SFR 188: Branding Comes Second...

Boom! What's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and this is Sales Funnel Radio.

 

Today, I'm gonna teach you guys why branding comes second.

 

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

 

The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.

 

Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.

 

My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

 

Alright you guys, I know that I'm probably gonna ruffle some feathers with this episode. I totally get that. I totally understand. I'm not trying to, but I  feel so strongly about this that if someone gets offended like, “Hmm... Okay! You know, alright... sounds good!”

 

So it was about six years ago, I had the unique opportunity of going and pitching some actual investors to invest in a business plan that I'd written. Now, this is before I ever had considered the fact that maybe VC funding wasn't always the best route... depending on what you were doing.

 

Maybe I didn't need to get funding. Maybe I didn't need to give up ownership in a company just to get it going, right?

 

And what was interesting is.... that was before I learned about any of this stuff.

 

I've always been very active in this sphere though... And so I was doing what I thought was best.

 

So what I did is... I remember we went and we wrote, I think it was like a 30-page business plan for the real estate space. It was with a buddy of mine, and he and I (as well as a few others), we came up with this plan.

 

It was this really cool real estate strategy. His dad was a kind of a real estate mogul, kind of. He was taking us under his wing a little bit, and he was showing us some cool, neat ways to (I think it was storage units) off-set costs with these clever strategies.

 

And it was cool - it was really cool.

 

Anyway, so we were excited about it; we're like, "Sweet! What if we just asked for the amount of investment that it would cost for us to go get a down payment on one of these properties? Let's just try it."

 

And cool enough, the professor we were doing this class with was facilitating the whole process. So the professor went and he actually grabbed these investors, so we did it in front of a live panel of investors.

 

We had a cool and unique opportunity of going in, and we did the exact process that you see on Shark Tank...without as much drama.

 

There was no slow motion, and there wasn't any slow-mo 'staring at each other looks' before anyone said anything - like on CNBC. But it was still awesome.

 

I remember we sat there, and we got to watch as each group would present their business plan; how much they believed their company was worth, give a percentage of the company away in exchange for an investment amount. Then watch them as they would defend why that was an awesome idea, and why they should get the cash, and why they had great numbers. You know, things like that.

 

It was really, really cool and I learned a lot and understood how all of that works. And it's really helped me even in my funnel building, funny enough. Even though I don't go that route.

 

So what was interesting is like, as I started doing that stuff they told us, "Hey, if somebody goes in and it truly is amazing - they will actually invest." And I was like, "Sweet, alright!"

 

Well, we get up there, and we start talking and stuff like that, and I remember that there were these different elements in creating this. It was like a 30-page business plan. It was very, very professional looking. We did everything from a SWOT analysis, (if you guys know what that is). All the standard stuff that you're supposed to do when creating a business plan and analyzing a market.  Which is 100% different than I do it now. Anyway, very fascinating...

 

I don't think any of us got any kind of investment. We did really well all of one of us. It was awesome in front of that board. Anyway, none of us got any kind of investment or anything like that. But we did that actually multiple times because of what I had studied.

 

I actually really do appreciate the college I went to on all this stuff. They did a great job for what they had, right? No one really teaches direct response marketing. That's kind of something you have to go learn on your own, you know what I mean? There's not like a major for that. No one's teaching that stuff, you know what I'm saying. For what they had it was awesome, I get it...

 

There were multiple occasions though where we pitched. I wrote a ton of business plans in college. And they were all very, very similar. We would go in and we would - there was a format we were following, and then we would go, and we would present it, whether it was just a professor or kinda like a dummy panel or a real panel. We did that many times, multiple times.

 

I started getting good at defending ideas back and forth for that. And when we actually started doing it for real... Colton and I, sitting over there, we actually went - we did it with a business that he and I were doing. We ended up winning the business competition in our college, and they sent us off to another college to go do it. We totally didn't win, but it was a good experience. It was a bunch of fun, and we learned a lot.

 

Now you say, "Stephen, what does that have to do with branding?" Well, there was always a moment in creating these business plans where you're like," Crap, I got this idea. What represents my idea? We need a logo. What's our slogan? What's our mission statement? What's this, what's that?" And we would spend so much time on those things that it actually ended up being a distraction of what actually caused value in that company. I see so much of the same pattern now...

 

The reason why I have such a war against branding is because it doesn't matter for a long time. It really doesn't.

 

Most of the time when I go, and I start creating something like a brand, man I go to a site, and I will buy a little logo that I think looks cool. I'll switch the colors around, so it looks somewhat okay, and in 15 minutes I have a logo! I do that all the time.

 

There's only like three or four logos I've ever had professionally created. But it's not until there's cash raining that I even think about that stuff.

 

What's interesting about that is that issue of branding comes up very frequently. In fact, you can see this on Shark Tank all the time. There was a lady I was watching, it was on Shark Tank. She came up, and she had the product there in front of her. I love watching Shark Tank. She had the product there in front of her.

 

She had a beautiful display... an amazing display with her stuff. There was the slogan; "This is what we're gonna do that's different." And cool, that was awesome... But then here comes the dreaded question they always ask, "Now, tell us what your numbers are." They go, "Well, we just started this three months ago." And you always see the faces.  You're like, "Oh, crap!" I'm sure they just add those in because of straight drama. They never invest in them. And it's because it's not worth anything.

 

And you hear the way entrepreneurs who are brand new defend their products. And they always, well not always, but a lot of times their defense comes back to things like branding: "Well we got a great logo. We got a great color scheme. We got a great..."

 

It's not uncommon to hear that kind of a phrase when somebody's defending their idea. "Well we got the logo done, we got the... " This has happened many times.

 

I told you guys it took me about 17 tries to really get a business right. Many of those early 17 tries before I knew what I was doing, I would spend literally two or three days looking through different logos trying to figure out which one was the best to represent the company, rather than, "How do we sell the thing?" Totally different question! It's so funny how different it is.

 

There's so many stories that are running through my head about this topic. Recently, somebody reached out, and they said, "You know what, Stephen? You could do a lot better if your personal branding was better. I'm a personal branding expert." I was like, "Cool. I REALLY don't care!" And they're like, "What are you talking about?" This like a year ago, and I was like, "I REALLY don't care. Personal branding doesn't mean a thing to me for a while." And they're like, "No, the personal branding is what represents you." I was like, "No, my products represent me. My stories represent me. My podcast represents me. My branding does not."

 

I just barely got this backdrop. We just barely got these sweet intros and outros.  Does branding matter? Yes. But not for a long time. Not for a while.

 

You can go back listen to Russell Brunson's courses. You can go back and see lots of guys courses that are out there, and they all say the same thing.

 

This is when branding actually matters. If you got hot traffic, warm traffic, cold traffic. Branding tends to matter more to hot traffic. Hot and warm, kind of in that realm. When you get to a warm/ cold - that kind of scenario -where people don't know who you are anyway, it really doesn't matter as much as we wish it did. It's the reason why I build the pages, and just kind of like, "Alright, let's ship it."

 

We went through, and we grabbed the top 100 funnels that are converting the most in ClickFunnels. For the most part, they're all pretty butt-ugly funnels. I mean like really! And almost all of them. It was like 95 of the 100 - absolutely not design pretty. Absolutely not. Does this make sense what I am saying? Does this make sense what I'm trying to say with this whole thing?

 

I've been geeking out on an author lately. He's become one of my favorite authors. His name is Christopher Lochhead. I think that's how you say his last name. Anyway, he talks about how, for a small 'e' entrepreneur, branding comes so far down the road. In fact, actually, let me grab the quote right here; it's super awesome. I read this on a plane. I like to either read or write on a plane.

 

Anyway, he says' "Quite bluntly, branding, in the absence of category creation is bs." He doesn't say "BS...", He says "Quite bluntly though, branding in the absence of category creation is bs." He says, "Categories make brands." Categories make brands.

 

Branding comes after category creation.

 

If you are like, "Hey, you know what, I'm gonna go into..." I don't know, think about anything where there's super high competitive. Let's say you're gonna go into the BizOp space. Let's say you're gonna sell wealth. And let's say you're gonna go sell real estate. And let's say in order for you to be successful in real estate, you're like, "I'm gonna become a real estate agent." Does that make sense?

 

You're gonna be wealthy because you're gonna go into real estate and you're gonna go into real estate by becoming a real estate agent - sweet.

 

Now, if you are doing literally the exact same thing as everybody else, why on earth are you going to make a brand? That's not going to set you apart very well. What sets you apart is figuring out how to be different than everyone else.

 

I'm not saying branding different. I'm saying what are you physically doing differently to collect leads than every other agent? What are you physically doing differently to close leads that's different than every other agent? What are you physically doing that's different to follow up, to up-sell... if you do up-sell? Does that make sense?

 

Then think about branding, right? You don't have a freaking business. Why would you spend money on something like a brand? Do you know what I mean?

 

There have been multiple times where I'll go in, and I'm not going to name names, but start looking, kay. And you go in, and these people have these beautiful personal brands... And I can't figure out what the heck they sell? Start diving in deeply, and you find out they don't even have a product yet. But man, they have spent five thousand dollars hiring the great people to make them look awesome. And I'm like, "Sweet! That is a lot of smoke and mirrors."

 

Again, I'm not trying to throw rocks, but I don't really care if you feel it because I'm so forward on this topic. Categories make brands.

 

It's kind of like in the book, Expert Secrets The idea is not to choose a niche. The idea is to create a niche. Another word for a niche is "market" or "category."

 

Go create a market that doesn't exist. Go create a category that's never existed before. Do something, come up with a category that truly is unique. And the way you move people into that category is by using what I've called the purple offer.

 

You use elements from the red - so there's a place of security for them (and you) 'cause it's like it's proven. But then you lace in these other things from this category that's never existed before... from things that have never existed before, and you start moving them this way.

 

There's a super cool... I think it was another Shark Tank thing. These guys were like mechanical engineers. They were extremely smart. I think they had gotten at their least Masters or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering or something like that. I think the company's called Pop Cards.

 

I have one over there. I got one for my wife for her birthday. They're super cool.

 

What they figured out is that they could use cool machine lasering and stuff like that to create these 3D pop-up cards. And people are like, "Why did you get that much education to create a card company?" That's a good question, right? Why would you ask that? You look at these things and they're gorgeous. It's absolutely, it's breathtaking.

 

You open these things up, and it's extremely intricate. A lot of math involved in what they've done. Anyway, super, super cool what they've done. They created something that's never been done before. "NOW let's think about branding!" Does that make sense? So it's in that order that I like to do it.

 

First create the category that's never existed before, now the brand.

 

Music even, I was just talking about this with Russell yesterday. There is a band I really, really like. I've followed their music for years. I found out that he likes a song from them too. I was like, "What's up, that's really cool.” And I messaged him and said the reason why they're so big and so popular, (their name is Odezsa). The reason they are so popular, and they're such a big deal is because they kind of created a category of music that's never existed before - so they were the obvious owner of it. Then they made branding.

 

You look at all their branded stuff and it's amazing, it's incredible. But they didn't have any of that branding before they launched. It doesn't matter. What matters is figuring out which category, which niche, which market you can create to be the first in... and then next go to the branding.

 

So anyways, without saying the same thing over and over again, that's the main point of this podcast. That's the reason why when somebody's like, "What should my logo be?" I'm like, "I don't freakin’ care." I will never have a business card. I don't understand them. Why do I need a business card? Why do I need these little tiny things, unless it is part of a little marketing campaign - that I've done...

 

Last year at Funnel Hacking Live, I made my dad business cards... but with a QR code that was his bait. They scanned the QR code and got his cool free bait, and it started them into the funnel. That makes sense right? But just a freaking name and email... Man, they could get on my Facebook profile.

 

Anyway, so that's my whole beef with it. When someone's like, "Oh, man, this page, you could design it better. You could do this over here." I'm like, "You know what? This page gets 65% opt-in rate. I don't really care to touch it."  And I know it's NOT because of how it looks that it's converting. Guys,  I'm trying to clear the smoke on my opinions on this topic 'cause several people have reached in asking about it. It's not a personal attack or anything, but literally from a sales or marketing standpoint. Marketing is NOT branding. It's not.

 

Marketing is the act of changing beliefs with the intent for a purchase to happen. That's all marketing is. I'm changing someone's beliefs with the intent for them to make a purchase. That's what marketing is. Branding is NOT marketing, it's not. Facebook ads are not marketing. They can be part of it, just like branding can be part of marketing, but it's NOT marketing.

 

I'm trying to get clear on these definitions with people. I actually might do a definitions podcast here soon - which I think would be really, really cool. Just so that you see where I operate from and why my stuff is working. I know the three or four terms that I focus on that make the money flow. And when I take my eye away from 'em, and I start looking at things like branding - that's when my money usually starts decreasing.

 

For all the hot traffic, for all the follow-up sales, for repeat purchases - branding can start to matter more for sure. Absolutely. People will want that kind of professional feel depending on what you are doing. They want to know that it was created with intent - that it's not haphazard. But when it comes down to a lot of my front-end stuff... That's why I didn't upgrade the podcast for a long time.  Do you know what I mean? It didn't matter, it didn't matter for a long time.

 

Recently, I've gone through, and we've done a pretty strong rebranding of a lot of my front end stuff. We've got chatbots in place now. Everything's tied together. A lot of value ladder steps, I'm getting them into place in both businesses, especially in one of them - where it's a lot more automation - I'm going in, and I'm creating systems and processes to remove me.

 

Now it's time to think about branding.

 

Now, it's time to think about creating more of that feeling and that experience as well. We're upgrading the package that we ship out to people when they buy products. The actual physical box, we've got logos we put on it rather than just a normal envelope. For a while, a normal envelope was fine.

 

People will act like branding is like this lock-gate for them to make money. It's not, and it's not the reason someone's not buying from you. It's not.

 

Go back to the sales message. Go back to the fundamentals. Do I have a sales message that's compelling? Do I have an offer that over-delivers both to the customer and my wallet? Because you don't have to compete on price when you have a good offer.

 

And then when those are all confirming that they're great and the cash is coming in... when you can go do all the tweaks you want to on the funnel  - and it's still working. You got cool sustainable traffic. Then think about a little rebrand and branding itself.

 

So anyway guys, I hope that's helpful to you. And hopefully, it clarifies a little bit about why I look at things that I do. When I'm building a page, I'll kind of make it, so the layout makes it easy to consume the text - so you can see more of the sales message. But that doesn't have anything to do really with colors. It really doesn't.

 

Thanks, guys so much. Hopefully, that makes sense to you, guys? Remember categories make brands. Branding in the absence of category creation and in the absence of niche or market creation is bs. It's a waste of time. It's not the reason why things convert.

 

All right guys thank you so much.

 

Hopefully, you guys enjoyed the episode and we'll see you in the next one, bye. Woohoo! Hey, thanks for listening.

 

Hey, many of you don't actually know that I made my first money online as an affiliate marketer. If you want to know how I funded my entire company without using any of my own money EVER, you can learn to do the same for FREE at affiliateoutrage.com.