Building Your Brand From Vision to Launch - LIVE Coaching | SOS Ep. 372

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Surviving Outside Sales
• 2:16 Three Phases of Brand Building
• 4:47 Brand vs. Image: Critical Distinctions
• 10:15 The Shepherd's Way Book Concept
• 15:12 Mapping Your Brand Strategy
• 19:52 Product-Market Fit and Go-To-Market Strategy
• 24:14 Conclusion and Live Call Format

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The Surviving Outside Sales Podcast, hosted by Mike O'Kelley, presented by Sales Builder Academy, the goal is to survive and thrive all phases of outside sales, whether you're getting in, dominating or getting out. Surviving Outside Sales. Now on with the show. Welcome to the Surviving Outside Sales podcast. I'm your host, mike O'Kelley. Thank you so much for joining today. Really do appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 0:34

I'm going to start integrating live coaching calls, or coaching calls that I record to allow you to hear what some of the clients that I'm coaching are going through, and it also gives you more examples as opposed to just me talking. You actually get to hear the process, the thought process of what they're hearing and it might resonate a little bit more. So today's topic is going to be brand building, kind ofon-one. So this is one of my most more recent calls where, um I'm helping. I'm helping um someone build a brand from scratch and kind of right now it's going from concept to. We're going to be working towards getting that down on paper and getting it live to the rest of the world. So, um, thank you for everybody who's been listening to the rest of the world. So, thank you for everybody who's been listening. I really do appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:29

Again, I help sales professionals. I also help entrepreneurs and business people. I help people launch what they love. I also help outside sales professionals build a sales territory that'll scale in order for them to make more money and live the life that they want. So if you want to reach out to me, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Connect with me and reach out to me on LinkedIn, send a DM and say I would love to sit down and have a call and see if I might be able to help you or give you some guidance to take the next step. If I can't help you, I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to waste your time. Time is very valuable. So I will put you to the right, put you in touch with the right person to get you to where you want to go. So please use me as a resource. You can reach out to me. And, with further ado, here is the call with Michael, a great name. So here's the call with Michael. So enjoy, um, so enjoy, all right. So when we get, we get started.

Speaker 1: 2:28

So you're talking about the branding side, building the brand, starting from scratch. Now I know you've already got ideas, so I'm going to walk me through. There's really three phases to think about. First is going to be the vision. So you've already thought of the vision, which is fantastic.

Speaker 1: 2:43

That is the that's usually the hardest part. Somebody has a concept, they have an idea. They don't know how to encapsulate it and kind of move it forward. The second is going to be the mapping. So that's going to be kind of the think of it as like the skeleton. You're building out your framework of how it's going to look, how it's going to operate.

Speaker 1: 3:03

You have to build a plan for a brand, even if you're doing personal branding or you're doing an actual brand, like you're doing, but it also kind of goes together, like you want to brand yourself. And we'll talk about kind of the differences between an actual brand and you as a brand, because they kind of go together. And if there's a disconnect between those two things, it's very difficult for either of the brands to kind of go together. And if there's a disconnect between those two things, it's very difficult for either of the brands to kind of move forward. And then the last one's execution. So that's really the three steps. It's the vision.

Speaker 1: 3:32

You kind of think of it as like the planning stage, and then the second is the mapping, that's kind of building out the systems, processes, et cetera. And then the third is the execution. So the first vision, it's all the questions, the who, the what, the where, the why, how, the, when it is, you know, separate. So you're going to have one and then your brand is going to be another. So at the beginning we'll talk about, um, if you've even thought of your brand, and so before you kind of do that, I wanted to kind of show you. Let me pull up, let me do this real quick. I had this up a second ago. I got too many, too many screens and too many things going up. Let's see.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Okay, I got too many screens and too many things going up.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Let's see I'm going back to the Zoom. I hate the dead air, but all right. So I'm going to show you real quick. Here we go All right, screen three, all right, screen three, all right.

Speaker 1: 4:47

So for you personally and I want to make this, I want to make this distinction because a lot of people you may know this already, but I just wanted to bring this up is the difference between an image and brand. So the brand is what you build privately. It's the core, it's the essence of what you are, it is what you believe, what you stand for, your non-negotiables. So, for instance, one of my non-negotiables is I will never work with somebody or sell something to somebody that I cannot help. That does not make me feel good. It's really a time suck. So I actually turn away clients because I can't help them and it's not going to help. It's going to, it's going to lead to frustration, it's going to lead to angst, and that's just something that I will not do. I just. There are people that come to me and they want help and I can't help them. I can't see a path where I can make their, their job better. So it's your core self. The same thing is with the brand itself. What is the core self, and it's called the Shepherd's Way. Is that right? Yeah, so your core brand, that is what you're building in private. You're building in private.

Speaker 1: 6:02

The image is how people receive that. So you know you could, you could be very well-dressed, you could have, you could talk really well, but if what you're saying doesn't land with people or it comes across as kind of inauthentic, that is how the, that's how the market's going to see you. You put out, you build your brand and then you walk out and then the market will tell you while they're receiving it. And so you always see these brands, you always see these companies. They come out very flashy and it falls flat.

Speaker 1: 6:37

I don't know if you remember, but there was a. You remember the streaming service that came out like 2021 and it was supposed to be like seven to 12 minute movies and the the founder, I think was a was a big time founder. They they raised hundreds of millions of dollars and it was a complete flop because they built something really fast in like fine closed doors. They built it that nobody really wanted and then they threw it out in the market and the image was yeah, nobody liked it. So it doesn't matter how much money you have behind it, it really doesn't matter who's involved. Big names You've seen it before. Brands have big names behind it, but it doesn't go anywhere Because, at the core, the core is what the market doesn't want. The market's not resonating.

Speaker 1: 7:23

And so the first step of building the brand is making sure that you kind of think of everything, even though it's kind of the catch-22. You don't know what you don't know in the beginning, but you think of everything. Okay, what do we stand for? What's the goal? If this does scale, where do we want this to go?

Speaker 1: 7:44

We don't want this to be a runaway train, and I also have a lot of people that they ask well, are we moving too quickly? Like, I don't think this is going to be a multimillion dollar brand, but sometimes you have to prepare for a hundred thousand dollar brand. Like, let's say that, let's say you know you want to do apparel and let's say that the apparel all of a sudden takes off. Okay, are you prepared to scale? Who's going to fulfill it's little things like that. So you kind of have to wrap your head around Okay, how big do I want this to get and what do we want to stand for. So I'm going to push pause real quick and see if you have any questions, any kind of feedback et cetera, real quick.

Speaker 2: 8:29

No, that's good. Is that mostly time, Mike, or is that mostly like effort or energy? How does that work exactly?

Speaker 1: 8:35

Great question. So it's kind of both. So it's just it's. You can't craft your image in public. It's, it's the, it's the work behind the scenes. So this is kind of the working on your craft understanding. Like, for instance, if I came to you and I started peppering you with questions, like I'm very curious, so if you said, hey, I've just started this new um, this new community, it's called the. You know the shepherd's way and I start asking you a bunch of questions and you don't have an answer, then you haven't spent enough time on your brand. Like understanding. Like you can ask me for brands that I have different companies involved with. Like surviving outside sales. What is surviving outside sales? Surviving outside sales is a path, no matter where you are in the outside sales world, whether you're getting in, whether in the industry you want to dominate or you want to get out, planning for your next phase. I help people through all phases of sales, live the best life that they want that's pretty much it.

Speaker 1: 9:45

So at the beginning I didn't do that. At the beginning it was like what's thriving on sales? Oh, it's kind of cool. Like you know, sos, like you know, save us People need help in the, in the outside sales world, and it really drilled down to the essence of what do you want it to represent and who do. I'm going to spend four hours and then one hour. It's basically. It's kind of just. It's a framework of understanding that a majority of what you do before you go live, like before you go on stage, you know, as an athlete, you had to be in the pool hours hundreds of hours just to be able to swim for a couple minutes. You can't just hop up on the starting block and then you hop into the pool and you're going to be great. It's the countless amount of things you're doing in private that's going to make you successful in public.

Speaker 1: 10:40

So walk me through. Let's talk a couple minutes. Where are we as far as a brand? Have you thought about it anymore? Have you moved forward since the last time we talked?

Speaker 2: 10:54

A little bit. The biggest thing I think I took away from our conversation is, I think trying to conceptualize it into a book would be good, and I've been trying to think about what the book could be and trying to to write down kind of key, key memories or key stories that would be like like monumental, of like how I became like in a pastor's role, um, like thinking back through like my whole life I think I can probably narrow it down to like five like really key moments in my life that kind of like just help decide like where I am today. And so I I'm trying to like kind of if I think the book would be the first step and then if I can kind of conceptualize how to put that together, I think I'm just gonna start writing, you know, 20, 30 minutes a day and see if I can put together some type of um flow with that. Okay, no, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:47

You're going to see, you want to start with the book. Start with the book, which I think is, I think, is great. You know, books definitely build 40? Um. It's also something that obviously your family is passionate about. So have you even thought of? Have you do you have? Have you mapped out the what the book is going to look like, the structure? Is it going to be a one-way book like, in other words, this is just everything, or is it going to be f? F your thoughts and then the journal? What does that look like?

Speaker 2: 12:19

that's a good question. I I haven't decided on that. I'm curious. I don't think it should be a long book. I think like 100, 110 pages. Maybe.

Speaker 2: 12:27

I was kind of a sweet spot for kind of a. I don't even know if I call it a memoir or if it more be more of like a. You know, I don't know. I'm trying to decide how much I'll make it like kind of more um, what's the word? I don't know. I'm trying to see if I'm gonna go more inward or more outward with what I've learned, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 12:48

So like sharing stories and let people kind of grab the stuff for themselves. Or like more like life lessons I learned and how I learned them. I kind of am torn between those two ways. I'll probably go more toward the second one of like. Here's an experience, here's what it learned and here's how it kind of shaped. You know, if it's a way kind of like, here's the path and try to like for like teens or young adults or whoever kind of show them like. Here's a similar way. You can go down this and even like my message yesterday, just talking about like, and there's moments where you can kind of choose which way you go and pray for wisdom on which way would be the shepherd's way and which way would be like the world's way, and kind of have like a dichotomy between those so what?

Speaker 1: 13:29

what is your so? What is your ideal like? Who are you going after?

Speaker 2: 13:33

yeah, I think anybody. I think it's it's the believer, or the or the, the new, the new believer or the believer who's been for a long time. I think the major proponent of it would be probably like young, early 20s, maybe early 30s kind of people who are just starting out like kind of down this path. I would focus on that, maybe late high school as well. I think that's a kind of a key tone the.

Speaker 1: 13:58

the big mistake that everybody has made like I've made this in the past is you try to the word anybody. Well, anybody can use this. It's really dialing down to your specific audience. And then if you pick up other people, that's bonus, but if you're trying to be everything to everybody, it's going to fail. Clarity is really key in writing. So when you write it, you want to have an avatar, you want to have your ideal client profile. It's called an ICP in the business world. I'm not sure if you've heard of that before, but you want to write down who am I targeting?

Speaker 2: 14:36

Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Because that's the lens that you want to have. The entire time You're brainstorming, you're processing, and it is very enticing to try to be everything to everybody, but it's just, it's going to fall flat. Big brands like a Walmart that sell everything. They're few and far between. Now you can expand it Like Starbucks started with coffee.

Speaker 2: 15:02

Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1: 15:03

And now they sell breakfast sandwiches, et cetera. Dunkin' started as donuts. Guess what happened? The market shifted and they needed coffee in order to stay in business.

Speaker 2: 15:11

Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1: 15:12

So you know if you're going to go down a certain path. You also want to make sure that you map everything out, and I know our time is limited, so number two is mapping. So the three things with mapping is you want to have a timeline, you want to have a budget and you really want to have a purpose. You really want to be very intentional with everything. The third is I'll just mention this and then we'll go back. The third is execution. You want to build and then act. So you've gone through the building process and then you just take massive action. You want to build your universe.

Speaker 1: 15:53

I call it the backstop. I was a catcher in baseball, so you want to have the backstop kind of everything that's behind you. That's good. So that's like your website, all your links If you're sending people to a place to buy the book or if it's on Amazon, kind of knowing where everything is in the universe so that you can, if people are searching for what you want, they know exactly how to get there. They're not just aimlessly searching. And then it's being consistent. It's having either you mentioned before possibly a podcast. It's being very consistent with outreach and being very consistent with your message, but it's also keeping things very simple, not trying to do too much.

Speaker 1: 16:27

At the beginning we kind of talked about you know, if you wanted to do a clothing line, I would focus on one right now either get the book and then, after the book is ready, then create either a hoodie and one t-shirt. I think that's totally acceptable. If you try to take on too much, unless you have a big budget, unless you've got thousands of dollars that you can allocate to doing both at the same time what's going to happen is you'll be a jack of all trades, master of none. Yeah, that's good, and I've made that mistake before. I used to sell coffee and I used to sell merch and I used to. You sold coffee, yeah, like my wife, and I sell, you know, coffee, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:07

Like my wife, and I sell coffee.

Speaker 1: 17:10

We have a clean coffee brand called scout and seller. Yeah, not no mold, no toxins. A small batch from uh no, it's a, it's a like. We didn't create it.

Speaker 2: 17:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:22

Uh, it's a, you know, for lack of better terms, like an MLM. Yeah, you know, but we drink it. It's amazing, it's the best coffee we've ever had before, and so but I thought, you know what Coffee? Let's see if it's well with sales, coffee for closers, and it just was one of those things where people are like wait a minute, are you selling coffee? Or well, I was like no. But again, being great at one thing.

Speaker 1: 17:46

It doesn't mean, if you start with a book, you have to be an author, but what it does is it does give you the authority, because and I've actually been trying to write a book for a while, it's just I haven't had a lot of time, but it definitely does add a little bit of authority to the brand and it is a great kickstart. And if that's something you've already thought about, you've kind of envisioned, um, just kind of map out, and the one thing that I heard, which is great advice, is don't necessarily think about the length of the book, because what will happen is it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy. You will just fill 110 pages, um, if you, if you are giving it for young teens, which I think kind of fits what you're doing right now is, you know you can write a book for adults later, but right now, for young teens, how many young teens really are going to sit down and read 110 page book? You know that's the difficult part, but kind of, with the vision, think about who am I going after? What are they going to like?

Speaker 1: 18:52

You don't try to craft something just for an audience. You, you figure out your DNA. What is my brand going to represent? What do I want to bring to the world, what do I want to create? And then you mirror that and I'll show you this real quick before we head out. This is another little subtle difference.

Speaker 1: 19:17

but when you're building the market, brand, product, market fit number one. So are you building something that people want? You know, I mean, if you have, uh, you know, ketchup popsicles, you know, it's the old phrase you know you can sell a lady and ketchup, white gloves, ketchup popsicle well great.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Do people really want ketchup popsicles? Right? The answer is no, so that's not going to go anywhere, you know. Does your market, uh, need your product or service? Yes, move on to the next step. The answer is no, so that's not going to go anywhere. Does your market need your product or service? Yes, move on to the next step. If the answer is no, it's time to adjust your product or service. For right now, I think 100% the market needs what you're going to give them. They do. Kids need it, kids need guidance, they're looking for it, and sometimes parents don't have all the answers. Number two is your go-to-market strategy. How do you present your product to the market? Does the market respond to your product? If the answer is yes, you keep going. If the answer is no, it's time to adjust. So the go-to-market strategy goes along with the vision. As far as how do you want to bring this out and there's a lot of different ways and I'm sure that Paul will talk about we can talk about that but you're going to market strategy.

Speaker 1: 20:24

Once you've already figured out phase one, which is, what does the brand represent, where am I going and how do I see it getting there? Think of this right now is, you're starting to build a sculpture and right now there's just a mound of mud, there's a mound of clay, and so what you're doing is like, all right, what am I going to build? Am I going to build a pot? Am I going to build a statue? Am I going to build a vase or vase? What am I going to build? That's the first thing. And then you start okay, what do I need to do? How much time do I need to allocate? How much materials do I need? What is this really going to take? And you start mapping it out and, for the sake of time, right now, let's go through the last two and then we can push pause until next time.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Messaging and branding you know, does your messaging match the branding? Yes, keep going, bring in the right people. And then, at some point, you'll have to build a team. You'll need a confidant. That could be your wife, that could be somebody else that could be a business partner. That could be your wife, that could be somebody else that could be a business partner, that could be somebody at the church. You need somebody to kind of bounce, bounce ideas off of, but also somebody that might be able to help deliver the product to the market. If you don't have that, you keep looking for that person. But that's basically in a nutshell. Um, it's simple. It doesn't necessarily mean it's easy, but, um, I hope this has been it's been helpful. Mean it's easy but hope this has been it's been helpful. Any questions before we?

Speaker 2: 21:45

we kind of we kind of wrap up this session. No, that's super good. Yeah, I'm going to start thinking about that. I'm going to start also just kind of structuring the book a little bit and see kind of what are the key points? Cause I think that we can kind of mirror that into also like what, how, who and how. I want to do this Because I think you're right Late teens, early young adults Ideally it's just something I can just pass out to. That's where I'm like like Nine Marks I don't know if you know what Nine Marks is. They have a great discipleship study and it's like two bucks and like they send it out like everywhere. So I'm trying to decide if I want it to be something kind of really short and easy. It's just like like something that I kind of just push out you know what I mean and then write my longer book later I'll let you know.

Speaker 1: 22:27

So I'm going to be brainstorming on that and then we can when we get together. One thing I'll tell you is sometimes you want you can do something for free like a lead magnet just to kind of get somebody into your universe. The lead magnet is very short. What it sounds like you're trying to do is something a little larger. I mean you can do a very cheap book. I would recommend not giving it out for free. The reason why I have so many books on my shelf right now that were free, that people gave me and they didn't immediately kind of fit a need that I need, that I wanted. So they're just collecting dust. But almost every book that I've ever spent a dollar because I had to work to earn that I have read, I've cracked it, I've read it. So those are just kind of things to think about and then we can discuss at a future time that sound good.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Sounds good, thank you.

Speaker 1: 23:33

All right. So you just heard the live coaching conversation that I had with Michael and talking about brands and kind of flushing out the brand idea. So let me know if you like having these as part of the podcast. I see a lot of other podcasters or people in the sales coaching world or the business world have the live calls as opposed to having a podcast style, whereas I have lots of these coaching calls that I have videos that I could just upload just to give you all better examples of what people are really going through the thought process that might be able to help you out there.

Speaker 1: 24:04

Because, regardless, if you ever reach out to me, the reason why I do this podcast is to teach and teach the things that I have learned, teach the experiences, the failures that I've had in the business and sales world so that hopefully, you don't have to go through that, you don't have to experience the same type of pain that I did along my career trying to figure it out on my own. And if it makes sense and you want to reach out to me, you can do so. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, you can DM me or you can email me, mike, at surviving outside sales. Whichever you want to do. So thank you so much for listening. Hope you have a great day. We'll see you next time on surviving outside sales Cheers.