Brand Before You Scale | Rob Genovesi

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Rob Genovesi, a brand strategist and entrepreneur, about his journey from corporate life to building a successful brand strategy business. They discuss the importance of overcoming fear, the role of intentionality in business, and how to effectively niche down to attract the right clients. Rob shares insights on the significance of branding in sales and the necessity of having a clear mission and vision for business success. The conversation emphasizes that profitability is achievable without the need for a large business, and that understanding one's unique value proposition is key to attracting clients.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Rob Genovesi transitioned from corporate life to entrepreneurship after facing layoffs.
• Fear can paralyze individuals, but overcoming it is crucial for success.
• Brand strategy is essential for business growth and profitability.
• Intentionality in business decisions leads to better outcomes.
• Narrowing down your niche can help broaden your client base.
• A strong brand can make marketing efforts more effective and efficient.
• Understanding your mission and vision is vital for business direction.
• People often buy when they are ready, not during a sales pitch.
• Profitability can be achieved without needing a large business.
• Building a brand helps in solving client problems effectively.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:09.199)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Laplace, Louisiana. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that correctly. It looks like French for the place, but I could be wrong. In any case, thank you for listening.

Joining me today, Rob Genovese.

Rob Genovese. Did I do that wrong? Help me. Help.

Rob Genovesi (00:49.358)
You had it right the first time, Rob Genovese.

Christian Brim (00:51.759)
Good God. Joining me today, Rob Genovese of Big Build. good God. I'm gonna just quit right now. I quit.

Genovese build strong brands. Okay, all right, I'm gonna record that again. Joining me on the show today, Rob Genovese of Build Strong Brands. Rob, welcome to the show.

Rob Genovesi (01:07.576)
That's it, man.

Rob Genovesi (01:17.624)
Thanks, Christian. It's great to be here.

Christian Brim (01:19.545)
Good Lord. Rob, I start out usually asking, know, like, how did you get here? So I'll lead with that. How did you end up being an entrepreneur, build strong brands, author? You didn't just land there. What was the origin story?

Rob Genovesi (01:21.71)
you

Rob Genovesi (01:45.374)
I wish I could have just landed there. would have made things a lot more easier, but not as much fun, I'll tell you that. So, as we were talking earlier, I spent 25 plus years in corporate managing creative teams. I've got a simple degree in graphic design and advertising. for years, I really wanted one day to own my own business, but didn't have any skills to speak of. I

Christian Brim (01:47.054)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (02:07.908)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (02:11.212)
I was paralyzed with fear of speaking or putting myself out there or putting myself in any situation where the focus was on me well into my 30s. I should have had therapy, but I didn't. I self-therapized through about 500 books, several hundred seminars, downloads, videos, you name it, until I get to a point where I kind of kicked those fears aside.

I left corporate in 2015 after my second layoff because even though I was a high performer in my later years in corporate, was just went without any kind of reward. So I got laid off, not due to performance. It was always due to economics or politics or legalities or one combination of those or another. So I had to get out and I finally, I left in 2015 and I leveraged the one skill I had, graphic design.

Christian Brim (03:06.914)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (03:07.118)
And I thought, you know, what am I going to do? Well, everybody needs a website. I'll build websites, you know, along with a trillion other people. I opened a website and design shop.

Christian Brim (03:15.575)
Right.

Christian Brim (03:19.063)
Yeah, yeah, it was was common back then. Okay, so let me ask you a question. What was different about your mindset at that point? So like you said, it was your second layoff. So you'd experienced the layoff before you you had this desire, coupled with a fear, what was different in 2015 that that you made that transition to being an entrepreneur?

Rob Genovesi (03:44.014)
Well, you know, like I said, I had done so much self-improvement that, you know, after a certain period of time, you get to a point where you're sick and tired. And that second layoff, I mean, the scenario was they created a position for me inside a company because the creative department was in shambles. mean, they were two weeks late on all artwork, strained relations throughout the entire company with

Christian Brim (03:56.141)
Hmm.

Rob Genovesi (04:13.182)
It was a sign and display company strained relations through printing and engineering and sales and even the creative director. If you'd imagine this, the creative director basically left the creative department, went off on his own because he couldn't take the couple of people that were there who were wrecking the whole thing. So he's just like, I'm out of here. So he goes to a one man show, form his own department. Leadership is like, sure, why not? If you can imagine. And they create a position for me to come in and fix it. And

After six months, by the way, five weeks in, the two people I had went out of medical leave, so I was alone in a brand new company, fixed this. With just a freelancer and six months later, we were two days ahead on schedule. There were zero errors on artwork. I restored all the relations with engineering, sales, and printing, and everybody was happy. The VP was like, whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

Christian Brim (05:10.393)
right.

Rob Genovesi (05:10.612)
Even the guy Dave who left, Dave never works with anybody, but he said, whatever you need, got. She goes, I don't know what you're doing, but just keep doing it. You'll have no interference from me. And then two years later they fired me. I was like, okay, it was economics driven, but the decision was political and legal. So like you said, what made me, I just had, I was like, man, I gave it the best I had and more and I still got screwed. So I was like,

Christian Brim (05:30.765)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (05:40.578)
You know what? I'm starting my own thing. I went home, told my wife, I got laid off. said, today I start a business I will retire from. And that was the website and design business, but that wasn't start of success. That's not even what I do today because, you know, as you talk about profit was the thing I was after and I wasn't being profitable in that business.

Christian Brim (05:58.339)
Well, congratulations for making that decision. I think a lot of people are in that situation where they're strongly dissatisfied with being an employee. They understand that they're limited in their talents, their capacity, their profitability, like their ability to make money. But there is that fear.

Uh, of, it's a legitimate fear. mean, I, I, I actually respect that more now than I used to as opposed to the person that just says, well, I'm going to start a business. And they really have no idea what's on the other side of that. Right. They don't know what they don't know, which was my case when I started my business at 27. I'm like, I'm sure let's do it. Um,

not really knowing what I did not know. So you make a decision to leverage the skills that you have, but 10 years later, now 11 years later, what has changed?

Rob Genovesi (07:14.924)
Yeah, so that's the whole thing. I started out as a website and design company and I got clients right away. Getting clients was not the problem, right? Because like I said, my thought process is right. Everybody needs a website or needs an updated website. So getting clients was easy. Being profitable was the hard part. I was, like you said, starting a business, it's a big decision, I guess, for some people. It does a lot to figure out.

Christian Brim (07:30.372)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (07:42.179)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (07:43.753)
I was after profitability because maybe where most people who were my age at the time, so I was 48, with two kids in college and two more right behind them, you know, I'm gonna start a business. My parents thought we were crazy. My other relatives were like, are you sure you don't wanna go get another job? And to be clear, after that second layoff, I did get another job, so I built the business on the side. But that struggle for profitability meant that I think

Christian Brim (08:04.269)
Right.

Rob Genovesi (08:13.102)
I'm like, I'm 48, not that I'm old, but like, you know, your days, you can count the years that are left instead of the years that are ahead of you. And I'm like, I don't have time to fail. I've got to make every hour produce two hours of revenue, in a matter of speaking. So I was big on how much time I'm putting in and how much I was making my effective hourly rate. So I sought out profitability over

Christian Brim (08:20.567)
Right, right.

Christian Brim (08:29.039)
Hmm.

Rob Genovesi (08:40.718)
clients, number of clients, higher paying clients, all that, it factors in, but maximizing profitability was huge. So in the website business, unless I wanted to become a website factory, which I had no interest in becoming a volume-based business, I wanted to make an impact. And so it came down to one conversation. People talk about what's the one thing. In my case, it was about 50,000 things, but if there was one transformative conversation, it was this ...

Christian Brim (08:42.553)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (08:57.507)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (09:10.126)
this Italian contractor in New York, there couldn't be more cliche, calls me up. He actually wasn't, but he was a painting contractor. And he starts the conversation with, look, I was working with this one web guy and we just couldn't seem to see eye to eye. So we parted ways. I don't have a website, but I paid him $1,100 for the work he did. He goes, can you help me? And I'm like, yeah, I can help you.

Christian Brim (09:14.477)
Right? Were they in waste management maybe?

Christian Brim (09:20.654)
Okay.

Rob Genovesi (09:40.397)
I don't know what the problem was. I had two thoughts running through my mind. How am gonna help him? How do I nail this job? And the other thing is, well, what if the problem wasn't the web guy? What if the problem was the client? What if he was a nightmare client and now he was gonna be mine? So that's kind of a chance you gotta take when you need the money. I needed the money at that point. So I said, I gotta nail this. need this job, because I'm sure he's talking with other people because it's very competitive business. And so I asked basic...

Christian Brim (09:51.565)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (10:00.387)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (10:09.922)
brand strategy questions that I didn't know was brand strategy because it was he who in the course of talking to me said, you know, I'm starting this out and there's a lot of big guys around here and you know, I need like a brand or something to help me stand out all that. And he threw it in there and my subconscious caught it. And so I thought, what am going to do? So I set up an interview with him and I just asked him basic questions like, you know, what's your mission? What's driving you? You know, what's your vision for this company you're starting?

What is, who's your competition? What makes you different? Why should they choose you? And all these basic, basic things, which today it's vastly improved on what I did back then. But I took the information from the interview and I go back to my office and I start kind of distilling all that data into a strategy. And as a designer, of course, I woke up at 3 a.m., I remember, and I'm like, I got an idea for a logo.

just sketched it on my iPad. And I looked at it the next morning, I'm like, this is the logo. I designed one. And he didn't ask me to, but I did. So I designed, you know, mock up the website. I wrote the marketing copy, you know, the hooks and everything. And I presented to him. if you know any Italian guys, Christian, he sits there with his hand on his chin and he's rocking back and forth in his chair. And if you know any Italian, you know, this is one of two things. He's either going to kiss you or he's going to smack you. And I'm sitting there going ...

Christian Brim (11:34.391)
Yes, high emotion. This is high emotion there.

Rob Genovesi (11:38.095)
It's a high emotion. And I'm a tying guy, so I know one of them's coming. So he rocks back and forth, what seemed like 15 minutes, it was probably only 15 seconds. And he points his finger at me goes, you absolutely nailed it. It's like you were in my head. How did you do that? And at that moment, I was like, it worked. Now, to be clear, he loved it. He bought it all. But I didn't know if it actually produced business.

that remained to be seen, but he called me a year later. He's like, hey, Rob, what's going on? Just checking in. I go, hey, Lou, how you doing? How's business? He goes, man, I'm busy seven days a week, never been better. And he wanted it. As a contractor, you know you want to be busy every day. And so I learned to remain humble and not assume that it was my quote unquote genius that did it. So I said, what do you owe your success to? And he goes, the brand work you did for me. That's what did it.

Christian Brim (12:06.319)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (12:27.587)
Right.

Christian Brim (12:34.329)
Hmm.

Rob Genovesi (12:34.856)
So at that moment in my head, I became a brand strategist, but I didn't didn't really become one Outwardly, I used that strategy to win more design work, but I realized it works. So well, I thought This is what I want to do because that's what made the impact in businesses that I saw I wanted to make an impact in people's personal lives through business and now branding So that's what I do today

Christian Brim (13:02.511)
I love that. I did receive your book actually today, so I haven't read it, but I like the title. And I've got it over on my desk. Don't Fear the Brand, is that what it? Yeah, Don't Fear Brand. So I have some thoughts on that title without having read the book. Why did you title it that?

Rob Genovesi (13:17.0)
You got it. Don't fear the brand.

Rob Genovesi (13:27.958)
Yeah, I've gotten some positive feedback just on the title alone and honestly, it's my journey. It's the thing that made the difference in becoming not just a brand strategist, but a brand on my own and helping people build strong brands is that the thing that holds most business people back is fear. Fear of

taking a stand. We know that nobody wants wishy-washy, middle-of-the-road mediocre. Everybody wants somebody who says something that makes people go, yeah, I agree with that. I'm with you. But people are afraid to say that. Why? Because somebody is going to be like, you're a jerk. I hate you. So you've got to take the good with the bad. And so that fear, I had paralyzing fear of talking to people well into my 30s, but I knew I had to be able to speak to people in order to be a successful business person. Fear of putting myself

Christian Brim (14:12.323)
Yes.

Rob Genovesi (14:26.19)
out on the internet in video, my writings, all my work for fear that people are going to be like, you know, you're a hack, you're a loser, you're a jerk, whatever they're going to say. And that fear holds people back. So the title, Don't Fear the Brand, this isn't a brand strategy book in science only, although that's the second part. The first part is the art of building a strong brand. That's kicking your fears aside and doing the things that are necessary

so that you can actually build a strong brand, so that you actually can build one that will, that you can leverage against building your business, because we know that a strong brand, over time, will build the business. It will be a lever to build it bigger than you could without it. So that's where the name came from. Don't fear the brand. The brand is, the fear is you're afraid of you. You're afraid of being you, because I was, in my corporate days, before I discovered brand strategy,

My first company, if you saw my first company, it was corporate, mainstream. I was button down shirt, leather belt, shoes to match, slacks, clean shaven, horn rim glasses, and my hair was just perfect. And I'm not that person. And it took me kicking the fear aside and going, that's not who I am, I don't wanna be that. That was the corporate mask.

Christian Brim (15:50.968)
Mmm.

Rob Genovesi (15:51.033)
that I discovered I was wearing when I ripped it off and I discovered who I am, I was like, I don't know if people are going to like this. And you know what? Some people don't, but I don't really care because a lot of people go, look, this is the day and age Christian. know one thing's for sure. If you're not real in the age of AI, if you're not real, you will be found out.

Christian Brim (16:12.023)
Yes, your story reminds me, my younger daughter is a figurative oil painter and she left university and has made a career out of that. one of her earliest successes, had, I think it was TikTok that blew up with one of her paintings. And I mean, was truly viral.

And she was shocked and did not expect it. And she was like, I, I'm getting a lot of mixed feedback. She, she, she, she was, she was getting a lot of sales from it, but the piece that she had put out there was controversial. Like I could see where it would be offensive. Right. And so a lot of the comments were, you know, ugly.

And I said, you, you have to make a decision. Either you're going to take all of the feedback or none of the feedback. You can't have it both ways where you, you put yourself out there and then only accept positive feedback. Because to your point, you know, the reality is not everybody's going to like you. And that's totally fine.

but you have to have a certain level of maturity to be okay with that, to say like, I'm comfortable with who I am, and if you don't like it, that's fine. Like, I'm not trying to be offensive to you, but I'm not gonna change who I am to make you more comfortable, right? When I saw the cover of that book, I was thinking from the business owner standpoint, and I, for a long time, thought branding was...

something for big companies. I thought that that was the Coca-Cola's. It's interesting. I saw it in the same vein, the same way I saw culture. I thought, well, that's for Googles. We don't have a culture in our company. But what I came to realize, both culture and brand,

Christian Brim (18:37.033)
exist whether you are intentional about it or not. Your brand as a business owner is it exists because I think of it in terms of brand is just what people remember about you, the company. And so you can either be intentional about it or you can just let it happen. But what the exercise that you took a loo through

Rob Genovesi (18:54.062)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (19:06.283)
was I think probably more powerful than the work product you gave him because in asking those questions, he had to clarify what he was about. Like who is Lou? What is his business? How is it different? Because a lot of business owners go through their life

without being intentional about that. And they may have success, they may not, but until they can answer those questions about like, okay, who do I work for, who do I not work for? You can't really progress beyond a certain point because you have to be able to weed out the people that you don't wanna work with just as much as you wanna attract the people that you do wanna work with, right?

So going back to your initial thing, like you didn't know if Lou was someone you wanted to work with, you just needed the work, right? Now, if Lou came to you, you probably could very easily determine, yeah, this is someone I want to work with, who I can help, or, you know, they need to find somebody else.

Rob Genovesi (20:01.111)
Yeah.

Rob Genovesi (20:19.342)
Well, you know, I think that one of the things that allowed me to create huge profitability now, I'm not going to sit here and be like, you know, I'm a multimillion dollar operational that that's for other people. That's not me. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is if you're a small business, you're a solopreneur, maybe you don't want to build a $10 million company. That's fine. I don't really care to. I want to be profitable, right? Profitability is king. You know, you could have, you know,

Christian Brim (20:43.094)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (20:47.086)
$10 million in annual revenue and $11 million in expenses. Like, what does that make you? So the profitability part was the part I was in hot pursuit, Christian. I was in hot pursuit, and I think that's what made me particularly, I'm not a great business person. I'm an excellent brander. I'm a pretty good business person, but if I did anything right, it was discovering the time factor. And I don't think people put time

Christian Brim (20:52.687)
Poor.

Rob Genovesi (21:16.992)
in the same circle with money and its understanding of the relationship because I was busy. was working. I mean, I was going to my job when I had the job and away from my home for 11 hours a day. I would be up till 1 a.m. designing and building websites every Saturday morning till midnight with breaks for dinner and family time and Sundays as well, which I'm not a big fan of.

Christian Brim (21:19.641)
Mmm.

Rob Genovesi (21:44.175)
I believe rest is for Sunday. Sunday is for rest. And so in doing that, I realized I was making $20 an hour. Like making thousands of dollars a month, but $20 an hour. I'm like, what the heck is happening here? And so part of it was number one, finding the profitable business. So I found that through brand strategy. Profitability is absolutely amazing to sell the intellectual part, not the commodity of the deliverable. The other part of that was what you said. How do you

Christian Brim (21:44.207)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (21:56.088)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (22:14.146)
find the clients that are the right fit. This is vastly underrated because people, here's again, here's what drives it, fear. If I don't take this client, I may not have a client to serve. Okay, so it's a legit argument, but that's why you build a strong brand. So you've got people constantly coming to you wanting your time so that you can turn down the people who, look, you get good at knowing who's going to waste your time.

Christian Brim (22:27.171)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (22:42.03)
and people who waste your time will devalue your time and make your effective hourly rate plummet. So I was like, how am I gonna find out? How am gonna figure out how do I best vet this potential client and maybe say no, or look, if I'm not that busy, maybe I'll just jack up my price so if they pay it gladly, at least I'll be compensated for my pain in the butt time.

Christian Brim (23:09.741)
Yes, I think what you said is good wisdom there, that it's time and money, because they are connected on some level for most entrepreneurs. I think that you can end up with financial freedom, but no time freedom. And what's

what's great about having time freedom if you don't have any money to spend, right? So they're joined together. It is important to consider both because you need both to really be, to have a business that's working for you, right? The worst case scenario, like you said, is that you end up with neither, neither time freedom nor financial freedom. Like that's the worst case, but

you absolutely can get there very quickly. That's one of the risks of having a business versus working for someone else is that you can put yourself in a hole and that you couldn't get into as an employee, right? Cause they're always going to send you a paycheck and you can only work so much time. you know, you, but your situation and other entrepreneurs, you said a $10 million.

business and $11 million in expenses, that's real. Like people end up in a situation where they are losing money. I think that, I think as a business owner.

I don't define things. I don't define what you're describing as brand, right? I do now, but I didn't for a long time. And I think that if someone approached me about like, we want to work with you on your brand and your brand strategy, I'd be like, yeah, I don't have that problem. Right. But I did. Right. But I didn't phrase it that way. So

Christian Brim (25:20.791)
My question to you is, do you have trouble lining up that you're a brand strategist with what their perceived need is?

Rob Genovesi (25:34.991)
Yeah. I mean, look, that's the million dollar question when you're building a business is, what's the message you're putting out there? What's the very unique solution you're providing to a very specific problem, to a very specific person? That's brand differentiation. That's what makes you different. We largely see people enter a profession that they have had the deep seated problem. They've solved it, they've succeeded, and now what do they do?

Christian Brim (25:50.841)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (26:04.736)
Now I'm going to become that. I'm the person who was a million dollars in debt and I turned it around and now I built a very successful business and I can show you how to do the same thing too. It's that kind of thing. And so in my struggle for profitability, in my struggle to be a graphic designer and sell design profitably, that's what I overcame through strategy.

Christian Brim (26:06.328)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (26:30.424)
When I said early on, when I solved Lou's problem, I didn't just go, hey, brand strategy, that's it, I'm a brand strategist. No, I kept taking clients for websites and a little bit of design, but it was really website business. And I was solving their business challenge because that's the challenge I had. And so I was helping that and they were getting success. Now I turned it around on me and I'm like, okay, now I'm making more money per hour because so, so number one, what happens? Number one, I can charge more because I'm solving a

Christian Brim (26:46.733)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (26:58.415)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (27:00.462)
problem and I have evidence to back it up. Number two, no scope creep. Now I shouldn't say no scope creep. Very little scope creep because when you establish, what I discovered is when you establish the strategy and the design executes on the strategy. So if I say, here's the strategy, Christian, you're like, yeah, that's it. Rob, you nailed it. That's the strategy. That's what we're looking to do. And then I go, okay, I'm going to return to you with designs that execute on the strategy.

Whereas before, if I go, hey, what do you think about this? And you're like, man, I like this, I don't like that. Can you make this more blue or make the logo bigger? Can you nudge this over here until you think it's the pretty picture you imagined for your business? And how can I fight that subjectivity? The answer is I can't. And that's what designers are up against. And that's what I was looking to solve. Going from, I charge $50 an hour to I'm making $7.50 an hour because of ScopeCreep. And so I would establish the strategy, get your agreement on it, and I'd be like,

Now I framed the design. Whatever I come up with, this design executes on the strategy that we agreed on. Now when you look at it, and this was what I was finding, clients were going, yeah, yeah, that's it. So I made the connection for them. I virtually eliminated scope creep. I was selling strategy first, then design. That was my mantra. And so the ability to be able to do that,

is now what I'm selling to a lot of people is that, look, you can be profitable. Look, again, I'm not saying I'm gonna make your six figure business a seven figure business necessarily. I can, but that's not what I'm selling. What I'm saying is this, if you're a small business owner and you're struggling for profitability, I forex my revenue in just a couple of months by changing a few things and not increasing my time. And that's problem I'm solving is,

Christian Brim (28:51.352)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (28:54.68)
People who own small businesses don't necessarily want a big business, they just want a profitable one.

Christian Brim (29:01.327)
I love that. I, it, reminds me of a conversation I had this, uh, this is today's Monday. So it was last week, uh, with a, um, creative that he does, uh, podcasts. He does the, the, technical backend stuff, the production stuff, but his primary value is the promotion of the podcasts. Right. And he'd had success working directly with business owners.

And then his previous employer was an agency and they came to them and said, we want you to white label your service to our.

And I said, okay, do you understand how those are two different problems you're solving? And he just paused and I said, well, think about it this way. In your mind, it's the same thing because you're doing the same things, right? The deliverables feel the same because you're doing the same things, but you're solving two distinct problems for two very different people. One's an account executive at a marketing agency, right?

The other is the business owner themselves. And so I'm not saying you can't do both, but I think you need to be very, very clear and very aware that they are two distinct problems. Right. And, and I think that's what you're, you're describing as well is, and I preach on this show often that your job as an entrepreneur is to solve problems. It is not your skillset as a designer or a videographer or a marketer. If that's, that's not what an entrepreneur does.

Rob Genovesi (30:12.494)
you

Christian Brim (30:40.173)
an entrepreneur solves problems and being very clear on the problem that you do solve and the value of the solution that you provide. That's what being an entrepreneur is about. And I think branding is critical in that because in answering those questions, you develop a brand. Or you can.

Rob Genovesi (30:58.03)
Yeah. Well, know, out of the... I've seen a lot of pushback on this and a lot of people have different perspectives on niching down. And I've heard people say, you know, you don't niche down because you want to be able to broad stroke it and attract several different people because that's where you find, you know, that's where you find the quality and the amount of people you can serve or you find your... I don't understand it and that's why I can't explain it because here's what I believe.

You niche down because here's the thing, especially where I am in the New York tri-state area, the competition is fierce, I mean, you can just swing your arms and hit 10 different people who do what you do easily. So how do you find the person to work with? Well, if my pain is, like I said, if I'm sitting there and I'm a graphic designer and I'm like, man, you know, I'm getting these clients and I just...

Christian Brim (31:42.223)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (31:55.067)
Between the scope creep and and then being a pain analyst. It's almost it's too much stress. I'm not making enough money Let me go get a job and although it won't make me happy at least I'll have steady income and now the dream is dead But if I go hey listen What I do is I help graphic designers and creatives Become more profitable while decreasing the amount of time you put in Giving you the ability to own your own thing and call your own shots and have some semblance of freedom

Christian Brim (32:05.806)
Right.

Rob Genovesi (32:24.696)
That's the problem I saw. Would you be interested in that? Well, now that's very specific, right? I'm helping designers. I'm talking about small businesses. I'm talking about profitability. can help you do it. Well, that's a small segment of people. And so people go, well, now you just eliminated mid-sized businesses, large businesses, like all this kind of stuff. And I say, here's the thing. How many designers are out there that what I just said, they're like, man, I would love that. How many? Millions.

All I need is a few hundred to actually be a happy guy. And so if they hear that, they're like, he can help me, I'm calling him. Why? Because I have the precise solution for your precise pain and situation. And what happens is here's what I call it's niching down to broaden out. You niche down and then anybody outside of that niche, because now I become the go-to expert for helping graphic designers become more profitable in their freelance business.

Christian Brim (33:04.547)
Yes.

Rob Genovesi (33:21.154)
Then somebody else comes to they're like, I got a mid-sized business and I hear you doing this branding thing. Do you think you could help me? Why, yes, I can. So you start getting these people that are witnessing you become the expert in your branding industry, now saying, can you help me? And now I say, yes, I can. And I actually start to get the broaden out part if I want it. And now I can do private one-on-one brand strategy, which is a high ticket item to mid-sized companies that really have the budget for that.

You still get that business, but you got to be known for one thing first before you can be known for other things.

Christian Brim (33:58.221)
Yeah. And I would agree with you that, niching is the way to growth and profitability, but I don't think it's what most people niching is not what most people think it is. So I think, and this is the way I thought for a long time, I thought that it was, defining the target market.

In limiting terms, so it might be size of business. might be geography. It might be industry, right? And, so, you know, most business owners have approached niching from that lens as opposed to no, you niche around the problem. That's, that's how you niche. You say, as a, as a designer, I'm not working with anything but

this problem, is brand strategy. And then that becomes your filter. So yeah, I think we're saying the same thing. think if you approach niching with that mindset of, these demographics, that's how marketers have traditionally done it, it is limiting.

But you're and yeah, you might have more success if you limit that way, but you really haven't done anything to open up the upside. You you have the way you open up the upside is you solve the problem.

Rob Genovesi (35:34.103)
Yeah, so you bring up a great point. So if I say niching in a room full of various business owners, they'll think that too. Niching, the client, the specific client you serve. And you're right, that is one part of it. Then there's the specific problem which you're talking about. There's also your very specific solution. So when people come to me and they're like, I had a guy one time in networking a few years back, so financial guy.

Christian Brim (35:51.129)
Yes.

Yes.

Rob Genovesi (36:02.014)
I'm a brand stride, that's what I'm known for. I'm not known for anything else. I never talk about anything else. Now I have these other skills, but I do not talk about them because I wanna be known for the one thing. If people say, have you heard of Rob Genovese? Yeah, the branding guy, that's what I want. So a few years back, that's my world, right? That's it. This guy's financial guy comes to and he goes, hey, you know what? I need you to take your branding wisdom and I need help with my messaging. So what I wanna do is I'm gonna send you all these documents and I need you to rewrite them.

so that they sound more like my company than anything else. And I'm like, that's not what I do. He goes, yeah, yeah, no, no, I'll pay you well, but you'll be my guy for this, and I just need you to do that. I'll tell you exactly what to do, and you do it. And I'm going, that's not what I do. So here's the danger if you're a business owner. Now, I can write, right? I wrote a book, so it all tends to prove that I'm an author. I'm a speaker, I can speak, so you can hire me to speak to your team.

Christian Brim (36:48.889)
Right.

Rob Genovesi (37:00.236)
I'm a graphic designer. You can hire me. I can build your way. I can do all this. I don't. Why? Because I know the one thing I sell and that's all I sell because then I know how much time it takes. I'm the expert on it. It's my strength. It's what I want to be known for so that my name can easily be passed along to somebody else who has the same pain. And that way I don't have to keep reinventing a process.

for a different kind of problem. And that's what that guy was trying to get me to do. He was just saying, now kudos, I guess, to my brand, because he was like, I want you to do it. Like, you could have hired anybody. But I'm like, no, I don't, because that's not what I do. You niche your solution.

Christian Brim (37:38.243)
Right, right.

Christian Brim (37:44.771)
Yes. And I think for most business owners, that's the common problem. was certainly our problem for a long time is the business owner approaches it from their skill set. These are the things that I know how to do. Therefore, these are the things that I'm going to provide. that you run into all kinds of problems with that. For us, it was

It was what you would call scope creep where we, we topped out as a company because we were trying to do too many things for too many different types of people. Right. And we intentionally had to shrink, which as an entrepreneur is probably the worst thing that you can do is to say, I'm going to intentionally get smaller. But I realized that in order for us to go past that point, we had to have more focus.

and we could only do certain things and do them well. And that forces you to say, well, okay, it's not about my skills. Yeah, you can do it, but that's not what your paradigm is. The paradigm is what problem am I solving?

Rob Genovesi (39:01.902)
Yeah. You know, and that speaks to another thing that I've been talking about lately. Some people, you know, I saw this LinkedIn post last week and it was a very respected brand strategist who was basically, and maybe it was just a hook for his post, but he was saying, you know, mission and vision and values. If you hear a brand guy talk about all that, it's a bunch of crap. And I knew he was just hooking people in. He had a point that he was making. But the problem with that kind of thinking is people go, yeah, I knew if you're a business owner, you're like, yeah, I knew it. I don't need all that stuff.

And here's the reality of things like mission and vision. What you just talked about and where a lot of businesses I see head into trouble is they acquire skills, they acquire clients that are outside of their niche, and they start to get bigger, right? And what you're essentially doing is you're starting several companies. Oh yeah, we can do your video too, even though we're a copywriting agency. So now, if you didn't want an agency that's full service, now you got one.

Christian Brim (39:50.041)
Yes.

Rob Genovesi (39:57.869)
And if you don't want it, you got trouble because you're fighting against the very thing that you didn't want. So when I started my company, I got clients right away, but I established a vision for what I want the company. This is part of brand strategy. I established a vision for what I want it to be. Now this is no shade on anybody. I didn't want an agency. I didn't want the overhead of office space. I didn't want employees. I want a portable company. So when my wife and I go to Miami or the Keys or Nashville or wherever, I can take my business with me.

Christian Brim (40:25.839)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (40:26.092)
That was 11 years ago, just about. And so that's the kind of thing that allowed me a very precise direction so that I can build my brand, know what I'm building for, keep the message focused so that I can keep that reinforcement of the message that builds on itself over time so that I become the go-to person. You become the go-to person in your industry

because you're not saying, yeah, well, we do that, well, we do that, we do that, and you didn't even want it. So the mission is your purpose that drives you. Your vision is for what you want the company to be. So mission and vision, the values is how you operate. All these things, they're not necessarily brand in terms of what people think it is. They're more in line with your business, but that being part of brand strategy informs the rest of it so that you can build the business you do want.

Christian Brim (40:59.043)
Yes.

Christian Brim (41:20.835)
Yes.

Rob Genovesi (41:22.882)
that you are good at, that you can be profitable at, that you enjoy having. And those are the things that go into it for very specific reasons like cogs in a machine. They all have to work together to make the whole thing work.

Christian Brim (41:36.227)
Yes, I think what you're saying is spot on. think to me, whether, well, I think it all starts with intentionality, right? And I think the first intention you need to have, regardless of where you are on the entrepreneurial journey, is are you creating a business that serves your needs? Are you creating a business that gives you the financial flexibility

and the time flexibility that serves you as opposed to building something and it becomes the proverbial tail wagging the dog and you end up working more for less pay and it's sucking the life out of you. It starts with your intentionality and that is being intentional about what do you want? And you know, that's the whole profit first mantra is being intentional about you're going to make a profit. That's not optional.

And what that requires you to do is to say no to other things. And I think it plays back into what you described as in your book is overcoming that fear of having your own intention. yes, I can do what I want. I can build what I want. I can do it the way I want, as opposed to what somebody else said that it had to be.

Rob Genovesi (43:02.35)
You know, mean, intention was something I did have to figure out at a certain point because, you know, I learned a lot in networking and I was networking very heavily for a bunch of years. In talking with a lot of people, what I started with, what I was actually doing was I was building my brand. I wasn't necessarily looking to get clients, which sounds really weird. I was looking to attract more ideal clients. So was kind of a big experiment that I had, but I learned a lot from business owners who I would ask them, you know, so...

Why are you networking? What are you getting out of this? Or why are you doing that for marketing? And they'd be like, well, we're still, we're figuring that part out. And they never really knew why they were doing what they were doing. They were just doing what they saw others do. So the part about entrepreneurship, business ownership, is that if you're not intentional behind what you're doing, then you really don't know why you're doing what you're doing or what you really want.

Christian Brim (43:44.387)
Mm-hmm, yes.

Rob Genovesi (43:59.823)
I was, when I was in networking, I couldn't understand why people weren't getting business. I was getting business. I started networking July, until the third week of July in 2019, after I left corporate. I had clients within four months from networking, specifically, from that organization specifically, where other people like a year or two, they're like, I'm not getting any clients. And I'm like, how are you not getting clients? And I realized they didn't know what they were doing in networking. They were just saying, hey, I'm Rob. Nice to meet you, Christian.

Christian Brim (44:16.013)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (44:29.219)
Here I am. Yeah.

Rob Genovesi (44:29.474)
Hey, let's chat again sometime. And I was like, don't you have a strategy for that? So the intentionality behind everything we do is critical. mean, and we talk about marketing. here's where branding and marketing, people go, isn't branding marketing? Isn't marketing branding? No, it's not. Brand strategy is what you develop. So you develop the brand. Then you amplify that brand through your marketing channels.

Christian Brim (44:57.485)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (44:57.888)
And so, for instance, networking is a marketing strategy. Most people don't look at it that way. They don't know why they're showing up every week to their meeting or wherever they're going. They're just showing up, right? Shake some hands, pass some business cards, whatever they do. They don't know what to get out of it. So it doesn't work for them. And they go, networking doesn't work. And then there's the guy who's like, yeah, but if you optimize your funnel, man, funnels, you optimize your funnel, man, you can make, you know, five, six figures a month if you want, you know? And then some people go, I have a funnel, it doesn't work.

And there's another guy's like, your email marketing, your email list is gold. And if you email, you can make, and a person goes, why send out emails? I don't make anything, it doesn't work. So why are you doing it? Because there's a thousand ways to become successful in business. But if you don't intentionally choose your channel, understand what your end goal is. Fail your way there. Take action. What works? What doesn't work? Change it. Just tweak it, but stop.

Christian Brim (45:51.886)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (45:56.355)
with all the other stuff in a focused path. That intentionality is what could bring people success. Brand magnifies the return. So if you look at it this way, if a business, same business, same size, same revenue, same whatever, one has a strong brand, the other has no brand. The one without a brand has to spend more dollars in Facebook ads, has to spend more dollars in

Christian Brim (46:07.663)
Mm.

Christian Brim (46:21.782)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (46:25.514)
LinkedIn posting has to spend more dollars and all these things to get the return. Why? Because there's nothing out there that reinforces their presence. The same business with a brand, all they got to do is show up a lot of times and it's like, hey, I've seen you somewhere before, or I've heard about you, or haven't we met, or can we talk? I don't know why, but you seem to get me. Like what I heard you say, you seem to understand my exact problem.

Christian Brim (46:41.369)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (46:55.146)
So branding makes your marketing dollars go further faster. That's why I'm such a pro, that's why I do it because look, what is the number one reason small businesses go out of business? Lack of capital. No runway. Well, I discovered brand strategy because I was that guy. I had no money. I actually didn't leave corporate. They asked me to leave. I knew it was coming. It was before my time. I didn't have a lot of runway, but I hit the ground running.

with a brand and I got profitable business faster so that it didn't crash and burn inside a year or two. And that's kind of the thing we're talking about. That intentionality you're talking about, Christian, it is so crucial that if people actually understood and didn't have the fear of trusting their gut about how to move forward, they would be more successful.

Christian Brim (47:48.269)
Yeah, I heard it described by a small business consultant speaking to a group of videographers specifically. And she was saying, need to be known for something. It's like, you want to be that guy. She was a woman, but she said, you know, that guy of like, when someone says, man, I'm not, I need X, whatever that is.

they instantly, well, you need to talk to Rob, because that Rob's the guy that fixes that problem. Right. And that's, that's exactly what I mean, that's what brand is boiling it down is that people, people remember you associated fixing that problem.

Rob Genovesi (48:35.502)
Well, here's the other part of branding that solved the big problem that every most everybody has and that's selling Right people repulsed by the word if you're especially if you're a creative like you love the art You love doing the making the selling I don't really want to do that But you have to if you don't want to starve so the selling part I was the same way I'm the guy who couldn't speak to people so sell So if you're thinking you got to sell to somebody that means you got to get them to buy your thing now

Christian Brim (48:42.575)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (48:48.313)
right.

Rob Genovesi (49:06.104)
To get somebody to buy your thing, that's pretty tough to do, especially in this day and age. But think about it this way. If you don't have to sell, then you're good to go. So what do I mean by that? What Brand did for me and does for so many others is this. People buy when they're ready to, when they make a decision. Okay, so when do they make a decision? It's not in front of you and it's not after your pitch necessarily.

Christian Brim (49:27.492)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (49:35.599)
People make a decision by after they've got this pain for so long, they're like, I gotta do something about this, right? And they're like, I gotta do something about this. It hurts. But they muscle through, they power through, and months go by. I gotta become more profitable. It hurts so bad. I need to become more profitable. I'm gonna go out of business, then I'm gonna starve, I'm gonna lose my family, I'm gonna lose my house. At some point, they go like this. They make the decision when? It's 10 o'clock at night, they're laying in bed with their husband, their wife.

And they're like, that's it. Tomorrow I'm calling. It's just like you said, Christian. So brand lives in your mind, lives in the audience's mind. It gets burned into their brain and sits there until the quiet moments when somebody goes, the pain's too much. I need the solution. I'm calling. Now if your name doesn't pop up in their head, you got a weak brand. That's the magic of it. It lives there.

Christian Brim (50:14.649)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (50:29.743)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Genovesi (50:32.48)
when they're not in front of any of your marketing, they just know that, like you said, I got to call Christian. He's the man. He's the one to solve this. And that's when they call you and then people go, wow, this client just fell in my lap. No, no, it's not involved. Yeah. So I get on a sales call with somebody. They're like, yeah, I saw you. I heard you, whatever. And it's a half hour max.

Christian Brim (50:38.841)
Right.

Christian Brim (50:46.711)
Right. There's no selling involved. Right. They've, they've already sold themselves. Yeah.

Rob Genovesi (51:00.046)
And you know, what's your challenge? Why do you think you need branding and blah, blah, blah? I tell them my story. You know what I get nine out of 10 times? Oh, great. What's the next step? Great, I'll send you my payment link. We'll set up a time to get going. And because they've already been sold, I don't have to sell. I just have to solve their problem now. And that's the beauty of it.

Christian Brim (51:20.355)
Yes, Rob, I feel like we could talk for hours. Unfortunately, we don't have hours. You said that you had an offer for the audience.

Rob Genovesi (51:25.486)
For sure.

Rob Genovesi (51:31.372)
Yeah, so I do. I just released this book in December, Don't Fear the Brand. It's my first book, but the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I didn't know how this was gonna hit. It's not your average branding book. Like I said, Don't Fear the Brand addresses the one thing that's holding most businesses back. know this is big in the creative world. We're secure in our design, but we're not so secure in our ability to put ourselves out there.

And so for your audience, Christian, if they go to buildstrongbrands.com slash free book, all one word, they'll get a free copy of the ebook. There's also a bonus quick start brand strategy in there as well to help them get going. But this book was written not just for my own vanity, but really to get my journey out there because I know there's so many people out there who have that pain, who think they can't do it.

and they're wrong because if you had a video of me 15 years ago, you'd be like, you wouldn't be betting on me. That's for sure. So if they go to buildstrongbrands.com slash free book, they'll get a free copy of that book.

Christian Brim (52:38.329)
Thank you very much. Listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a message and we'll get rid of Rob. Until next time, ta-ta for now.

Rob Genovesi (52:53.038)
You