what you're doing, you believe that you're adding value, you're gonna have to repeat, repeat, repeat. That's just the norm because we're distracted as human beings anyway. And now times a thousand because there's just so much news coming at us. Even if we have more time, mentally, we're distracted. So I think you got to keep, keep communicating.

We are and we can't. It can be really frustrating. You know, I'm finding that everything that I'm doing is taking like 10 times longer where I rely on other people to help me. And even if I don't, my Internet goes down. You know, my light goes out. Amazon's telling me it's going to be six weeks to get my prime order. I just, I try to, here's the thing, I try to file a new company.

People are starting businesses, a new company over a week ago, a week and a half ago in the state of California, you spend an extra like 400 bucks and you get the thing turned around. You spend the extra four bucks, 400 bucks, and then like three days later you get an email that we're really busy and we're at 10% capacity here. And so that 24 hours could be a week to seven business days. And then you get this thing that it could be, you know, up to a month. Like there's so much that we can't control. And so.

As crazy as it sounds, as crazy as it sounds, we got to just fall in love with the process and learn what we can do better. And I just want to give one example of that. There was something I was trying to get somebody to do on Friday and a bunch of people that I had reached out to about something were really pushing back. And it seemed to me like a no brainer, right? Because it's my idea, I'm passionate about it, I'm excited about it. And what I used to do is I used to get really excited. They don't get it, they don't understand it, they don't see it, what a jerk, like, whatever. But what hit me in that moment was it's not them, it's me. I have to be accountable. There's something here, like I'm not listening. There's, I have an idea, but I'm not listening to what they need. And so what I did is I shifted it up on Saturday and reached out to all these people and said, I have a question, like, what is most important to you about blank and what do you like? And then how can we. And then everybody came on on Sunday.

Yeah.

But I stopped listening and I started to tell. And that was a problem. All right, we've got 50 seconds. Julie.

Give us that big wow idea to wrap it up.

Twist. You gotta twist. You gotta look at things differently. Make it.

More affordable, you know, make it. Make it simpler and use this time. Think of it. Twist your mindset. You just talked about that. Twist your mindset. And look at this time when you get frustrated. Look at it as a gift. What am I learning in this moment when things aren't going the way they can? And then, you know, reach out to me. If I can help, I would love to help.

That is awesome. Julie Coutinho. How can people get a hold?

Julia brandtwist.com just go to my website, brandtwist.com or Julie and you know, if you're interested in a brand booster session, you know, let me know because I would love to raise money together for Doctors Without Borders.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Julie. For this is Scott Duffy and this show is what now is Scott duffy, presented by SAP concurrent tomorrow, 10am Pacific. Until then, you guys have a great night and keep asking yourself, what now? What do I do now to come out stronger on the other end? Take care.

Thank you.