Bill Harper / "Brand Boss" CEO. Chief Creative Officer

In a world where everyone’s shouting, silence equals irrelevance. Bill Harper knows this better than anyone. With over 36 years in the brand and marketing trenches — and more than $2.5B in client revenue to prove it — Bill has cracked the code for challenger brands to dominate markets already flooded with competition.

In this episode, Bill shares the power of positioning, why no one buys the best product, and how to win by saying what no one else dares to. From Geico’s edutainment to Liquid Death’s anti-boring playbook, this is a masterclass in market disruption.

His takeaway? Stop talking about yourself. Solve a specific problem. Say it with conviction. Then use AI to scale the message — not to create it.

If you’re ready to stop playing safe and start making waves, this is your blueprint.

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Guest Bio:

Bill Harper is a veteran brand strategist and founder of BrandBossHQ, where he helps small and midsize businesses crush larger competitors through his Challenger Brand Domination Plan. Over his 36-year career and five agencies, Bill has helped more than 500 brands generate over $2.5 billion in new revenue by combining strategic storytelling, marketing insight, and AI-powered tools. A former art director turned educator and keynote speaker, he’s on a mission to level the playing field for SMBs by showing them how to think differently, say something bold, and become unforgettable.

Link: http://www.brandbosshq.com/

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (04:43.89)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack Podcast. My name is Paul Povolni and I'm excited to have another misfit with me. I have Bill Harper. Bill and his team spend their time helping SMBs level the playing field against their larger competitors by combining brand story, marketing strategy, and a suite of curated AI tools into a program they refer to as the Challenger Brand Domination Plan. The work,

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (05:11.906)
That's it.

Paul Povolni (05:12.978)
That's it. The work Bill has led has generated more than $2.5 billion in new revenue for his clients in helping over 500 businesses. Bill, how you doing, man? Welcome.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (05:26.21)
Very good, Paul. Thanks so much for having me.

Paul Povolni (05:28.498)
There's a little bit of a tongue twister there, the Challenger brand domination plan.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (05:31.736)
Domination plan. Yeah, the so so many brands have so much potential, but I don't most people don't know the statistics. This is crazy. There are 33.6 million small and medium sized businesses in the United States. Enterprise businesses only represent 1 % of the businesses in the US despite the fact that everybody chases them. And these businesses fail far more than they succeed.

out of the businesses in the US that will ever reach $1 million in top line revenue is only 4%. That's it. And of the entire 33 million point 4 % will ever hit $10 million in top line revenue. So basically, even if you've got the world's best mouse trap, the odds are stacked against you unless you know how to position yourself in the market the right way so as to share your value. And I think

Online has done a real disservice in terms of like, hey, look, Kim Kardashian did it overnight, right? Like people have got these success stories that are completely unrealistic in their head. And so they go out and they're like, but my pen is better and nobody buys it and they can't figure out why and eventually they crumble. So our job is to help them do that. And with AI now for the first time ever, they truly, truly can. There is no barrier to production fee any longer. And that's pretty exciting to be a part of.

Paul Povolni (06:34.716)
Ha ha.

Paul Povolni (06:57.122)
Yeah, man, I'm going to dive into that even more and unwrap it and definitely talk about the Challenger brand domination plan. sounds like it needs a, you know, the Challenger brand domination plan. Yeah. Sunday, Sunday. So let me hear a little bit about your origin story, kind of where you started. You can go as far back as you want. How did you become the brand boss and kind of what was that journey like?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (07:08.322)
That's exactly Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, right?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (07:22.232)
Well, so brand boss is actually a misnomer. The notion behind brand boss was to make brand bosses. The idea was never that I was the brand boss. That wasn't supposed to be the point. And yet, that's what it wound up becoming is everybody's like, it's the brand boss. It's Bill's brand boss. So our whole thing is to get out of the way. Businesses really understand how to make their own thing, but they don't know how to how to market their product. And that's where this concept came from. This is my fifth advertising agency.

Paul Povolni (07:35.568)
you

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (07:50.006)
I've been in the business 36 years, I started at Darcy DMB and B's flagship office in St. Louis, working on anizerbush cursor Lee and blockbuster video and music at the time and enterprise rent a car and a bunch of stuff like that. And what I had a chance to see was how these businesses use the same strategic structure. Now their solutions were different, but they had the same fundamental structures on how they built their messaging.

So what I did was I fell in love with giving that same playbook to small businesses. If you can just get them to do it, what happens is, that they scale very quickly. So that has become a lifelong passion and I have followed it for the last 20 some years in owning businesses of my own. All of them focused on helping businesses scale. So that's, that's what we do.

Paul Povolni (08:40.466)
So how did you get into the agency world? was that your first job out of college? Was that something you kind of fell into?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (08:47.198)
Yeah, so I went to school as I think everybody does. I mean, the handful of people that I know that actually did the thing they went to college for is very, very small. So I went to school with a host of interesting things behind me. I was doing engineering, I was doing electronics, I was doing theater, I was doing art, I was writing, like I had a whole bunch of these disparate things that I just really enjoyed doing. And when I got to

the time to make a decision. What I really was passionate about at the time was cars. And what I wanted to do was design sheet metal. I was a huge fan of Pinaforena and all that their organization had done to shape chassis. And so I went into mechanical engineering, thinking that I was going to go do that. And my mother famously said, you're about as much of a mechanical engineer as I am a toaster. But if you really, you know, you've got the grades for it. And if you want to go tell the world that you're an engineer, go ahead. And she was absolutely right. So I left

Paul Povolni (09:34.822)
Ha ha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (09:42.132)
engineering school and went over to business school thinking, okay, well, the engineering thing was far too rigid for me. And I didn't particularly care for the, for the detail of the math and the rest was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I went over to business thinking, okay, well, I'll just apply to business and that'll be great. And found them to be just as narrow as the engineers were, but just in a different way. And so I was literally walking around campus, this sort of this famous story in my family, but I was walking around campus trying to figure out what I was going to call and tell my parents.

because I was going to change my major again. And I happened to walk through a building that I had never been through. And that was just, it was Kismet. just, was walking through it and it was the visual communications building. And it was one of those times where they have the visiting guests that the students have been working on and they make their presentation and then the guests judge their thing. And I was like, I dunno, I was just thinking about stuff and I walked by and I kind of caught somebody saying, well, if you want to sell this much by this time, you have to market this way and do this thing.

And I literally sat down in the hallway outside this door and watched for two and a half hours. And I stood up and I was like, I called my folks and I said, there's this thing called advertising. This is what I'm supposed to do with my life. Like this is this combination of here are these ideas that you have and here's a strategy and here's this insight into people and here's here's here's. And it just like I just fell madly in love with it. And I was like, here, finally I get to put all those Legos together. And I've just never looked back.

Paul Povolni (11:09.104)
Wow, wow. And so you never came to the branding space through creativity as far as being a designer. You came through it from a point of strategy.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (11:18.434)
Which is only funny because I'm an art director by trade, but yes, and I married a strategist. the funny thing about it is that, and I credit this a lot to the fact that I had a foot in the structure of engineering and business prior to doing this other thing, but I can speak both languages. And I have been told consistently throughout my career by the people who hired me, both as an employee and as an agency,

Paul Povolni (11:20.89)
BrandBoss - Bill Harper (11:48.078)
you make sense. Like, like, I get this, like, most people that are standing in front of me that are trying to explain why we're doing this are talking about how cool blue is this season or something. And you're not you're not doing that you're tying it back to people aren't paying attention because of this thing, you have to trigger this thing this way with them to get them to buy in which will ultimately make sales easier. Once they understand the mechanics of that, then the conversation gets smoother very quickly.

Paul Povolni (12:15.866)
Right. And so, so when you, when you discovered this by, you know, sitting in the hallway, listening to this lecture or listening to this, this event. so you, you graduated from that. What was your first job?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (12:27.746)
First job was at a very small advertising agency in St. Louis called Hughes advertising. and it was a great, it was a great immersion into the world of marketing because I was hired along with a copywriter and an account director for a piece of business they didn't get. And six months later, we were all marched into the business and fired on the same Friday. So I, like, I got the whole like start to finish immersion right off the bat.

But what wound up coming out of that was great. And it was that I wound up having just enough experience at that point that Darcy considered me seriously. And so I wound up getting a position over there working initially on Blockbuster Video. And you know that once I was in the hallways, like they weren't going to get rid of me, right? So at that point,

That's where I just, lived at the agency. Like anybody I could talk to, any project I could do, you need me to run, get cigarettes, no problem. Like we were there until three in the morning, like filling in storyboards with benzene markers in a room with no windows. It didn't matter to me. I just, had to learn about the industry. And so like, just, I went nuts.

Paul Povolni (13:37.156)
Yeah. Yeah. I came into the industry. Well, when I went to college to study design and stuff, I mean, it was, there were no computers when I was doing it. and so it was gouache and it was, you know, drawing stuff out. And if, if that had stayed like that, I don't know whether I'd be in the, in the industry. I'm so thankful for computers. So thankful they came along.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (13:58.508)
They were just coming in when we went to Darcy, it was back so far that there was a computer lab and you had to get time on the computers. Like nobody had a computer back then, which you know, today people are like scratching their head like what do mean nobody had a computer? They got a computer on their wrist, right? They're not even thinking about but back in the day, you didn't have that and all of your memory was on these huge CyQuest disks that you had to carry around that weighed 30 pounds and were completely unpredictable and would

Paul Povolni (14:08.176)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right, right.

Paul Povolni (14:23.365)
you

Paul Povolni (14:28.081)
Right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (14:28.14)
would lose data all the time. And so like you protected them, like, you know, mother hen. So yeah, the thing has come a long way. The guy that I spoke to that owned the corner office on our floor, the day I met him was hand lettering, but Donnie for the company Christmas card. And I walked in and I looked at him and he was like sitting there lettering out and I said, What are you doing?

I'd never seen anybody hand letter and he looked at me like I had three heads. He goes, I'm type setting. I was like, by hand. He goes, Well, yeah, I like, I just blew my mind was like, What do mean you're type setting by hand? He was like, I said, Is that a particular font? He goes, of course, like he had, you know,

are even in that short window where the original Macintosh like the 1984 Macintosh had been introduced and was just being adopted into these things. Type setting was going away. Like all of that, you know, by the time I arrived at Darcy, he was, you know, he was 60 years old and was sitting over in a corner crafting a thing that he had done every day of his life for his entire career. And I had no appreciate. I mean, I had an

Paul Povolni (15:29.33)
Right, right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (15:43.144)
immediate appreciation for but I had no clue that that was even the case. I had never seen type that didn't come out of a type book was a part of letterpress set or was something on the computer. I didn't even know handsetting was even a thing. So like it was a fabulous education. mean, he literally like said, take a seat. I was like, I just got here. I don't even know where my office is. He's like, that's fine. Sit down, shut up. And you know, it was it was the beginning of a truly

Paul Povolni (15:56.656)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:02.544)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:06.534)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (16:11.29)
fantastic appreciation for the craft, the art of it all. And I think that's the piece that's so interesting now is when creativity is a commodity, I can produce anything. Now, all that's left is the strategy and the idea. That's it. Everything else is everything else is you know, you're not going to pay more for it than you're going to pay for a pen because you're not going to have to. Now, all that's left is the thinking.

Paul Povolni (16:17.425)
Right.

Paul Povolni (16:29.883)
Right. Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (16:40.226)
This is going to be really interesting time.

Paul Povolni (16:40.433)
Right.

Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, when, when you're having to do stuff by hand like that, and I remember letraset and rub down lettering and all of that stuff, you know, that was bromide machines, all of that stuff. You know, I remember in college, we were the same way. We had a computer lab, but nobody knew how to do anything on the computers because there wasn't instructions. wasn't. And once you created something on the computer, there wasn't a way to get it off. Like there wasn't printers that could handle.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (16:49.546)
God, the nightmare that was,

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (17:07.726)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (17:10.67)
anything in color, you know, or you had a little bzzz bzzz and you had to tear off, tear off the dots. And so we would literally take photos of the screens with our artwork. But one of the things that is interesting is when you're having to do stuff by hand and when you're having to do stuff manually is you approach it with a lot more strategy. And I think sometimes you can miss the strategy because you can get to creativity faster now, right?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (17:10.678)
Right. You're like, there it is.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (17:36.354)
Yeah, absolutely. this, I don't think people understand that strategy is the only thing that makes relevance possible. you know, okay, so OMG to pine, right? Caught everybody's attention for a minute. And actually, of the of the ones that are out there, if you compare that to Nutterbutter's goofy, like acid trip unhinged thing, Nutterbutter didn't really have a strategy behind it, or at least not one that I could decipher. PineSol actually does.

PineSol is wacky, but it's unhinged with a purpose. Their whole thing is about, I cleaned so deep that it went past the surface cleaning. And I cleaned so deep, I don't have the fight with my neighbor anymore. Like, that's fun. That's playful. There's something rooting it. Now, the art direction, not quite sure where that's going just yet, but that's okay. Nonetheless, OMG to Pine is something that's working for them and is getting some ongoing attention and I think is going to drive sales in.

Paul Povolni (18:20.954)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:26.673)
Ha ha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (18:36.502)
a short period of time. Now, whether they'll be able to carry that as a theme, the way Coca-Cola has carried joy or, you know, Apple has carried the contribution of the individual or Nike has carried personal athleticism. don't think so because there's not enough meat on the bone for it. But in terms of flash in the pan, Gen Z, Gen alpha type marketing messaging,

It's actually fairly strategic and more so than I have seen by a lot of folks that have come out and just done their, you know, quick hit one hit wonder stuff. That one's actually got a half a leg. And I think that it could, I think that it could carry itself forward a little bit.

Paul Povolni (19:15.142)
So when it comes to the dominating, you have it on your t-shirt, let's talk about how a brand could dominate when they're entering a market that is already flooded.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (19:28.616)
Every brand can dominate the marketplace. Every single brand, Geico proved it. Geico has proven it, Liquid Death has proven it, Dollar Shave Club proved it. And here's the thing, the pain point that you focus on is the linchpin to the entire thing. I love Geico as a representative of this idea because it went in government employee insurance company.

They were as niche as it gets. Mom and Pop started business for a super niche, paid them, I forget what it was, top line, don't know, 15 million or 20 million, I forget, whatever it was that they had achieved, was all the money in the world that that family needed. The group that bought them in the 90s, the new CEO that took over and pivoted them away from government focus to compete with category heavyweights like State Farm, All State Farmers, Progressive, these groups had

significant traction ahead of Geico. And we're all the same. Serious, you're in good hands with all state like to the point of, you know, and here comes Geico and Geico is like, here's the deal. It's people, people hate insurance, people hate paying for insurance, people hate the entire insurance experience. Let's give them something to like. And that

Paul Povolni (20:29.553)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (20:38.364)
Ha ha ha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (20:52.51)
edutainment blend that they did that fun, engaging thing that they decided to do. So disrupted the category that literally every single significant provider now follows them instead of them following Dollar Shave Club did the same thing just a little bit differently. They were like, okay, Shick and Gillette own the market, massive corporations, billions of dollars. But there's a group of people that's really pissed off about having to pay 20 bucks for a razor.

And they went to that group and we're like, listen, you don't have to do that anymore for a dollar a month. I'm going to make sure that you've got something that cuts well, doesn't chip your face up like a disposable razor would, and it's going to work just fine. And for people like my dad, who was the kind of guy that drove across town to save five cents a gallon on gas, like those people came out of the woodwork in droves, millions of them, because finally somebody was speaking.

Paul Povolni (21:41.894)
Ha ha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (21:50.728)
for them some they could rally behind it. Somebody was like, Yeah, screw the big corporate guys. I want to be a part of that right up until they were bought by one of the big corporate guys. But nonetheless, to take on a market like that, it doesn't require a better product. Geico proved that many have proven this. It it takes understanding your audience and being willing to say something different. And that's where most businesses

Paul Povolni (22:01.4)
Hahaha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (22:19.31)
struggle because most businesses are run by finance or ops people. And finance and ops people believe in I spend $1 I get a loaf of bread. This is safe. This is what people will understand. And they don't understand that they represent about 8 % of the world's mindset. The rest of the world, the other 90 plus percent of the universe wants to laugh about something wants to make it easy to remember and wants to know that somebody's got their back because they don't feel like they have any power in the world. So that

that that notion of most people leading lives of quiet desperation is like the key to it all. Once you understand that people don't feel like there's a representative for them, it suddenly changes your mindset from talking about how your pen is better to talking about solving a problem for them. And the minute you do that, there is literally no limit to what your business can do. I don't care if you're the local one armed painter.

or you want to go against some of the biggest corporate giants in the world. If you adopt that structure, there is no limit to where you can go. There's no limit.

Paul Povolni (23:22.364)
Well, and I think anytime that I've talked to a brand person and a brand strategy person, it's inevitable that we bring up liquid death. You know, cause I think they nailed it. think, I think they, and it's hard not to use puns with them, but they entered a saturated market, you know, and, and they dominated in that market. their water wasn't better. There was nothing super special about their water, but it was through creating something, a story around it. Right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (23:39.564)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (23:51.971)
They are the least innovative company ever. They are they put water in a can. They have nothing innovative about their packaging structure. Cans have been around forever. Nothing special about their water flavored water exists. Regular water exists. Carbonated water exists. There is nothing nothing nothing nothing about it except one thing. 50 % of their leadership team came from one of the smartest advertising agencies on the planet.

So their entire DNA from day one was in order to get noticed, you must disrupt. And that's exactly what they did. And unlike most businesses who are terrified of anything that feels like it rocks the boat, these guys went in and rocked the boat from from step one. So the whole notion was if everybody else is pure, then we're going to focus on an un pure not impure, you still got to drink it.

but an unpure water brand. If everybody else is, know, Evian, Suzy Chapstick, you know, 5.0 cheerleader, you know, middle daughter child loved by everybody thing. What's the older brother that stumbles in at two o'clock in the morning drunk on a Tuesday? What's that water brand? And the minute that they did that, people were like, hell yeah. Like, thank you. It was so boring. It was so unbelievably boring. Thank you for giving us something to feel good about. And that

Paul Povolni (24:53.074)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (25:04.614)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:12.486)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (25:16.846)
$1.4 billion in valuation they hit the other day. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:20.846)
It's insane. It's insane. So, so for a, for a company, for a smaller brand or a brand that's, that's kind of trying to break through, talk, talk us through the steps to get to make them those kinds of decisions. What are some things that a business can consider and start working on to get to the point where they think that way, if they've never thought that way before.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (25:42.636)
Yeah, so the first thing is mindset. Okay, customers only look at things through one lens. What's in it for me, period, full stop. So you sitting around talking about how you've got the world's best hinge in your glasses isn't ever ever going to work. They will never connect the dots to because of that hinge, then it solves x problem. You have to be more explicit than that. And you have to be interesting. So much is so repetitious.

So you got to have that. Okay, so now the question is, all right, Bill willing to be interesting, willing to say something different. What do I talk about? Okay, fair. So now let's go back and take a look at what it is that you do really well, that you can be profitable doing that solves a pain point you can easily identify that you can be profitable at. That's it. Like it's super simple. So if I take a look back at my client list, and I see that

The thing that we solve really well is businesses feel stuck and we get them unstuck. Stop talking about anything else. That's the only thing you talk about. If you're a small business owner between 1 million and 5 million and you cannot hit 10 million, I have the answer for you. Stop feeling stuck. Period. Every single message you do ladders to that same idea. Every single sales deck you have ladders to that idea. Every promotional piece, every

package service bundle product bundle, every bit of it goes to that one thing. And then go out and stand on that one button. And make sure when you do that, now you've got to take a look at the category. Chances are extremely in your favor that nobody is saying anything like that. But do your homework.

Go make sure that you're not, you know, running into the American auto market and saying, we've got the safest car in the world against Volvo that spent the last 80 years telling everybody that they have the safest car in the world because you're not going to win that battle. So the whole idea is find the one thing that you're really good at and then say it differently. Now, the big argument that I hear back from businesses when I tell them this is, well, we do the same thing that other people do. Go back to insurance. Okay.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (27:53.62)
Everything you need to know is right there and in dust and international spies. I'll use that one in a second. So in insurance, Geico came out with 15 % or more in 15 minutes or less. Okay, little cute character that has a foreign accent. Nobody can quite identify which one it is Australian or British. Nonetheless, sounds smart sounds insightful talks about two things that are important my time and my money. Okay, now progressive comes out and progressive goes shit. Geico already took time and money. What else can we do?

Paul Povolni (28:09.042)
Hahaha

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (28:23.182)
Okay, how about this? How about everybody hates insurance? So what we're going to do is we're going to say, we are at your service. That's the whole point of the brand. The entire point of the brand is we only breathe we only get up in the morning to serve you flow. Flow is there to say, doesn't matter what you're talking about what you're doing. We're here to serve you even when it's ridiculous. Now, all state comes along and takes a look and is like, shit. Geico took time and money.

those guys have customer service, what are we going to do? Well, let's bring the idea of how does life throw you curveballs? Nobody has done that yet. So let's own this idea of mayhem. We're going to talk about how when birds poop on your car, it ruins the paint job. And we're going to talk about I'm a 15 year old, and I just found out that my best friend kissed my boyfriend. And now I'm, you know, compromised driver not paying any attention. I'm crashing into everything. They humanized that mayhem issue.

Paul Povolni (29:06.706)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (29:21.526)
And so each one of them farmers did, you know, we know through things because we've seen a few things like they they played off of experience in a fun way. Each one of them eeked out one turf one island of of story, and they laddered every single thing they did to it. They all sell the exact same thing. Same thing with Austin Powers, Ethan Hunt, James Bond and Jason Bourne. They are all just international spies.

Paul Povolni (29:41.36)
Right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (29:48.674)
But the story, the way they tell the story, what they stand for the rest of it is why some people say, I'm not really a mission impossible person. I'm more like a James Bond guy. And the reason why is because of the way the stories are told, but they're the exact same product. So businesses have to understand that their product is going to be commoditized. Even if it's like, think how fast the AI groups became commoditized, right? It was like one person popped up and then it was like,

and the thing became level, you got to stand for something. The more you stand for not being about your product, the faster you're going to grow.

Paul Povolni (30:27.484)
So talk about the, man, that was so good. Talk about, you know, we talked about liquid death and, people say, I want to be the next liquid death or I want to, want that kind of, that kind of a move, but liquid death really didn't solve a problem that people were begging to solve. doesn't seem like, like they almost created a solution that people didn't know they needed. And I think other companies do that as well. Right. Or am I reading it wrong? I don't know their history is that well.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (30:56.866)
Well, the the enemy for liquid death is boredom. The enemy for liquid death is boring. Right? It's I want to drink something cool. Water isn't cool. So the whole thing was that now keep in mind that there's a whole corporate thing that makes people feel good about them behind the scenes, right? Liquid death actually exists. The reason that they chose the aluminum can is because they're against the plastic problem in the world. Right? They know that there's an entire like, you know,

flotilla of used plastic in the ocean the size of Texas and they don't want to see that get any bigger. So their whole thing was how can we fund the plastic problem. So they use water to be able to do it. But if they had gone out and said we're against plastic, drink our aluminum can water, nobody would have bought it. So their whole thing was like, look, what's the problem with drinking water? Why don't people drink more water? Well, when you go to a party and everybody else is drinking a beer, the last thing you want to do is drink

water out of a plastic bottle because it's out of sync with what's happening around you. So they made it look cool enough to be a beer replacement. So their whole thing was about boredom, or boring or not cool or you know, you could you could call it whatever set of words you want, but it's the same structure. I feel good about holding it in my hand. And that has led them to something. So the problem is not always

you know, I can't get my TPS reports done. And in fact, it's never that it this is the other big thing that's really hard for people to understand their product is completely irrelevant. It just like we are irrelevant to our customers. They only care about us because they see us as a potential path to the success that they want to have. So it's like nobody buys software because the software is new. They buy software because their bosses on their back because they can't get their reports done on time.

The software promises to do the reports and half the time, therefore the person is motivated to buy the software. That's how it works. That's how it really works. And so you know, when people come out and they're like, we made better software, it's like, so what, nobody cares about the software, they only care about the outcome. If the software is successful in providing the outcome that was desired, which is really changing my life for the better than it works.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (33:13.39)
And so I think Liquid Death did that on a number of fronts. I think that they made it fun to drink water, which was really hard because water wasn't fun. Water was boring as hell. They made it something that could be done in social activities. So they solved that problem by making it cool to hold. So I mean, they just kind of went down the checklist and were like, why doesn't why don't people drink water? Well, they drink it for this and this and this and this. And they were like, okay, if we're cool like this, then we solve that problem. And more people drink water, because it's cool to drink. And I think that that

that thing is where they really hung their hat strategically.

Paul Povolni (33:47.986)
So when somebody comes to you and they want to be a challenger brand, they want to stand out, maybe they're a chiropractor, maybe they're some sort of a home services industry type person, what are some of the tools that you first whip out to help them to get to that place that you helped them to maybe even switch their mindset about what they're doing?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (34:12.686)
We have a presentation that we do called brand education that everybody just loves. I have been asked more times than I can count. Please, please put this up online and sell it so that people can share it and understand it. But in essence, it's exactly that it shows them how they can get there. There's a tow truck story that I tell that really gets people over the hump. And it's the do you want me to share it real quick?

Paul Povolni (34:40.858)
Yeah, absolutely.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (34:41.614)
Alright, so here's how this all came to be. I was on my way to a meeting with a big healthcare company and there were a bunch of people in the room. And I had the presentation but I mean it was like several levels like we had a senior VP and we had like assistance right like we had this massive thing. And I needed to get everybody in the room on the same page. So we had this little agency introduction thing that was, you know, 1015 minutes long, whatever.

But as I was on my way to the thing, I was like, I really need them to feel what it means to be marketed to the wrong way. Like they need to understand it. So I walked in and sat down and I said, everybody waited for the senior VP to come in and he came and sat down and I said, all right, you have two choices. I can either give you this really quick 15 minute introduction to the agency, which is good. We only have two slides that are about us chuckle chuckle, or I can tell you a 92nd story about a tow truck that will instantly

unify everybody about the real purpose of brand in a way that you'll never forget another day in your life. Which do you want? And he was like, well, I'll do the story. And so I said, All right, so here's the story. Story is that you have been planning for something for a while, don't know what it is, don't care, biggest sales event, you're emceeing your parents 50th wedding anniversary doesn't matter. But today's the day.

and you get up and you're in your Sunday best and you've got your note cards or your presentation or whatever and you're all excited and you sit down in your car in your garage. You look at your watch and you're feeling great because it's only a 30 minute drive to get there and you've got an hour to do it. So you're going to have a 30 minute cushion when you get there. Things are good. But as you roll up the door, you see that it's raining and sleeting and nasty outside and it's like, okay, whatever. And as you pull onto the highway, the worst possible thing happens. You pop a flat. Now, normally you'd get out and fix it.

but you're in your Sunday best, you're on your way to this thing, it's raining cats and dogs. So you decide to call the tow truck. Now it takes the tow truck driver 15 minutes to get there before they've done any work. Cutting in your safety cushion by half. Person walks up, knocks on the glass, did you order a tow truck? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you say looking at your watch, I did. You made the right decision calling our towing company. Our towing company has been in business longer than any other towing company in the world.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (36:46.464)
We have a more rigorous hiring process than anybody else. And in fact, we have been awarded more times than anybody else for that process. Now, when you take a look back at that truck, nobody else has that truck, just us. We did a special thing that's proprietary with Mack truck to make sure that your second biggest investment, your car would always be safe. Now the tires on that are where it's really special. We worked with Michelin to make a special Palmer that would never slide in the rain.

Paul Povolni (37:08.626)
You

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (37:14.06)
What are you thinking about this entire time that this idiot is talking? Shut up and fix my tire, right? Now, same same driver, same truck, same service, same everything. Only this time he knocks on the glass and says, knock, knock, knock. Did you order a truck? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say I did. Great. Our motto is on the road in 10 minutes or less. We know you've got things to do. Sit tight. Who are you going to avoid like the plague? And who are you going to tell every friend about? Same company. They just don't understand that that impact

Paul Povolni (37:38.162)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (37:43.006)
is so profound. The second driver is Nike, Apple, Disney Dollar Shave Club, they position their messaging through the lens of what's important to the person hearing it. The first is the 99 % of businesses that are out there talking about their better clicker on their pen. Nobody cares. But they just don't believe it. They're inside their own sales swirl and echo chamber. And they're like, man, my glasses are so good. Or this shirt is so awesome. Or my pens are better than anybody else.

Paul Povolni (38:01.871)
Right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (38:12.012)
And that's all that they want to talk about. So step one is seeing the problem for what it is. Because when you jump to tactics before you address that, then it becomes all subjective. I don't know if I like that idea. It's not about what you like. It's about whether they will respond to it. That's what you're after. And for most business owners, that's that is radical, radical shifting in thought. I thought it was about the better product.

Paul Povolni (38:37.253)
Right, right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (38:39.062)
No, people buy shitty McDonald's hamburgers every day of the week. Five guys should be trouncing them. Shake Shack should be trouncing them. But it's good enough. Like, I know I can go there and I can get a burger and fries right now any on any corner in any city anywhere in the United States. And it's good enough. That's how people buy they buy the products they like the best, not the best products. And that that notion is so hard for business owners to wrap their head around. They just can't.

quite choke it down. Even when they drive their BMWs and they wear their Ferragamo shoes and they're wearing a Rolex or an Amiga watch. are absolute victims of it, but they don't recognize it in their own behavior.

Paul Povolni (39:23.302)
Man, that is so good. so, you know, for somebody that's step one, of course, but even to give that's a huge set for a lot of people and you shared some extreme value.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (39:30.326)
It's, it is the only it's the only step that matters too. That's the thing like the rest of the dominoes fall easy. Good luck getting Domino one over.

Paul Povolni (39:34.565)
Yeah.

Right. Right. Right. And I, often when I've talked to clients as well, it's like that first finding that first domino, like what's the first domino that you need to knock down, to, make this all kind of fall into place. So because that is such a huge, step and that is, it's the first step and it's the biggest step and it's, and it's the one that you have to spend the most time wrestling with and not move on from that into colors and logos and websites and, and any of that stuff.

What, so, so let's, let's talk about that, that tool set even more. That's a big tool. What, what, are some things that, you use when you're, when you come to that point that you've got to wrestle, cause that's a hard thing to wrestle with. Cause we want to talk about, Hey, you like this new feature on this new pen, you know, you like the pen has four colors on it, you know, and all of that. you know, they want to talk about that. They're wired to talk about that because they're so proud of that. They're so excited about that.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (40:24.972)
Right, four colors, right.

Paul Povolni (40:34.894)
How do you chip away at that?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (40:35.264)
I must draw this. I must draw this 30 times a day. I should just make a permanent one. Okay, so here's how it works. This is the easiest tool that I can give you on this. Okay, this is how the world works. Up at the top, you have your one big idea. Volvo is safe. How are we safe? We are safe in three ways. We know more about crash test dummies. We know more about crumple zones and we invented the three point harness, whatever.

Paul Povolni (40:39.416)
Hahaha!

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (41:04.962)
Okay, that is your entire sales argument right here. This is what we do. Here's why we do it. And here are the ways that we make it real. Period. Full stop. That is your entire elevator pitch. All the stuff you want to talk about our history, the jobs we do, our flexibility, our great training, a da de da de da, all that stuff comes later. That's all step two. Step one is I saw them across the crowded room. My heart went pitter pat. Why? That's it. That

that emotional thing is so critical because people buy emotionally and justify logically. I see the Harley, I want the Harley, I tell myself a story about how my weekends would be so much better if I had the Harley and that emotional conduit is what makes me buy. It isn't because the pistons are bigger or it has four more horsepower than a Honda or whatever. Like that's not what does it. So the whole thing is to get them to see through hooker crook.

One of my favorite ways to do it is to say, please give me your elevator pitch. And then I stopped them somewhere around two minutes. Your elevator pitch is 20 seconds or less. It answers three questions. What are you? Why do you exist or go? What problem do you solve? And how are you unique? Full stop. That's it. We've all been to cocktail parties, networking events where you make the mistake of asking that one prolific person

What do you do? And then 15 minutes later, they're just tying up their life story and this like thing that you don't care about. And you can't wait to get away from them. The whole point of an elevator pitch is to say, we are this that does this. And this is how we're unique. They then get the opportunity to do what they really want to do, which is ask questions about their scenario, what people don't get about the elevator pitches, you don't start selling until they start talking. So shut up. That's the point.

Paul Povolni (42:35.036)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (42:53.346)
get out of your own way. So they need to know just enough information to begin to pull at the pieces and say, Hey, this is what's actually interesting to me or that thing is interesting to me. Until you're there, you're you're just talking you're not selling.

Paul Povolni (43:06.886)
Yeah. And so with, you know, you, you mentioned about being unique and, definitely, you know, some of the brands that we've talked about are unique. there, are there tools that you use or systems or processes that helps people find that uniqueness that helps them get to that point where they've found that secret sauce?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (43:26.498)
Well, first thing that they have to understand after all the other first things that I gave them, but at this level, the first thing that they have to understand fundamentally is that there is no right answer. Geico was not right in choosing 15 % or more for 15 minutes or less in 15 minutes or less. They simply decided that that was the thing that they wanted to be known for. And this is where I think all the ROAS and AB testing stuff is like confused the hell out of people.

AB testing is not a substitute for intended strategy, right? If you want to get somewhere, Eddie Murphy did not go around asking people if it was okay that he become the funniest man alive. He just went, fuck it, I'm doing it. Like that was his whole thing was that's my destination. That's what I want to be known for. That's where I'm going to go. He then AB tested the jokes he told. Was this the best delivery? Did I get a better laugh here? That's where he used it. So when I take a look at a small group, like let's say a painter,

Paul Povolni (44:15.495)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (44:23.638)
Right. And I sit down and I say, Okay, let's take a look at the most obvious things that are pain points in your industry. People going over budget, people not showing up on time, people making a mess, like get fundamentally granular about the things that are there. Now, which one of them don't you do already naturally? God, I hate being late. Full stop. Great. You hate being late, then your guarantee is if we're late, you don't pay a dime.

We will always be there when we say we will or you don't pay for the day. Period. Now that for them is incredibly hard to wrap their head around. They're like, it can't be that easy. And it's like, it's not that easy. It's just now you have to fulfill on that promise, which is where it's going to get super difficult. Your team has to be there. There can't be any, we're just going to be five minutes. It can't be like that. Your team has to be geared to say, we told the client 8 a.m. That means you're there at 7 45.

Paul Povolni (45:08.262)
Right, right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (45:19.904)
sipping coffee in the van until the hour happens so that if there's an accident, if there's a train wreck, if there's a whatever, it doesn't matter. You got there, you are there on time or they don't pay. So, you know, it's, it's identifying a thing that you already believe in, that you can be profitable doing that you feel confident that you can deliver consistently. Then we lean on it. And there's just, there's so much opportunity in the world that nobody has to worry about.

Paul Povolni (45:32.55)
Right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (45:49.422)
Well, what if like when you're talking about regional businesses or local businesses in particular, it doesn't matter. There's so many people that you, you know, you don't have to worry about it. Somebody called me the other day. They were like, Oh my God, you have 165,000 followers on Tik TOK. I go, it's not even a rounding error. There's 380 million people in the United States alone. I'm talking to a global audience of 8 billion. don't like, I don't even matter. Nobody sees me.

Paul Povolni (46:09.778)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (46:18.353)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (46:19.618)
You know, so it's just you have to have perspective and you have to have an understanding of that. And then you have to figure out like, I am okay supporting this one idea because I really believe in it. And then you put your shoulder behind it.

Paul Povolni (46:33.938)
That is so good. so, you know, one of the things that, and I first got introduced to you through TikTok and I love your content on there. And that's why I reached out to you. One of the things that I think you talked about recently is about positioning or kind of what I call a brandscape. I think you had a different name for it where you kind of find a way to differentiate yourself through the axes. Do you want to talk about that for a moment?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (46:42.242)
thanks. Appreciate it.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (47:00.962)
Yeah. So first off, every generation insists on renaming everything. I saw somebody today that said that the marketing funnel was dead, that instead it's all about gravity. And I just laughed out loud. I was like, you idiot. You've just made it harder on yourself to sell because now you have to unsell the funnel to sell this new notion that's exactly like the funnel just with a new name. But nonetheless, they don't know that yet because they're still young. So

Paul Povolni (47:08.05)
Ha

Paul Povolni (47:22.354)
Hahaha

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (47:27.874)
positioning in this respect is all about finding and if you like this, it's a horrible book. But if you like this blue water book or blue ocean or whatever in the hell it was called. The whole notion is that the world exists in a couple of axes. So it's like, I don't know, are are they fun and playful? Or are they serious? And are they about price? Are they about service? I don't know, something like that. So you've got this axis of whatever to

contrasting scales that you want. And then you take your competitive set and you map them. Okay, so when I think about my competitor, that's this, are they about cost? Are they about time? Are they about whatever? Like what quadrant do they sit in? Wherever the majority of your competitors are, you want to be the total opposite. You want to say, okay, that's already in the market and people have that option all the time. What could I do to go the other direction? And I think that's exactly what Liquid Death did.

Liquid Death said, which ones are are focused on purity, which ones are playful, which ones are price conscious, like they did kind of a simple grid like that. Everybody was over on purity and price, discount, pure water. So they were like, okay, premium, and funny. And, you know, like impure, I'm pure, whatever. There was nobody else over there.

So it made perfect sense. was like this entire quadrant belongs to us. Nobody else is over here. And so when they went out, there was no competition. Who are they competing with? That's the beauty of the thing. And people are like, well, they're competing with other water companies. Not really. No, they're competing with soda. They're competing with beer. They've elevated themselves to where they're not even a consideration on the waterfront anymore. Now they're saying you don't have to drink a beer at a party. got you. You can drink water and feel perfectly good.

Paul Povolni (48:51.185)
Right.

Paul Povolni (49:17.351)
Yeah.

Yeah. And so they, they, so they created a, they, they dominated in an area that nobody else is a dominated in the area of one, you know, because they created this whole new category for themselves because they did that, that exercise, whether, literally or, mentally, but they kind of found that spot that just allowed them to, to excel in it. And so, you know, are there any other.

tools that you like to whip out. We've talked about so many good ones and I want to make sure that we don't miss any, especially something very practical that, like I said, a chiropractor or a local service person or whatever can start looking at that they can say, okay, I need to start thinking about this or I need to implement this. Are there any other tools that you'd like to share?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (50:05.73)
The big one is don't the minute that you talk about yourself, throw it out. And it's just so simple. But I'll have people that will take a look at my TikTok stuff, and they'll hear it and they'll write it down and they'll go, Bill, Bill, what we're really good at is making the world's best pen and I'll go, Nope. Nope. Throw it away. A guy sent me this big long email the other day, I get these all the time. It was like, Hey, man, I really love your work. I tried to do this thing.

Paul Povolni (50:25.874)
You

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (50:34.572)
Here's what I came up with. And it's all about them. They might as well be standing in front of a mirror. my gosh, my hair looks so nice. And my ears are just right. And I've got a pretty smile. And I'm like, no, no, no, throw it away. Burn it. Just burn it. In fact, don't burn it. Put it in a frame and hang it over your desk with a big sign on it that says never to do again. And use it as a touch plate. Like, you know,

Notre Dame does when they're going out on the field, like everybody touched this every day before you go anywhere. Don't ever do that. We are so irrelevant. We are we are we're Stan. What was his name? Turnpike or whatever the guy on in Harry Potter that drives the night bus like that's it. That's our only role. Our only role is to get you on and off the bus.

Shun Pike, there we go. For the Harry Potter fans that are going to send in stuff and be like Harper, get it together and Shun Pike. right. So that's it, though. That's like that's the sum total of us is we're the guide. That's it. You're the Sherpa on the on mount marketing. Like that's it on the on the road to growth. Other than that, they don't care. They're not going to trust you. They don't want to hear about it. Like, they don't want to know about your kids. They don't want to know about your hit. Like they don't care. Like they so don't care. All they care about is

Paul Povolni (51:29.009)
Ha ha ha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (51:54.306)
Can I use what you just told me to change my circumstance for the better? Period. End of story. So the minute you talk about yourself, like, okay, for a show of audience for the hand that for the listeners here, who wants to hear more about my path to becoming an advertising person? Who wants to hear more about my agency? Who wants to hear more about our special processes? You don't there's not a single hand up. And the one that is in the back that's up is mom. Hi, mom. Nobody else cares.

Like nobody else cares. And so don't talk about it only talk about this is the problem. Look how well we understand the problem. This is how you solve the problem. We can help you get to a point where you solve the problem. That's it. After that, nobody cares about the hammer and nail once the pictures up on the wall, they only need the hammer and nail to achieve that goal. Once that goal is done, the hammer and nail disappear into irrelevance again.

Paul Povolni (52:50.778)
Right. And I think making a bombastic promise and then keeping it is just so critical. And you know, that's where you win is. And I think a lot of brands that do that, they're the ones that are dominating in a great, great way because they make a bombastic promise and then they keep it. And if you, you know, if you're going to make a bombastic promise, definitely keep it. You know, don't just make it and then, you know, say, well, you know, 15 minutes, you know, we'll do this or 10 minutes, we'll do that. Or one hour you get this and then don't.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (52:55.704)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:18.684)
keep it because then you're going to fail anyway. But look at ways that you can.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (53:21.72)
Well, remember that that building building your success is exactly like going to the gym. There is no shortcut. I don't know. Like the very, you're talking about a group of people that everybody knows. Because they're so rare. Right? These people that had these overnight successes. They are so rare that we know them all. Because they just happen to hit

Paul Povolni (53:47.068)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (53:49.09)
with the exact right message at the exact right moment with the exact right offering with the exact right thing. The sun, the moon, the stars, the dirt, the sand was all aligned. And for that brief horizon moment where everything lined up, they just happen to say the right thing at the right moment. They are so rare. It's just like don't even it's it. It's an it's an anomaly. It's not real. So

Paul Povolni (54:16.72)
Right, right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (54:17.77)
If you are going to build your success overnight success is 10 to 12 years full stop. And you got to look at it as going to the gym. Don't feel like going to the gym too bad go don't feel like going to the gym too bad go because you can't tell what day it's going to work. But I know that the minute you stop going to the gym, it's never going to work. So the whole thing is you got to get up and and build and build and build until you are so sick of building you can't stand it anymore.

Paul Povolni (54:38.192)
Right. Right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (54:45.986)
but that's the only way that it works. And that's how it works for everybody.

Paul Povolni (54:50.514)
Well, and one of the things that has really changed the industry and you talk about this as well is AI. And so as an agency, what was your first reaction to AI? Cause I talked to one agency person at one point and they were asked by a potential client. So how do you guys use AI? And they were like, we don't use AI. And when they, when he told me that I was like, Whoa, that was the wrong answer. You know? And so what was your first reaction to AI?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (55:18.122)
Yeah, the adoption was big. Yeah, the adopt. Okay, so when AI first came out, remember, it wasn't it wasn't art first. The first thing that came out was GPT. And what everybody was doing was they were hitting a button to make copy. And my reaction to that was, do it faster. My entire thing was I want every one of my clients competitors to do that every day. Because it's gonna it's gonna lead you to a common denominator because that's how large language models work.

Paul Povolni (55:18.999)
And how do you feel about it now?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (55:46.816)
It wants the common denominator. It says this is what worked best for everybody. So everybody do this, which absolutely guarantees that you will be seen as a commodity. So in my opinion, I was like, go, adopt it, do dumb shit. Me personally, I'm going to wrap my clients up in bubble wrap. But for the rest of you idiots, go right ahead. Now, what happened after that was really interesting because of how fast it happened.

Paul Povolni (56:01.606)
Hahaha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (56:12.246)
all of a sudden, image manipulation happened started off with Photoshop and the generative fill, then all of a sudden discord, then all of a sudden mid journey, then then then right. And it was tip tip tip. And as those dominoes tips, you might remember that initially, the first concern for everybody was copyright infringement. And so the big agencies, the BB do's and the DDB needhams, and I don't know that it was either of those. But so you know, don't hold me legally. But one of the

big groups I remember was famous and it was one of the DS came out and was like, here's a letter to our entire staff, you may not use artificially created imagery in anything until we sort this out, because we have no idea what the liability is. Once that problem was solved, then it became a way to express an idea faster. That was what happened the next two weeks was, my gosh, I have this idea for a client where

people are floating in the clouds and there's Snickers bars falling around them and Game Boy joy sticks and you know, whatever. And I need a way to show that to the client. Hey, can you give me a person floating in a cloud where you know, beer and joysticks and TV remotes are floating around them. And AI was like, Yeah, sure. How about this? And it was like, okay. So that happened. And then it became what it is now, right?

Paul Povolni (57:14.598)
Ha ha ha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (57:37.548)
Vio came out mid journey stepped up Sora stepped up and all of a sudden video creation true production happened. Now you still don't have high res. You still can't make anything into a billboard out of it. You can't make anything into certain types of print executions or whatever. There's just not enough resolution there yet, but it's coming and it'll be here in six months. Right? So now all of a sudden it's you're a fool not to use it because it has turned

creativity, production of creativity into a commodity, I no longer am bound by any production budget. So long as I know how to use the tool. So once that happened, now it pivoted 180 degrees now agencies were stupid not for using it now on the copy front. I still really worry about it. A lot of people are using it to think for themselves. And that's dumb. And it

It will never build you a proper strategy. It will never have an insightful moment. It will never see opportunity between the cracks of what everybody else is doing. AI is not built that way. Fundamentally, it is built to look for commonality, not individual concept, like it's not looking for different that way. So when you ask it to do that, it fumbles the ball a lot. But I think in terms of a creative tool, helping to make a script punchier,

Paul Povolni (58:53.158)
Right. Right.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (59:03.822)
helping to fill a blank page with something that you can hate so that you can start the process faster, iterating on something you've already created that is strategically sound so that you have other options you might not have considered statistically. All of those kinds of things and the graphic side of it. I mean, did you see the IKEA commercial that came out the other day with the box that explodes into a bedroom? So it's an empty room with an IKEA box in the center.

Paul Povolni (59:27.353)
No, I haven't seen it.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (59:31.298)
The box jumps up and down once or twice and pops open and an entire bedroom suite pops out of it, including at the very end, the blanket comforter that lands on the perfect bed and the room is completely perfect. Now, what was really surprising about that was, and this is what I love about the movement, people are getting so excited about what they can do that they're sharing the prompts behind it, which is highly accelerating the education curve.

that wasn't so much the case in the beginning. People were really hiding all of that because they were like, well, I don't want other people to be able to do it, but now it's gone the other way. So this guy gave a literally a timestamp by timestamp breakdown of how they made this thing happen. And people immediately began iterating on it. Well, what if it was a rock concert in a box? What if it was a business success in a box? What if it was a party in a box? What if it, so they were all

Paul Povolni (59:56.092)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:00:17.916)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:00:21.39)
iterating, iterating, iterating on the prompt, and it became a meme of sorts in its own way. Because all of a sudden, everybody was like, Hey, cool, check this out. Da da da da boom. And people were like, Oh, wow, that's really fun. Oh, that's really playful. And so that started being like a thing. So AI is radically changing this. But what it's done, as I was saying in the very beginning is it's put all the emphasis now on what is your strategy? And what are you trying to say? And who are you saying it to?

because now you're no longer constrained by the production costs that the big guys had the advantage where they're going to have the advantage now is deeper pockets for wider media. But everything else has been leveled.

Paul Povolni (01:01:02.032)
Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, while AI and I use it daily and I love it for, what it does well. somebody once said that it gives you the best average answers. You know, it's not going to give you anything like super, it's not going to suggest to you that you do a liquid death. Like it's going to give you average answers. but you know, one of the things that, that is truly amazing is that, you know, a lot of the stuff that people are creating is,

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:01:13.166)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:01:30.566)
You know, we're creating it for a medium that doesn't even need to be high resolution anymore. You know, we're creating it for phones. We're creating it for computers, you know, and so there's a lot of people that are I've seen creating ads, using things like VO and stuff that is truly amazing. but it's not going to give you that strategy that a, a creative agency or a creative, strategist is going to give you. It's going to give you a really good average.

answer when it comes to copy a lot of times is what I'm finding now. Maybe you'll found it.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:02:00.472)
Well, yeah. And I think people are finding unique ways to use it too. Are you familiar with the whole Mia Zulu thing? Yeah. So Mia Zulu is the one of the first, not the first, but she's one of the first all AI influencers. She doesn't exist. So she's this character. Yeah. At Wimbledon or wherever. Right. So she like, supposedly was seated there with three kneecaps by the way, but who's counting. And, know, which is, which is

Paul Povolni (01:02:07.126)
Yes, a little bit. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:17.008)
Is that the one that was at the British Open or something like that? Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:27.024)
Hahaha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:02:29.646)
part of the charming bit right now about, about this whole thing. But, I think people are going to find new ways to create influence. People are going to find new ways of communicating. People are going to find a lot of things that are going to be very different. And when the voice comes into this, this is the piece I don't think people are really thinking about yet. Custom GPT is an answer set. You know, we've been building a brand boss GPT because for small businesses, students,

people that want to try to understand that that want access but can't access it, you know, for x dollars a month to be able to talk to the team at brand boss and be able to say, Hey, I really need an elevator pitch, or I really need to be able to think about a strategy this way, or how would you position this that or the other, you can be putting those things into place, and rolling them out as as tools. So, you know, there's just there's so many different ways that people are going to be using this.

And when voice gets into this, it's going to be nuts because when voice gets into it, you're not going to look at a screen anymore unless you just want to, you know, I don't know if you've played it all with the AI, basically Siri. don't even know what to call her. call her G the, the, but the AI, the AI engagement tool now that's vocal. It embarrassed Amazon. Like Alexa is a joke.

Paul Povolni (01:03:43.89)
Hahaha.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:03:54.26)
Alexa is like a two year old that can barely tie their shoelaces. And this GPT thing, once they engage it, and I know everybody's doing that right now with N8N, they're like, they're doing it, they're, creating band-aid fixes because the system doesn't allow it to do it yet. The minute that thing can do agentic work. And then the next step will be small robots that do physical labor that are attached to the agentic.

Paul Povolni (01:03:54.789)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:04:21.614)
Everything changes. Literally every single thing changes. You won't have to go anywhere. You won't have to do anything the same way. It'll be, it'll be so automated and it's going to be, it's going to be like, I just want to have popcorn and a safe seat because it's going to be really nuts. And I don't think people really get that yet. Like I think they're just starting to cotton on to what kind of a change this is. This is going to be

Paul Povolni (01:04:24.038)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:04:39.454)
Ha

Paul Povolni (01:04:48.817)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:04:51.042)
Massive. Massive. Nothing we know 10 years from now will be the same. Nothing.

Paul Povolni (01:04:52.165)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:04:57.426)
Right. And I like to tell people that I'm both thrilled and terrified at the same time, because it's right now, it's like we're, we're playing with a lion cub and we know that this lion's going to grow and it could devour us, you know, but right now we're having fun. We're having fun playing with the lion cub. Yeah. I, I ain't acute. Uh, but right, right. But you know, going back to what, what your t-shirt says and what we started off talking about, you know, I think, I think for

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:05:01.955)
Yeah.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:05:10.37)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's Yeah. It's cute. And look, it rolls over. Right. Yeah. And then it's going to be hungry. Right. That's going to be a different story.

Paul Povolni (01:05:25.37)
small business owners that might be listening to this. You know, they're, they're excited about, you know, AI and what it can do and it can do stuff for them, but just keep in mind, it's going to give you the best of average. If you want to dominate, if you want to differentiate, you're still going to have to go deep in strategy. And I think for a lot of what you shared today is that stuff that they need to go deep into. And so if somebody wants to get ahold of you, if somebody's like, man, I need to work with Bill. need to, you know, get myself to a place where I can.

I'm the challenger brand I want to dominate. What's the best way to get a hold of you?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:05:57.624)
Well, there's a ton of free work that's available on TikTok and Instagram at BrandBossHQ. If you want to take a look at our online education course, or if you want to work with us directly as an agency, then you can go to BrandBossHQ.com. But all of our social handles are at BrandBossHQ, so we're super easy to find.

And our web address has a pretty specific outlay of the different ways that we work with groups, all of which are packaged. So it makes it super easy for everybody.

Paul Povolni (01:06:32.016)
That's so awesome, man. Well, I usually like to end this by asking a question of, know, what's one question or one hit smack that you'd like to share that I didn't ask you about?

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:06:44.377)
BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:06:49.634)
Let's see. I think the biggest one is that you have to divorce yourself of what is and focus on what if. I think if more people would release protecting what they've already done so that they can get the thing that they want, they would achieve it a lot more often.

Paul Povolni (01:07:08.482)
And that's so good, Bill. This has been an amazing conversation and I appreciate you coming on and sharing so much value. think this is going to be one of those episodes that people are going to need to go back and listen to it and execute and wrestle with and, puts, like you said, put stuff on the wall and say, never do this. And, cause Bill said so, so much value. Thank you so much for being on.

BrandBoss - Bill Harper (01:07:32.994)
Thanks for having me, Paul. I really appreciate it. Anytime.