The Brands Going Up Were The Ones Going Down 2 Years Ago

Something stopped working, and the confusing part is it didn't happen to everyone at the same time. In this episode I break down what I'm calling 'the staircase effect'... the post-pandemic pattern nobody is connecting the dots on. Why the businesses that were winning are now struggling, why the ones that were struggling are climbing back, and what's actually driving it underneath. This one's for any founder who feels like things got harder and can't explain why.

Visit: youroneandonly.com.au
Connect with Tara on LinkedIn: @tarajoyladd
Read Not For Speakerphone on Tara's Substack: @taraladd
Follow YO&O on IG @youroneandonly_au
Follow Tara on IG @iamtaraladd

Free Brand Gap Finder: Not sure where your brand is falling short? Start here.
Sign up for the Design Mind Theory Email: See how psychology shapes the brands people actually choose.

Transcript

Welcome And The Market Shift

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You're listening to Brand and Butter, for straight talking, occasionally in your face, no BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners. For those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and how pairing association, consumer behaviour, and design thinking can impact what people see, think and feel. I'm your host, Mara Ladd, for sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable, and often unapologetically blunt, founder and creative director of Brand and Design Agency, your one and only. Hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Brand and Butter. I'm very aware that I'm inconsistent sometimes, so I'll just double bank some podcast episodes this week. But we've come off the back of school holidays, and well, with two Audi HD children, that can be pretty intense. So, look, I tried, but I didn't make it. So we're here today, and the conversation is pretty in-depth, uh, because it's something that I've been speaking to for a really long time, and it basically tracks to well, what's going on in the market, but what I think others aren't saying, and they've only just cottoned onto now because they weren't living it. So this episode is for a few people, I guess. You could say it's for the founders who feel like things have gotten harder and they don't know how to explain why. It's for well, the people watching businesses behind them suddenly pulling ahead. And I get well, I guess anyone who is doing fine and now isn't, which correlates to the world that we're living in right now. But there's reasons for it, and that's what I want to talk about today. So we've all seen something shift. It's this is the conversation we saw when COVID happened and everyone was like, We're living in unprecedented times. It's kind of the same vibes, but all of it still relates back to that exact period. This is where it's all started, and it's the knock-on effect. It's the confusing part, I guess, that it didn't happen to everyone at the same time, and there's good reason for that. And I guess if you've had leads slow down, that all conversation or conversions that you've had have dropped, the conversations have stopped coming in. These are the things that are or have just stopped working for you. There are, I don't know, some struggling while some are still climbing, and maybe you can't figure out that pattern. And then there is a pattern. So that's what I want to talk about today, is a pattern. And yeah, it's as someone that has great pattern recognition. I saw this happen a couple of years back. You can go back and listen to any of the earlier podcasts, it's all been talking about it, but really it's kind of like market viability, right? When you see something and you may have a great idea, but unless the market's ready for it, the idea won't work. It's the same kind of thinking. Also, if you hear my heater go off in the background, I'm not taking that out. I low-key keep this minimal. Any extra editing that I have to do, I don't have editor, I do this all myself. So anyone that is, you know, wanting this high polished thing, you're not gonna get that from this podcast. I am just flipping the mic on, talking my talk, and then hitting finished or stopping the button and loading it when I'm done. Purely because if I overthink it, it won't get done. And I think a lot of you out there that listen to this podcast know that. So that's just full transparency there. And to if you're thinking like, what about making it highly polished? Well, I have the gift of the gab, right? I'm a verbal processor. I see, there goes the heater. I will bang on about things just verbatim because it's easy for me. And that's my that's my specialty. So if I make that harder than it needs to be, I will not do it. So that is how you're gonna get it out of me. Also, that's how I got one of our biggest clients ever in November. Um, a lot of these people listen to my podcast that I think a lot of people are missing out on is the middle tier long-form copy, or not copy, but content. And they want to see if you know what you're talking about. So it's not about how polished it is, it's about the depth of what you're saying. And this is exactly what I'm going to say today. A lot of this stuff is in alignment to that.

The Staircase Effect After COVID

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So the pattern. Let's talk about the pattern. There is what I consider, and I explain it to people because I like to put everything into a visual metaphor so it's easy to kind of picture in your mind. But think of it like a staircase. I've called it the staircase effect because it sounds good. But post-COVID, we saw businesses split into two different categories. Group one, they were hit early. So think of them being on the bottom step. So they stumbled, some of them actually collapsed, which is really sad. And the survivors of that uh first few stages were the ones that were forced to innovate. They had no choice. It was either do something or die, do or die sitch. Then there was group two, and they seemed okay. And if you also hear my kid in the background, I'm not editing that out either. That's just life. Uh, the cash reserves, right? So group two were the ones on the staircase. They seemed fine, they had cash reserves, they had momentum, they had locked-in clients, so they kept going. There's also industries, right? Certain industries were obviously hit harder than other industries. So when we look at this staircase, I, my business, was in group one.

When The Founder Hits Survival

SPEAKER_00 5:51

We were in group one because of a series of unfortunate events that happened to me personally in my life. Unfortunately, my firstborn was born with a chronic liver disease called biliary atresia, which required a liver transplant at nine months when we were peak COVID-1 lockdown. That was in May 2020. So we had this pre-existing thing happen. And from 2021 to 2023, or 2020 to 2023, we had uh 43 hospital stays. So yeah, that was a lot. 37, we're up to 43. So yeah, it was it was a long, and that was a 48-hour stay every time we went. So you could imagine that mental load on what that meant for me as a business owner to try and maintain fresh creative ideas through a period. Mind you, I was also pregnant at the end of 2020. So I was pregnant doing all of this and had my second in the hard lockdown number two in September 2021 after Delta. What a time. So yeah, we were I was in survival mode as a founder. So obviously, as they say, the founder the business will only go as far as the founder will grow. And look, I could not grow in that time. I was in survival. So obviously, off the back of that, I had cash reserves. We went really well at the beginning of 2020, but then that ability to not be able to stay ahead. So that's the momentum, is you can win for a short period of time, but if you aren't jumping ahead and staying ahead of that time, then you will eventually fall out. And this is what we're seeing the same pattern in the market. Unfortunately, it just happened to me a little bit earlier. Oh, we were in line with a lot of those others because you know, the business kind of suffered a spot beforehand. So, yeah, alongside when the end of 2021 happened, that's where I noticed a big difference. We lost a few retainers because the businesses that we were working with suffered some loss, which was obviously expected. And we saw that trickle through, right? So we saw group one, like with the low-key people, you know, the people that were having to innovate and having to try harder had to, and then we saw group two with those with the cash reserves. So, what really happened when those that were winning and still winning were a bunch of different things. They obviously had the capability to extend this, doesn't negate hard work either. So those in group two were either A, ahead of the game from that point that they were ahead really ahead in their marketing or doing really well, and that was from pre-work, right? That this doesn't mean that they just had it easier, they obviously had done the work in order for them to be able to do, you know, part two. And yeah, so that's when we saw that um that trickle through happen, so that you saw the businesses that were really struggling needing to kind of innovate. And I'm just thinking here, like we were looking at the trajectory of what that meant. So the those that had done really well and had built their visibility and done the work, it's marketing, right? It's being visible, being present, having a good sales system, all of those people started to work really well and they saw that take effect, right? The visibility of them in the market was evident so that they could then become the people that they needed to when the industry decided to, well not industry, but the consumer market decided to tighten their, you know, their wallets, that these were the ones that they would refer to because they were the ones present and part of the consideration set. So they had built the systems pre-that era and they had done the work in order to be that business that was ahead. Also, I guess if you're in a certain industry where things took off, like um we saw all the alcohol companies switch to sanitizer during COVID, like things like that. So, you know, if you're in an industry that allowed you to kind of profit transport things like that that took off groceries, utilities, anything like that, like went high because you know, there was no option but for it to go there. So there was there's a bunch of variabilities, in fact, here. So think think that in mind. It wasn't that others had it easier, they just had done the work before the others had, or the systems were working for them. And that's the point about building out a system. It's not about who can do it better, it's about who has the function and the systems and the operations that are built for things to fall down. So our system was built really well when I went on Mat Leaf. So that just hummed really well. But what I wasn't expecting was for Mat Leaf to turn into a transplant to turn into, so my the longevity of that system wasn't built out, and that's something that I've had to go back and reassess. But so those are the two things. What we're now seeing is everything being marked by a bus, a buffer, right?

Building Systems That Survive

SPEAKER_00 10:26

So they started to show up. And the ones that, well, now, in terms of a staircase effect, is that ones that were forced to innovate early are now climbing back up because they've had to think and innovate and come up with different ways to do things within the hard market. Whereas the ones that were coasting along because they'd had the systems built have found that their systems or the ways, the ways that they used to do things are now starting to stagnate because the market and the consumer behavior has now shifted and they have to come up with new ways. And this is where the the you're seeing a difference. So we were obviously part of group one. I when I say I grinded, I grinded, we anyone who says that they're not hustling right now has probably have built that system and they're they're still striving, like, you know, killing it from that system. But building that system in the hard market is the hard part. You can eventually get to where the people claim that you can be at by building that system, but you have to understand you still have to build the system, right? So the system needs to be built before the instant gratification comes. And a lot of people want instant gratification. So that's why you will see these people run for the quick fixes over the hard work because the quick fixes seem like they will fix the problem faster. And it doesn't work that way. So what we look at is the yeah, we were part one. I got to work and I hustled hard. So I was building systems. Everything that I use AI for isn't for creativity. I use my own brain for my own creativity, it is for building out systems, plans, things that work. As an ADHD person, I need something to follow. The autistic side of me loves a system build. The ADHD side of me needs to redo everything all the time. So it's like, ah, but I've built these systems. My whole back end now has this humming system that I've worked really hard on. And now we're seeing that come into play. Positioning was redone, how the positioning was redone, the way that I do our brand development clients, the way that we build out our communication, the communication that we're dis that we're pushing out versus the communication that we used to push out, the way that we're talking, the conversations that we're having, the depth of conversations that we're having, who we're trying to target, the audience size that we're trying to target, all of these things have changed. Also the way consumers are spending. So we have to really understand that it's not about what we want from them, it's about what they're giving, what they can give back to us as well. If we aren't providing them the platform in order for them to feel seen, heard, and belong in, then they're not going to come to you. It doesn't matter. They do not see you as a solution. If they can't see themselves in what you post or what you say, they are blanket over the eyes. It's essentially like saying, if you can't understand the way someone's life is lived, then you're not going to understand how they need to get out of their predicament, which to be fair, is true in a sense. So I have always spoken about the difficulties that we went through because I think it's important that everyone sees that the rise of coming out of that has taken a lot of freaking hard work. It's not as easy as fixing some messaging or fixing a visual identity or just being able to go out and understand how to sell. Like these things are important, that you need these as part of your system, but it is such a deeper issue than that. And we have to look at the world around us, how people are spending their money, what their lives are like, because in order for you to reflect how people will spend, you need to take a look at a macro lens of the culture that we're now living in. And you can even look at the conversations that we're having from a divisive point of view as to who and what, it's blame being put against blame. It's all of these tensions that are built from these narratives that have been shaped. So it's a story, it's a narrative, and how you can get out of that. And so sometimes we look at people for advice who aren't living the same life. And that can be both good and bad. There is a way out of it, they see a way out of it, it's looking to them as a guide, but also they're not living on the same path anymore. And there is a big disconnect with what you can do and what you can't do based on that connection. And so, as a business climbing back up, I can now tell you there are so many people out there that are tone deaf to what a lot of people are going through right now. And as someone that's been in brand for almost 20 years and studying psych science and behavior, I can tell you now that where we're moving to hasn't been established yet. We're watching people invent it now. So no one has the answer. The answer really lies in the way that we're communicating with people, the connections that we're building. And you can see this is happening through more in-person events. We're seeing more real life, more human connection, more, I guess, people tuning out from the digital spaces and they're diversifying the way that they're consuming. And all of this plays a big role in the way that we run our businesses, because if we are predominantly relying on single source channels for our way to promote and market, then you're going to suffer a loss when that channel no longer works anymore. This is why you will always hear people in marketing harp on about diversification, which means to put yourself in different places. That doesn't mean to go hard on being everywhere, everything. It means having a really good distribution channel or pipeline, which means having one piece of content that can be executed multiple times across different ways. Marketers talk about this stuff. This is just me being ADHD and knowing everything about everything because I have to. So the point is that those that are climbing now are the ones that have done the work because they've had to, and they understand the market that we're in now. And so they're readjusting and moving and figuring out what's working.

Identity, Emotion And Trust

SPEAKER_00 16:08

And all of it comes down to, and I can guarantee you right now, is understanding relatability, alignment, and identity. And it's why you're seeing people talk about identity. That's why we always talk about identity. It's our specialty, but it is about the person because choice is driven by emotion. I don't care what people say, it is driven by emotion before logic. That is literal behavioral economics 101. Most people will funnel their decisions through an emotional lens. And when you're feeling uptight or pressured or risk, and doesn't matter who you are, everyone's feeling the pinch of inflation. Even the people with the most money are still getting hit with inflation. They can't control electricity prices, they can't control the prices of groceries. These things are still happening around them. So everyone's prices are still going higher. It's where they value their risk. And to counter risk, you need to build trust. And trust comes from people feeling like they belong and they relate to your content, which dives deeper than just messaging. Messaging is a huge layer to this, but it's understanding the emotional drivers that sit underneath the messaging before the messaging can go out. It's also about understanding positioning, because when you know how you're positioned in market, so how you differentiate, that is the core part of a lot of people not realizing how to build an audience, it or get that connection with an audience is knowing what their differentiation is. When you know that, then you can then create your placement. So where you put yourself, if you know that you're going to make more money by being in a place that has, I don't know, a certain age group or a certain type of audience, then you actively put yourself in that place. Rather than continuing to be over here, say, I don't know, Instagram, maybe your best bet is to be at specific networking events. And so you put all your energy into being at the networking event as opposed to being on Instagram. One may feel easier, which is why you will counter to that. And that's the point. It's things aren't meant to be hard, but if you want things to be easier, sometimes you have to do the hard first. Well, most of the time you have to do the hard first, which is setting the system. That's a distribution system. Then you have a content system, you have a brand system, a design system. There's systems for everything. We live in a systemed world. And so most people can't see it because they're only looking at their own step, where they're sitting. So they can't see the people below them, they can't see the people above them. They can only see where they are sitting in that time. And I'm watching the narratives come out from a lot of businesses that, you know, were sitting above, and now they're kind of sitting at the same step. And I'm like, welcome, how does it feel? So it is. And you know, it if you're it's like different stages of life, dealing with people that have no kids versus dealing with people with kids, or dealing with people that have sick parents while dealing with people that don't have sick parents, dealing with people that are carers versus dealing with people who aren't carers. It's it's just that basic understanding of different life choices. And you're not meant to understand everyone's point of view, but it is important to understand that dynamic. When you understand that dynamic and you can empathize with that dynamic, it's about building out a strategy or a system or a plan that aligns to where that person's baseline is. Because if you're projecting, if I, for instance, project my own version of life onto that person and give them a system that is built for me, but not for them, they're not going to win at that system because the system has been built for me. Personally, I think the this is why we see a lot of these scalable systems that have been done with people in terms of, you know, one-to-many offers are great until they're not, you know, because it's not going to work for everyone. And this is why I've always wanted to stay small and nimble and independent, is because it depends on what it is that you need. If you're wanting something really tailored, you're probably not going to get it from like a group thing. But group things are great for community, they're great for basic knowledge. You may have an idea of what you want to do moving forward. So they both serve a different purpose. Um, and I think that that is something a lot needs to hear. So, what's the behavior underneath it? Let's look at it. So, how people buy changed, they're looking at value-led versus price-led. Uh, they still are, actually, it's the other way around. They went from value-led to price-led, but price-led still has value. Does that make sense? So, because everything's become more expensive, they are very conscious on how they spend money. Unless the value is there. And I always use the $500 a bottle of water, for example. Would you ever spend $500 on a bottle of water? No. What if they had a loved one, you know, ransom? You'd be like, absolutely. So that's when the the value changes. Of course, the value of someone's life far outweighs the value of $500 for a bottle of water. That's the difference. You have to meet that contrast, or what is it, the the value conflict before you make a choice. This is the same as anything. In order for someone to make a decision, you have to have you can have two conflicting values, one has to outweigh the other one. There is always two. That's how you always get someone to change their mind, is internally driven through emotion. Stay with that one. So identity will still always drive the choice, even with pricing. If you've got three people that you're comparing based on price, it's still the person that you relate to more in terms of alignment and trust and value that you will put your money towards, even with a price-led strategy. So keep that in mind. So what people trust changed. They have changed in terms of, and I say this all the time institutions institu God, there you go. See, I don't edit. Institutions, governments, you know, uh schools, news, media, all of those things, they've all changed. And so people have becoming, they're a bit more sus on who they're trusting, or skeptical, whatever you like, they're they're wearing. Of who they're of who they're getting their information from. They've been burnt before. It's also how you see mistrust and misinformation, disinformation start to skyrocket online because people aren't believing the standard trusted institutions anymore and it becomes a whole friggin' issue. Thanks, algorithms. But that's important. It's it's someone that is sprouting bullshit could probably build a bigger audience if they connect with that person. And that's what the psychological play is, isn't it? That we've seen happen through a lot of um certain governments. But anyway, uh how people show up is important. So, you know, we've seen that change in full swing. It's gone back to in-person, like I said before, that one-on-one, they need that in-person space, remove removal of can they actually be the person in person versus who they are online? With so much stuff being projected with AI, that's one thing I could do in a heartbeat is you take me and you put me into a room full of people that and ask me a topic, I could throw things at you verbatim because his brain is full of stuff. But someone that has built their presence off the back of an AI assistance has to get in front of a room and then say that stuff out loud. It's scripted and may not be, you know, as relevant to what you could get from someone that knows. It's not all also about the things that you know, it's about the way that you ask questions to get answers. And a lot of the time we won't give out internally, I've said it many times, we we will not give out questionnaires because questionnaires can be engineered for the right answer. You can formulate the response and over-engineer the response that you give to me. Whereas I want to see the ones that you don't edit because they're usually the ones that have the answers. So I will ask a bunch of questions and I will watch how you answer that, and then I will watch people go on a tangent. And it's always in the tangent that has the goal. Always, always, always has the answer. So without that, it I think it's so it's so important for people to understand that these are the these are the things that shape the human experience, not the actual knowledge answer vibe, if that makes sense. And so then we look at why people spend and how they've changed.

Risk, Pricing And Longer Decisions

SPEAKER_00 24:06

So risk averse, tighter budgets, and longer decision cycles, much longer decision cycles. You know, getting people in the studio with us used to be like, bang, you'd like make it, they've obviously done their work, they come in, bang, they make a decision. Now it's kind of like they sit with it, they've got a couple of months, they come back, and we always get the the job usually comes back in and they're ready to go. And that's totally fine. But they're they're weighing out that that decision process, and that's longer. You know, usually it would be much easier because if you've got disposable income, for instance, or you've got that reoccurring income, you're able to make that decision a lot easier. When there's uncertainty there, the cash reserve is important. So I can, I like I fully understand that, which is why we've also changed the way that we receive payments. Because we get that. Um, and that's a that's something that again, you can change your business models and change the way that you do things in order to, you know, float and work around people. That doesn't mean that people won't spend big money, by the way. We've got big people on big payment plans, but it's about their cash reserves and what that means. Instead of them dropping, you know, 10k a pop for 50% up front, they're dropping, you know, two grand over a, you know, over a period of time. Things like that, whatever it is, whatever the agreement ends up being, but it's about understanding where the per where the people are at. Uh, then it's also, you know, the generational layer. And these are the things people are missing. It's like in general marketing, you look at different life cycles, different age groups and demographics, but now we're looking at psychographics. So you could have people with the same values sitting in different generations. Like that's not an issue at all. But there is a big generational layer in terms of, I guess, the upbringing, the way people are brought out, it's why nostalgia is ticking at the moment, the world feels really unsafe, the world feels really unsafe. And we're watching that nostalgic content come up and people going, oh, those were the days. Well, look, they were because they felt safer, doesn't necessarily mean that they were right. Um, and change makes us feel uns uncertain. And that's the biggest thing for people to understand is is those those play the play in that marketing role is a psychological approach. You know what I mean? It's like take them back to here and make them feel this way. If you make them feel this way, it draws out emotion, those emotions help to channel connection. It's it's it's a play, anyway. It's important, but it's a play. So you've got whole generations millennials, ennuils, Gen Z, um, Gen X, Gen well, Gen Z kind of cough, some of them did everything right. So they did the degrees, long hours, multiple jobs, they did all the things. And they arrived in their later stages of their career where they should have everything, you know, the the growth, the life that was promised, and it's not there. We're watching this narrative start to play out too. People are cottoning onto this as well. So they don't believe the the rules and the playbooks and the blueprints, and you can do a try hard art bullshit anymore. It's just not there. And it's not that they're cynical, it's just the evidence isn't there. So you see all these people about, you know, bring back this mindset of growth, and it's like, okay, um, I challenge you to that mindset because I can guarantee you that a lot of these people that are questioning mindset probably couldn't go toe-to-toe with mine. I, and that's not a blowing smoke out my ass. That's just when you're dealing with um, well, I've always been a real big, you know, take on the challenge vibe. So I've done three half IMANs. If you don't know what that is, it's a 1.8 kilometer swim, 90k bike ride, and a 21.1k half marathon, basically at the end, run. So all three of those things, and I trained for 12 hours a week on that. That is discipline, like 101. I have built a business. I have dealt with a kid and a transplant. And the thing is, when you are dealt with one of those things, it's much easier to achieve. And so what I always say is when you win, you can win more. When you're winning, it's easy to win. When you lose, it's harder to win. And that's where the differences are at the moment is that a lot of people feel like they're losing. The market was set up before. We were in a winning market before. It was a lot easier. Even people I know who have been in business for a lot longer than I have have said that, you know, it's it's a hardest year they've ever had or the hardest time frame they've ever had. And it kind of parallels back to like the Great Depression vibe, the 1980s, you know, massive inflation um interest rate rise. So it is hard. Like to tell people that they just don't have the right mindset is actually just gaslighting a whole, a whole audience. Can you do it? Sure. Yes, of course you can. But also there's survivorship bias at play, which means that just because you see 1% do it, you can do it, absolutely. But don't be disheartened if you can't, because no one ever talks about the other 98 point something percent that don't. And I think we need to be so realistic that you can still achieve a goal when you put your heart and mind to it and absolutely burn your ass off. But sometimes these days, hard work doesn't always negate the answer that you need. So you have to be savvy. So if you get that down pat, that doesn't mean you don't try. That means you try a different way. Q innovation. If it didn't work this way, this one direction that I've been trying to do it, what else can I do to make it work? That's where the challenge comes in. It's not about working harder, it's about working smarter. Change the direction. Don't keep digging the same hole and digging it deeper. Go, okay, let's let's just look at this from a different level, for

Innovation And Better Delivery Methods

SPEAKER_00 29:27

instance. Dollar Shave Club did this really well. They were selling razors, they were up against all these big name brands, a huge category owned by many, many people, um, or big names, I should say. And they came to the game with a different persona. They did this really viral video, and it was it's still referenced to this day. Um people mimic it all the time. And if you're in the game of advertising and marketing, you would know that. Um, and this is why I believe that everyone in marketing or the new and up-and-coming people need to be studying the old ways to reintroduce it because it always cycles through, everything cycles through. But they sold their razors through a subscription model. That subscription model blew up. They didn't change the product, they didn't change the way they did things, they changed the way that it was delivered. It's called a delivery method. We have so many things about this that go out that when we talk to people, that it in it just inspires them to think differently. And it's not about them not having the answers. It's that when you aren't prompted with the right thing to think about, it's really hard to find the answer. And so that's something that we're talking about these days is just getting people to just think differently. It's like it's not that you don't know the answer, you just haven't thought about the right one yet. And just what can you do differently? So instead of hustling harder, how do we think differently? And I put a shout out to all my neurodivergent friends because my friends, this is the time for you to shine. Right now is the time. And I know that a lot of entrepreneurs and those that are in big creative spaces are neurodivergent. So if this resonates, I want you to really understand that now is your time where everyone has told you that you are too much or too annoying or too loud or think different or too quirky that these are the times where you will shine. Especially to counteract AI. Slop. And there's always been slop, but now there's just more slop. So it's like, how do you counter that? So now we're looking at, you know, Gen Z wanting all of the stuff that we have in real time, coming back to generational stuff, and they're building careers that are structurally instable and things feel hard for them. And you're watching more of them go out on the gig economy because institutions can't be trusted. It's harder to get a job. It feels corporate corporations are uh taking over for a lot of them. It feels very doom and gloom. And they've grown up in this world where everything has been doom and gloom. That's one thing we need to consider. The older generations have seen this side of the world that is great and they're projecting. And so the younger gen are trying to create something positive. So there is a big clash at the moment, you can see across the board. Gen Alpha behind them. COVID kids, you know, no clear leadership, no clear direction. God, all of us trying to parent the alphas are are living through this shit as well. Anyone trying to parent, to be fair, it's not just us, but yeah, so yeah, no one's um no one's feeling super duper comfortable except the billionaires. That's a story for another day. But this is the market. These are the people, and these are these are the founders that are trying to build things and that you're trying to reach, and also the consumers that you're trying to sell to. If they are feeling instability, if they are feeling unsafe, they are not going to spend their money. If they feel safe, if they feel like they belong, if they feel they trust you, they will spend money. So if you're on the downward step, you know, if business is going down, know that the business isn't broken. It's not broken, that your buffer just ran out. That that safety net that you had has now come to an end. And the foundation is showing. For now, the foundation worked before, but it may not be working now. And so people seem to think I need a market more, but it's not always the case. It's about figuring out what that new structure looks like. Otherwise, marketing's just amplifying the same message that you have already had, right? And if people aren't believing that message anymore, you're just spending all this time in the wrong space because you should be fixing the foundation as opposed to fixing um the marketing. Do you know what I mean? So fix the foundation so that you know how to market and then you can bring in the right people. That part right there is called a bridge. We saw this happen to us, and I've mentioned this many times. You can go back through, it's like a whole diary entry where I talk about that bridge where you lose the people that you once had and you have to rebuild a new audience into the new one. It's it's a grieving process. It's and it's hard. Hard, guys. There is no instant gratification here. There is a loss at some stage. It's a loss of an audience, it's a loss of a previous time, it's the loss of an ego or a loss of identity. And it it that's why I keep saying to everyone, it is a reclamation of identity because you now have to reinvent. And no one wants to do that because that feels like unsafe and insecure. Insecure? Is that all right? Yeah. So it feels unstable. You don't want to have to start again. Our brains don't want to do that. They want to do what's safe. And even those with big audiences are going to feel this pinch. They always do. We're watching it happen. Why do we see all of these massive brands rebranding? A rebrand does a lot of this stuff from a big agency. This is what a rebrand would entail. It's that baked-in foundational repositioning. That's what we're seeing. And so the business that are climbing is you were forced to innovate. And they usually got clear on who they were and who they're here for, which is what we did. And we, that's all we did for the past years was test it and test it and test it, and then we got them in. And now we're actually getting less is more, which is 100% where I've been aiming for because you do have that scarcity where you're just trying to take anything that you can get in order to keep the doors open. But now we've got good clients coming in with good value and good budgets, and we're now able to go back to the way that we were pre-COVID in taking on the clients that we wanted to, because you know, but now it's even better because before we had more people willing to spend, but now there's less people. So the fact that we've got them coming in now just goes to show that we've built a really solid foundation. And part of me has always been, and Sam to my testament will tell you, we need to build the bottom system so that when things tick up again, we have that built. That's been my motto for the last two years, and it's working perfectly. So you could do that voluntarily or wait wherever you are, but just know that the staircase is moving, and whether you're looking at it or not, so you'll see, and that's business. There will be ups and downs. And throughout every book in history where there's been a big successful business, there's also been those that haven't been doing well or they do well and then they drop off, but no one ever talks about the downfall because they've only spoken about their high. And that's something that we need to also bring in that businesses have ups and downs all the time, and it's not just like once you hit peak, you stay there. Hello, Tupperware, hello blockbuster, hello, Sears, hello any big company, hello prime drinks, which I'll talk to. This is really important.

Reassurance And What To Do Next

SPEAKER_00 36:26

So that's the end of today, and I just wanted to it's kind of like a bit of a reassurance piece. Wherever you are, there is a way out. It may not be the way that it was being done, but there is a framework for it. You just have to invent it. And that's about thinking differently. So look, send if this if you found this valuable, send it to a founder because they might need to hear it. And if you've felt something from this, I'd love to hear your thoughts. But that's coming from me who has been in the dip and is now coming up over the rise. And it feels really good because you've done the hard thing and the hard thing's working. And yeah, I think it's not about feeling you're inept at what you do. It's not about that at all. It's just about coming up with new ideas and finding that creative person that can challenge your thinking to get you to the next spot. So that's it for this week. And if you loved it, share it. And if you don't, well, let me know. Until then, I will chat to you next week. Did you like that episode? Hope so. Because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and rate and review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at you on and only underscore AU on Instagram or head to www.ywan and only.com.au