Brand + Strategy Problems? Fixed.

Don't lean that way when you answer a question, don't go like that. You fall off the camera on the edge. Is this better? So I feel like you're like Zach Gki in like the Hangover right now. Is this better? One of those poses? Yeah. So uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

Welcome to the marketing team at one podcast where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now, here's your host, Eric and Mike. We're, we're gonna try something different today. We have solicited the audience for some questions and we, they seem to be fitting into three buckets.

They are in the design bucket. They are in the strategy bucket. And they are in the messaging bucket. Mm-hmm. And so what we've done is collected these questions and each of us is going to, Mike, you're gonna take on strategy. I could try. I'm gonna take on design questions. And Jill, you're gonna take on messaging questions?

Yes. How does that sound? Let's do it. All right. Can't, let's get into it. Can't. Let's roll up our sleeves. Get into it. I thought you were just gonna say sleeve. Just roll up the one. Yeah, that would be really good. I'm gonna roll up my sleeve and get into it. Just one sleeve. Just one. Whoa, look at that gun show.

All right. Still that hockey. Yep. Many of you will recognize the magic hat. We have prepared the questions and we're gonna let Jill reach in. Pull one out. All right. Okay. My IT slash tech support company has a lot of local competition. How can we stand out from the crowd? I think this is a strategy question, so I'm gonna, let's see, Mike, let's, let's see you take this on, right?

I think, um. Everybody needs an IT provider of some sort. They need help somewhere. Right? They're, there's, but you're competing against maybe some nephews, a lot of nephews out there. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. But I think that looking at who your audience, who your existing customers are, and see if there's any patterns there might be a good first step at to help you on your kind of differentiation journey.

Mm-hmm. Is what I'm, uh, I think so. First thing we wanna differentiate. I think yeah, like I think they're asking, right, how can we stand out from the crowd? Yeah. Right. So, so I see that as a differentiation thing, right? Yeah. Like, um, they're all kind of solving the same problem for the most part, right?

Mm-hmm. I've got a computer that I want to have run smoothly, and I need to know who to call when things don't work smoothly, and there's a whole bunch of other stuff in there, but like, I don't know that you can alone. Differentiate by talking about the problem you solve. Because ideally, if all of them are doing mm-hmm.

Their job, they're gonna talk about how they help people with their computer issues. Right? Right. So then we just gotta figure out what are other points of differentiation that we could work on through. So it could be focusing on your marketing efforts on a specific. Industry is what I'm thinking. Right.

So, so if you're, if you are doing mostly like, I don't know, like all the, I'm trying to think of a, of an industry, local industry where there'd be a lot of maybe computers, dentist office. Mm-hmm. Let's say dentist office. Right. Nice. They have, they need a lot of. Probably they've got a lot of computers that are running through things and you make sure that they're running smoothly and everything.

You could say that we're an IT local IT provider for dentists in the area or something like that. That would be one way to differentiate from the more general niche down into a specific industry. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, that would be one way. Um, I think, or just trying to get a little bit more. More bold or do, this would be more of like a branding exercise, I think a little bit, but like find a way to say what you do in a much different way.

Mm-hmm. And that would be kind of a messaging thing, right? Yeah. Like how you would, how would you, I don't know. I'll throw it to you. Like you're non-differentiated in what you're delivering to everybody. Yeah. How would you, how would you do it from a messaging point of view to really make them stand out?

I mean, if we were, I mean, so much of this is, so much of strategy and messaging go together. They, they are so tightly knit together. Yeah. So I would say that like, okay, what problem are you seeing so often? And that's the one that you solve all the time. And you can solve that like in seconds. Yeah. Or just, it's just super easy to, for you to deliver this, this thing, you solve that problem, you frame your messaging.

Focusing on the problem that you're solving. Mm-hmm. And so if you can solve one specific problem or solve that one specific problem, even better for a very specific niche, then you have a super clear message that people can really get behind. And you're saying, okay, I solve, um, I'm thinking of a, like a software.

I solve a scheduling. Software issues for dentists and IT, or you know, dentists. Mm-hmm. I think that obviously we're not IT people No. Or dentist office. So I don't know what software you're using, but if you can really focus on making sure that, oh, I ma I keep your computers up to date for dentist's office.

Like that's a very specific audience that you're serving and you're, everybody knows a dentist. Mm-hmm. Like, and so even if I am not a dentist, I know who to send you to. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I also think that it's your offer, like being able to talk about your offer and offer building for a specific audience.

Um, so knowing what it, what it is you're selling, and feeling confident to sell that one thing over and over and over again. Um. Which again is So being, being less than like, Hey, we help with all your computer issues. Yeah. Right. Like that's not necessarily mm-hmm. A compelling offer to Yeah. To everybody.

Right. So, but if you could say, Hey, we have a program where we come in once a month and make sure that everything's running smoothly. Yep. And, and if there are any problems, we'll come out and fix 'em. Within this timeframe there you're making a little bit more. Yeah. Something people get, get behind and like, oh, that's, that's way better.

I don't have to think too hard about. Yeah. Oh, they can help me with all my computer issues. Yeah. Well, and I think that there's a, there's also a way that you can angle your language a little bit more to make it appropriate for that specific niche as well. So you speak in terms of the problems that those specific, we'll call it dentists for this opportunity.

Yeah. Speak to them. What's the problem that they have? And then all of your copies should follow suit with, do you miss a lot of appointments or do your customers, you know, forget their appointments because you don't have the right reminder system built into your computer or mm-hmm. You know, like speak in terms of like what is the biggest problem they have with that issue.

Yeah. That's very specific. And then per, you know, speak to that instead of, yeah. We have 59 different Yeah. Options for you to choose from. It's more like, no, we fixed this problem with this specific solution. Yeah. Like we build and maintain HIPAA compliant appointment reminder systems. Nice for dental offices.

Most of your customers are dentist things like lean into that, right? Yeah. But um, I'm thinking like, if you're like a local IT provider where you're just like, you're providing, you know. Windows machines to people and keeping them up to date and everything like that. You might have a much broader industry.

You might, it might not be true. Truly clear. Sure. And probably for the health of your business, most of those are regional players, right? They have to be able to drive to fit in things, right? Like, how would we stand out? How could you stand out from the crowd there when you, maybe you're, what you're delivering?

Isn't differentiated. Yeah, right. Like, I'm just, I I'm thinking of different ways to, um, different attitudes. Like think about a different attitude. Does it emanate from your, from your culture and the people that you are, like, are you more irreverent or are you more kinda sassy? Can you put that into the, into your, that's where I think some of it comes messaging, right?

Yeah. Like you, if you can like. Maybe find your tribe of people that identify with you, love you for these specific reasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's less about, it's less about the service or offer you're providing, but mm-hmm. Um, I think those are super important. Yeah. I don't wanna diminish that. Like, I think having those offerings and making it super clear for people.

But if you're, I'm assuming in that space, there's a lot of overlap in what everybody would do for you, right? Yeah. So how do you stand out from there? I mean, I, yeah. I don't know. I'd love both your thoughts on that because I, I think there's, I think part of it's just a branding exercise, like coming up with a way to totally stand out.

I have some, I have an idea, but Eric, I don't wanna, I want you to go then. Okay. Do it. Uh, I would say if you have reviews on your Google on, like, Google My Business, look first at. Those reviews. Mm. Are there commonalities? Look at your competition's, Google reviews. Are there things that they're consistently doing poorly that you're doing really well?

Um, and then really planting your flag in in that. Space of like, oh, my competition cannot deliver on time, they cannot be at a location on time. Okay. Then I will always be on time. That's good. And that is where, that is where I, where I plant my flag. Yeah. Um, because you may do just as good of a job as everyone else, and you don't necessarily wanna say, you know, paint someone as a villain.

They're doing a fine job. They just cannot, for the life of them, show up on time. Okay? Mm-hmm. I know that I can do that. I'm a one person shop or you know, you have a small team. Yeah. That you can really as a, as an IT tech support, like you have a small team that you can really hammer home that, hey, your team has to be on time.

This is a core value. Mm-hmm. And that kind of goes into a, a whole other. Yep. Or values conversation, but I think first, first place that you can start, look at your competitors, Google My Business reviews and see what they're not doing well that you can for darn sure deliver on. I love that because it doesn't take a a lot to go researching that.

Yeah, everybody can go do that. Doesn't matter the scale of business or anything. Yeah. I mean, you could be solopreneur, especially when you're local. Yeah. Like, you know who, who the other players are in the space. Yeah. Like, you know that mm-hmm. That's not hard to, that's super low hanging fruit. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I love that. I can't beat that. There's, I don't have anything to add. Let's do another question. Okay. Great. Do we want Jill to choose or do we want Mike to, I think it was Mike's question. So he has to choose Mike. Mike, he next to answer. All right. Come on design question. Thank you. All right. What we do is kind of boring, honestly.

How do I write like it matters when it's something like an association for plumbers. Is it like, it's a good question. An association for plumbers or is it association for plumbers? That's what I wanted. Well, I, I guess for the, our purposes here, let's assume it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's an associ of a trade association for, um, plumbers.

Okay. I love it. Uh, honestly, I don't think that's boring. No. Um, I'm gonna start. I mean, there's a lot of drama around plumbing. There's so much, much drama. I was just saying like, when things go wrong Yes. It's not like, just like, oh, we'll get around to it. Yeah. Like, there's urgency. There's an urgency. It's scary.

Yeah. But it's an association, right? Yeah. Like they're, they're mm-hmm. They're there to fight for the plumbers Yeah. Of the world and their needs. Okay. Right. Yeah. So. I could see it being boring. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I, I also wanna preface this by saying I think that a lot of people who have been in the business for a really long time think what they do is boring.

Mm-hmm. I think that they get into this rut of thinking that like, ugh, I'd say the same thing over and over. I, nobody wants to hear this. It is, it's genuinely really boring when that's. I think not true, and I'd love to just throw that out there. What you do is only boring if you present it in a way that's boring, and I think that that's kind of, that is what you're getting at.

Yeah. Is that that I think that what I'm writing about is boring. Maybe it is, maybe the way you're, you're writing about it is boring, but also maybe it's the fact that you're writing about it over and over and over again, or you're talking about it over and over and over again and it's boring to you.

That doesn't mean that it's boring to everyone else. Kind of going back to our last conversation, I hope you to read it. Um, going back to our last conversation, it's, this is. A core values conversation, it's ask if, if what you're asking is, how do I bring personality? How do I bring conviction into it? I think it's really about like defining, again, where are you putting your stake in the ground?

Where, where does it matter and where do you feel the most? Um. Uh, convicted in your work? Where, how is it, how is this important? Um, and if you think that it's not important, that it won't be important. Mm-hmm. Um, so genuinely writing about it from, from an aspect of we are really passionate about fighting for the rights of plumbers because one.

It's an industry that's not gonna be taken over by AI like that. Mm-hmm. Like we know that for, like, that's not gonna happen at least anytime soon. You're not gonna have a robot doing your plumbing anytime soon. This is a people first, um, industry. And so that alone, while it may feel boring, it is, it is so important.

And so being able to talk about it in a way. That you can bring your conviction to the forefront and say, no, this matters. Because it really ma, like the stakes are super high for plumbing. Mm-hmm. And so caring for the professionals that do this work is, um. Is important. And so I think it's, it's a matter of finding your core values, finding the angle that makes, that, makes you really fired up about something and about what you do.

And so maybe it's a conversation of like, okay, why do you do what you do? Mm-hmm. What, um. Why do, does what you do matter? Um, and what are the stakes? If, what are the stakes? What's at stake if you don't do this thing? Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that will kind of reinvigorate your passion for, for like writing about what you do and saying, this is really boring.

We just. Do X, Y, Z. Well, I, I think there's a piece like you, the people, first thing that you brought up is really important. Yeah. 'cause that is also probably a part of a association, is to bring people together that do the same things. Teach them, educate them on, yeah. New policies or new, you know, technologies or, you know, you can be one of those.

We're leading the charge on teaching you all the things that are most important about being a plumber. And so you can take the kind of the cutting edge approach to things. You can take the, Hey, we're learning and having fun together, and networking and getting to know each other and helping each other.

Hey, I can't do this, but I'm gonna refer you like referral network stuff. Yeah. There's a lot of different dynamics that play into associations that when you talk about the people first element. There's a lot of different cool things that you could bring in so much more excitement around Sure. That, like you said, AI's not taking over.

Yeah. Robots are not in charge of it, and so there's a lot more fun things that you can bring into it. Yeah. So first things first. Don't think what you do is boring. Yep. You're too close to it. You're too close to it. If you think what, you're too close to it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we see that all the time with all kinds of different industries.

Yeah. You know, people, and it seems like the, the people that spend the most amount of time like doing research or science or something around topics. Mm-hmm. They are. So like on the other side of it, they love what they do and everything, but it's hard for them to even communicate. Just to regular people, their messaging and why it's so great.

'cause they go immediately into the technical side of it and acronyms and this and that. And then nobody, acronyms. Yeah, nobody can. Okay. If you're using acronyms, then for sure you're boring. So sorry. Wow. That's a bold statement right there. Wow. Acronyms are boring just on their face. Wow. Acronyms are boring af Nice.

So that's one acronym. That's good. That's not, that's not, people order our patties from SpongeBob. From SpongeBob, right? Um, yeah. Yeah. I don't hear that one used too often. No. Couldn't acronyms be a fun messaging trick if you're looking at your brand to like incorporate and add some, like to be a little more irreverent in everything.

Oh, to actually use it as a device to bring in a little more person. Yeah. Like I'm thinking of like billboards or something like that where you're trying to capture people's attention and you're gonna, you know, I like, I'm thinking text acronyms. Okay. And stuff like that. Okay. Maybe I'm trying to create, open your policy a little bit to make sure that there is room for a little bit of acronyms.

I think about My husband works in in healthcare compliance. And there are so many acronyms in healthcare. Mm-hmm. And so many acronyms in healthcare that that mean the same thing, like two of the same acronyms that mean totally different things. Interesting. Oh, that's nice. That is wild. And so I did plan my flag in the fact that like if one department is talking about one acronym and.

Another department is talking about the same acronym, but they could mean two different things. Acronyms are dumb. Nobody knows what you're talking about. So in a verbal way, I think acronyms are dumb. Maybe I could see them working. No, but I, that's a good point. Like if you're more in a space where you're educating people on things Yeah.

That, that acronyms are a bad thing. 'cause you're assuming that they have the knowledge. You do. Yes. You're too close to it. Yes. And that's a bad thing. Yes. So, okay, I'm coming around. Yeah. Alright. I think we answered that one. I like, I like the throwing a very dramatic and it it'll look good on Yeah. On film.

Yeah. I hope so. I was really aiming for the camera, but I, that would bet lose. Okay, well now it's my turn. I have to, so you have to hold the hat. Okay. So I can choose. I mean, I don't wanna, you know, you don't wanna rustle around in there. Uh, I don't wanna mess around. Okay. I'm gonna pick this one here.

I own a bookkeeping company and we have never done any kind of marketing before, but we want to grow. Where should we start in our marketing journey? Ooh, that sounds like a mic question. It does. It sounds like a strategy. I don't have a great answer. I can't say do this, X or Y or something like that, but I think I, I think you have to look at what you've done.

What if you've been around a long time? What's. Obviously something's working. Yeah, right. Like what, what can you leverage? What can you lean into a little bit more? And, um, start there. Right? Like, I think if, okay, if you want to grow, you really have to figure out ways to get more customers in and, mm-hmm.

Okay. How do, how do we do that? We talked a little bit earlier about, um, having an offer. Right. I think in a bookkeeping side of things, right, you probably, you, there are things that are like, if you're really close to it, like you probably are, you know, you just kind of think, oh, here's the things we do and everything.

And, but if you can take those mundane things and package 'em up in a way to, to people, you might be able to have a. Clear up some of the gaps in people's understanding of what happens or what, what, what they're getting for their, for their money. Um, so I think having some kind of offer Yeah. Packaging up a clear way of o um, and it could be all the stuff that you already do.

Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. If you could figure out a way to package it up and then sell it more as like a package price instead of like, I'm assuming a lot of these services are more. Hourly, they're charged by the hour. Mm-hmm. Um, instead if you can do it as a fixed price and you might be able to create a little bit more room, um, in the way of profit to fund other things.

Right. So that profit could then free up other activities that you could do marketing wise to be more, do more outreach. Yeah. So to speak. I think so. I think, um, if I were to start, I would. Look at your offering product offerings and how you mentioned it to everybody. And then what I think I would do is look at, okay, how, how do we get business now?

Um, I'm assuming if you haven't been doing a lot of marketing, like a lot of other companies out there, yeah, you're probably on referrals most of the time, right? Mm-hmm. People are referring you like, oh yeah, they, so and so does this for me. They'd be great for you, right? Mm-hmm. So if you could figure out a way to.

And this isn't so much like marketing or advertising, but if you have a more structured way of leaning into the referrals, so to speak, like, can you, do you have a, is there a outreach to your existing customers? Like, Hey, do you know someone mm-hmm. You know, that could, that could benefit from our services?

Like that could be a thing that you do on a regular basis to try and bring in that flow of people. Um. Another thing you could try is just start, if I was starting here and the referrals thing was, felt like it was pretty good, I, you could look at digital advertising, but I think you'd wanna look and make sure that your audience is someone who would be receptive to that.

Yeah, I think like, I think there's just some, there are some industries where like, they're not gonna be on. Yeah. On LinkedIn every day, like and be, be able to see a LinkedIn. Well, and you can play into the strength of that referral network by going into Associated Industries too. Yeah. Like bookkeeping is related to accounting.

Mm-hmm. So you could talk to CPAs even. Yeah. You could talk to Chamber of Commerce, you could talk to business development people, even sales people, and see if there's a way to kind of. Nudge your way and your message into other organizations to see if they might need, 'cause everybody needs bookkeeping.

Yeah. Yeah. Unless they've got it on staff or something like that. Yeah, that's one. And having a nice, like you were saying, like a nice front door offer that's really easy to refer to. Like, like I'm thinking like, oh, we help set up your books to hand off to your tax guy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like maybe. Maybe again, talk, going back to niching.

Yep. Um, you know, we help growing creative professionals get their, get their books ready to hand off to their tax guy for the first time. Yep. It's like, okay, your, your audience is really specific. Mm-hmm. And then you've got that one thing in the front door, and then they realize. Oh, shoot. It's so easy to have somebody else do this.

Yeah. And so then you have an ongoing offer that's like immediately you're immediately fed into, and so being able to, and then again, coming back to that makes it really easily referable because everybody's talking about, oh, this person got my taxes or got my books ready to hand over to a tax person.

And that's what they talk about. Yeah. That's your front door offer. Yeah. So that gets people in the door. And it's very easily referable and easy to talk about. And maybe if it's a small bookkeeping firm, they need to do a little bit of educating. 'cause maybe they're a potential new market for them as people who don't have bookkeeping.

Yeah. And they're like, here's how easy it is. You just email the receipts to us. Yeah. Or we'll just handle all this. Or you could use, you know, like techniques around, like the real simple things that just sound like, oh gosh, that sounds, if only somebody could just, yeah. Take care of X, whatever that is. You know, I don't know.

You probably both have talked to plenty of like small business owners or solopreneurs and how much headaches they have around that. Yeah. And like, and that a lot of them just try and grind it out. 'cause it doesn't seem like it, there's seems easy enough. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But, uh, I don't know. You can get in trouble too, like if you're Yeah.

If you don't know Yeah. Exactly what you're doing. You can get in trouble. So you could, you might be able to play on that a little bit too. Totally. Mm-hmm. Play on the, um, peace of mind. I, peace, fear factor. Huge. Yeah. Huge, huge part of it when we handed off our bookkeeping and our taxes like that was that we felt like we made it to the next level, but like the peace of mind that came with that, and so it's like, wow, wow, wow.

This is nice. Yeah. I'm living. Donna, you're a real one. Yeah. Like. It's the end of March. I've got like two weeks to submit all this stuff and I'm getting out shoe boxes and, and and, oh, you're, this is a hypothetical. I've heard stories. I thought, I thought you were saying currently, presently right now. It's the end of March.

And I was like, no, it's more like that. Just like, alright, this panic. And I'm thinking specific, you mentioned like creative professionals and I know a few and I know that, um. That's not something they do every day, and that's the last thing they want to do. Mm-hmm. So sometimes that gets put to the last minute and then you're scrambling and everything and say, and it's painful.

It's like, no one looks at, they go, oh boy. I get to dig in and figure out Yeah. What, what I need to be doing and get everything in order. No thanks. They lay off that pain. Yep. That's, that's where you go. Yeah. Okay. Let's time for another question. This, Jill. All right. All right. Our brand is so outdated, but now is not the time for us to do a massive rebrand.

What are some small things we can do to give us an upgrade without overhauling everything? Eric? Uh, this just sounds like this is all you. Yes. I have dealt with this with, uh, a few clients, so I, I know. A little bit about this. I think there's a lot of elements to your brand, right? Yeah. There's, it's not just your logo, it's not just one or two pieces of what's out there for sure.

Um, and so there's ways to refine it. Hopefully you've got something that is flexible enough to where you can assign other art elements or design elements along with it. Just kind of incrementally, so you'd never wanna like go in and make some big dramatic change with everything, even if you have the same logo, you don't wanna like come in with a brand new color scheme.

Um, I would say, so I'm, I'm, I'm answering it two different ways, but I think the approach should be, for one, try to do things incrementally so that you maintain a lot of the equity of your existing brand. Then start to upgrade the ancillary items around it. Um, I would say typography. If you've already got a typography system in place, you might want to keep that pretty solid because your brand typography was engineered to work with a certain type of typography, and I would not touch that stuff.

You could start to work a little bit with the color, but messing around with color. You start to bring in different emotions that are associated with your brand. And I would be very careful about changing things up too dramatically with your color system. Um, an easy thing that could help you upgrade or change or shift is working with photography.

If you use a lot of photography, there's a way to change the style of the photography that does a pretty good job of. Moving it. Maybe you wanna upgrade in in terms of like, I wanna look a little bit more cutting edge. Mm-hmm. Maybe your brand still exists, but you then upgrade your photography to look very cutting edge, or you introduce more people to make it look more personable or something like that.

Those are nice subtle ways that don't shift and ruin the equity that you've already established with your brand, but I would also look at like, why are you changing it? You know, look at the intention behind what that means. Mm-hmm. And make sure that it's aligned with your business goals. Are your business goals changing?

Then you need to shift those other elements to kind of work towards whatever that new business goal or that refined business goal is 'cause, um, that's should align with the intention of what you're trying to do first and foremost. So, I guess I've answered your question. Back to front. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Like I, you should start with your business goals. Why are you changing your brand or wanna change your brand? I'm curious about the question though. There's, well, could you read it again? Because I think there's something in there. Our brand is so outdated, but now is not the time for us to do a massive rebrand.

What are some small things we can do to give us an upgrade without overhauling everything? So it sounds like it's just purely that things are super outdated. Outdated, yeah. Yeah. I mean, is it out, is it truly outdated or you're bored with it, like you said? Mm-hmm. When you're super close to it. I think that's a, an interesting angle to look at.

And there are outdated things. There's really outdated things. Yeah. I mean, as you're talking, I'm thinking a lot about how, well, I'm a big, uh, I love the NHLI love hockey, but, um, one of the things, one aspects I really love about it is not necessarily what happens on the ice. I love. How teams are put together and general managers deal to try and put the best thing out there.

Mm-hmm. And one thing that you hear a lot in circles is there's different philosophies on how you go about managing a team. Some teams will try and like completely tank. And get as many draft picks as they can. And they'd be, they're bad for a long time. And sharks, they call it a rebuild. Yeah. The San Jose Sharks are in the middle of that right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Real bad. Um, but then, and so, but there's a lot of pain and it's a long process. I would say that's the equivalent to like a rebrand. Yeah. Like, you're gonna basically like take everything you know and scrap it and start over. It's painful, it's long, it's expensive. Um, the pain probably comes from the expense, but it's still, there's a lot of, a lot there.

And it's probably not the best if you, it's definitely not the best if you're doing it all yourself. Yeah. Um, that's something where you call in big guns to help you with that kinda stuff. Mm-hmm. As you're talking about this, I feel like it's more in, in line with, when they talk about rebuilding on the fly, like they're, they're finding little pieces to help supplement mm-hmm.

And kind of finding pain points and. Addressing them. And you know, if you look at it over a three year period, the team's completely different, but they didn't like to burn it down and start over. So I think that's what we're talking about here is like trying to identify items that are, that feel the most dated maybe, and what are the, what's the most pain points.

And then, but you're talking about trying to find new ways to put a new spin on it too, right? So yeah, if the, if you've got a. Let's see. You've got a commercial of those filmed like eight years ago and it like, you can tell because the clothes that are wearing, yeah, like maybe that's a good spot to. The pain point is, that looks most outdated.

Yeah. Let's, let's, let's put some budget to refilming that one and then as we do that, maybe there's some other little things that we can do with our brand that we can start take from that and apply to the next thing. So if maybe it's a sales sheet or something like that, but you've established some, I think there's an audit process that should take place for sure.

Yeah. And this might be something where you wanna bring in a professional and just. You know how don't spend a lot of money, but if you could afford just having an extra set of eyes or even an yeah, existing customer base, maybe to talk to you about it. Like, here's, here's what we see. Here's what really bothers us.

We know you're not gonna go in and change your whole logo, but maybe there's a drop shadow or, uh, something like funky on the art that you could just kind of remove or clean up a little bit. Or like visuals like, oh, we we're constantly on TV with this commercial. That's what everybody sees. Okay. Well then maybe start there.

You know? Yeah. Like pick, figure out. Pick your battles, I guess. Right? Like be strategic. It's not an easy thing to do. No. Right. It's like, yeah. I don't know. We try and do it. We've done it with a few clients. I've done it on a couple places where I help out, like, you know, volunteer my time and everything.

And it's not a, it's, it is very tempting to just burn it all down. Yeah. And try and start over. But that's not a reality. Well, there's a reeducation process that takes place after you burn it all down and rebuild it again. Then there's the process of like, no, this is really us again. Yeah. No, see we're the same.

Yeah. Group, you know? Yeah. That's painful. So like you said, rebuilding it takes a long time. And I think, I think the other thing we should say, like if we're doing this, like rebuilding on the fly type idea. Mm-hmm. That you're really close to it, you're gonna be like, well that doesn't match this or anything like that.

But like if you're talking about subtle details, which is what I think we're talking about is like making subtle changes. People aren't gonna know. So subtle changes in, but if you look at it from this point in time to this point in time, ideally if you've been doing the work and. Making those incremental things.

Yeah. You will see the difference over, yeah. Over that time. I have an example in my head. Yeah. You guys used that emergency, the, yeah. Drink stuff. It was always shocking to me to see how, from a design standpoint like that was not really well designed packaging. It just like the style of it was very old and outdated and not really progressive.

Mm-hmm. Great product though. Mm-hmm. Yeah. In the back of my head, I imagine they have a warehouse filled with 18 million, little, tiny packets that were printed very cheaply, you know, back in 1975, that they're just working their way through. Yeah. But I think that they've done a good job of rebranding and refining without.

Probably spending a whole ton of money on the actual design and logo and stuff. 'cause there's an equity built in that people kind of connect with. Yeah. Oh, this is that terrible looking packet that I Yeah. Really helps me feel a lot better. You know? So there's, there's something that's valuable that they've kept yet they have refined it.

And I can see that, you know, there's TV commercials now Yeah. And everything. Whereas before it looked kind of like. Is this really safe? Yeah. Is this, you know, is the tough, I'm not quite sure. So yeah, it's a continual refinement. Unless, and not a, not a, like it didn't just come out big bold splash. Yeah.

You're not going for a big, bold splash. Yeah. I was in, that was an interesting journey to watch that brand make and still maybe they're still on the journey. I dunno. Yeah. I have a question, a design question then. Yeah. Okay. To kind of like piggyback on this Yeah. The recent like. Subtle Rebrands that don't feel like real, real full rebrands.

I'm thinking Johnson and Johnson. Walmart. Mm-hmm. They're like, these subtlest subtlest changes and it's like, did you rebrand? And they like, make this whole big thing about like rebranding. Mm-hmm. Is it actually a rebrand or is it just kind of like, oh, we're just, we're giving a, we're doing a refresh. What, what is this?

How would you define it As designer I from, well, from my, my perspective is, is that those brands are so gigantic and historic. That they really don't want to take the massive risk to like redo the brand. And so their efforts in rebranding are more refining their own brand. Sure. So that they re maintain the equity.

Yeah. Maintain the audience. Don't lose people. Yeah. Like I think one of the worst examples that we've seen in the recent past is the Jaguar rebrand, which I don't know if you're familiar with what they've done with Jaguar, but it's historically. It's, it's gonna go down in history as one of the worst rebrands ever because they not only shifted their whole visual style of what they had, but they threw away the entire historic passion behind that brand.

Sure. I mean, Jaguar goes back, it's part of British history. You know, like people love that brand and then they came out and they're like, yeah, we're forgetting all those people that. Bought our cars for the last 50 years and we're just going for this 20 something club going young community who probably honestly are not, you know, most people who drive Jaguars are not young.

They're older people. Yeah. So there was a real misstep there and I think their brand where they thought that they were going to. Bring in a new audience by rebranding, and I think, you know, that's, that's a perfect example of what you don't wanna do with a brand like Walmart and mm-hmm. The fact that they completely just discounted the entire history of that brand threw it away, was unbelievable that they could just, just like wipe the slate clean and say, work.

We are forgetting everything about the legacy of this brand. Oh. When you have a legacy like that. Yeah. It's just unbelievable to be able to see them and they hyped it up so ba much too. They, they, you know, pre introduced the introduction, you know, building up this hype and building up. Everybody's getting excited about this new brand.

Oh, it's come wait till you see, and all this anticipation was built in and then what they delivered was even more up. Like even it compounded the negative in effect of this rebrand by building it up like that. Like they just came across as being so arrogant. Yeah. Mike, you've got a stat for us. Got a stat here.

49 Jaguars were purchased across Europe in April of 2025. 49 across the whole continent compared to the year before. That's a 97.5 drop in year over year sales. Wow. Like I said, historic. That's insane. Yeah. Yeah, look it up. That's a great example of, uh, yeah, don't do this. Yeah. So all that. So coming back to, yeah, the question of our stuff is outdated.

What do we do now? This is not something, the subtle changes that you're seeing in bigger brands, it's not gonna work the same for you. Don't try to do it. I think if you wanna make small refinements to it, that's probably fine. You're not gonna lose an audience based on that. Um, it's actually, you gonna pull a Jaguar.

Yeah. You're not gonna pull a Jaguar. Yeah. Um, but I think that, you know, anytime you rebrand, you're taking a risk. Yeah. You've gotta reeducate your audience on what you're doing and let them know that it's okay. Like this is, we're not, you know, the only thing we're changing is we're just trying to update and become a, you know, we're, we're progressive, we're more, you know.

Yeah. Using better technology now. Sure. Or something like that. It needs to build a story around that for sure. Yeah. But I think if you just wanna refine things just a little bit, look at what that ROI is. Does it cost a lot to do? Do you have to change signage? Do you have to change things to do that? Yeah.

Is it worth it? Then maybe just preserve that cash for when you want to do a big rebrand. Good thought. There she goes. Oh my gosh, that was so far off.

So yeah, so there's been a lot of fun and we, what we wanted to do, 'cause we have so many great questions that we've submitted. We wanted to break this episode up into two different episodes, so stay tuned for the next episode. We're gonna keep diving into the design, messaging and strategy questions that we have, and hopefully answer some of the questions you have out there that stuck in your brain.

Maybe it'll unlock some of 'em for you. So until next time, thanks. Thanks. Bye.

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