Barnaby Wynter is a marketing and brand development expert, speaker, author and founder of The Brand Bucket Company. Since 1985, Barnaby has helped clients develop their brands, make sense of marketing and harness the digital age where the buyer is in control of a brand if the business is not. Barnaby discusses the process of brand development and the crucial stage to enhance a brand: when a business becomes scalable. Barnaby also shares the Brand Bucket 6 step buying decision-making process. Build your business into one that will thrive after you leave, one with a developed brand. www.barnabywynter.com #sellingyourbusinesswithdavidking
Selling a business is the American dream, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the reward for years of hard work. Successful entrepreneurs make countless sacrifices in hopes that they would someday reap the benefits of their labor and live a new life of vacations, recreation, and prosperity.
You only exit your business once, so you should feel confident passing this milestone. A successful business exit reflects the preparation done beforehand. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
The owner of a privately held company has several alternatives on how to exit their business. In the absence of an exit strategy, events will inexorably dictate the final exit plan. A costly involuntary exit may be caused by death, disability, divorce, disagreement, or distress.
Selling Your Business with David King will help you take control of the sale process and make it positive one.
Barnaby Wynter is a marketing and brand development expert, speaker, author and founder of The Brand Bucket Company. Since 1985, Barnaby has helped clients develop their brands, make sense of marketing and harness the digital age where the buyer is in control of a brand if the business is not. Barnaby discusses the process of brand development and the crucial stage to enhance a brand: when a business becomes scalable. Barnaby also shares the Brand Bucket 6 step buying decision-making process. Build your business into one that will thrive after you leave, one with a developed brand. www.barnabywynter.com #sellingyourbusinesswithdavidking
Selling a business is the American dream, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the reward for years of hard work. Successful entrepreneurs make countless sacrifices in hopes that they would someday reap the benefits of their labor and live a new life of vacations, recreation, and prosperity.
You only exit your business once, so you should feel confident passing this milestone. A successful business exit reflects the preparation done beforehand. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
The owner of a privately held company has several alternatives on how to exit their business. In the absence of an exit strategy, events will inexorably dictate the final exit plan. A costly involuntary exit may be caused by death, disability, divorce, disagreement, or distress.
Selling Your Business with David King will help you take control of the sale process and make it positive one.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Selling Your Business with David King. I'm David King and I'm the author of Selling Your Business. Begin with the End in Mind and it's available on Amazon today we are joined by Barnaby Wynter. Barnaby, welcome
Speaker 2: David. Pleasure to be with you here today.
Speaker 1: Barnaby is the founder of Brand Bucket Company. Barnaby is [00:00:30] a speaker and an author and a practitioner in the area of brand development. So he's gonna help us win this area, building the value of a business enterprise through brand development. Uh, Bernab, I understand you're a big fan of Chelsea Football and fossils.
Speaker 2: Uh, those are both true. Uh, they are not made up at all, and in fact, we just, uh, ended the, uh, soccer season as you call it, uh, the [00:01:00] football season here in the uk. Um, I last, uh, Saturday and my team came forth, which is a lot higher than we anticipated at the beginning of the season. And, uh, we have a an FA Cup final to look forward to very soon as well. So very excited about that as well. So even though we are not allowed to go and see our team, it's still very exciting to watch it on television and the, the Fossil thing. Well, that's another story.
Speaker 1: We, we we're hoping we'd get our American football up and running here soon as [00:01:30] well here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of that come over to you after, after they, they sort of get to the tail end of their careers right after the money.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So tell us, uh, a about your career. Uh, you've completed university and, and got into marketing, brand development. Why don't you? Yeah, so I,
Speaker 2: I did psychology as a degree and then I, uh, did a postgraduate diploma in advertising and also went in marketing at the same time. And then I moved what into the advertising [00:02:00] world, Uh, primarily cuz that was the lead discipline in the marketing toolbox at the time. And I started at a relatively small agency in, uh, Central London. Was there 18 months having launched, uh, some worked ons and fiat and went to work for Vy Ma, one of the world's largest advertising agencies to launch Relaunched for Sierra and Grard. And then moved on through our go, uh, a catalog retailer here in the uk and li and [00:02:30] Ice Ice, uh, Icet Worldwide. And then from there went through a series of agencies, uh, through a, on a fast track career before becoming the youngest manager director of a top 200 advertising agency in 1999. And there I launched and worked with, uh, a number of American firms, but e-trade being the main one.
Speaker 2: Uh, we'd help them get to 3 million customers in the US and then decide to come to Europe and use us as an agency. So that was great news. So I bought in to, to do that primarily, uh, bought that company in 2001, [00:03:00] just, uh, eight weeks before September the 11th. And of course, the impact of, uh, people flying airplanes into those buildings in New York was, was profound for, for all of us, and certainly impacted my business. So in 2002, we, we gathered everyone together and said, Okay, what do we do next? And we decided to come up with a formula for marketing success because really we were sitting there as practitioners thinking not a, not a lot is working anymore. Advertising's not really working, and the aren't used [00:03:30] to and broadcast are certainly not working. And this online thing hasn't quite taken a hold yet and isn't really working well for people.
Speaker 2: And exhibitions don't work and direct marketing doesn't work. So we decided to come up with a formula for marketing success. So 25 of us embarked on a se six month journey to do just that. Uh, that job was completed seven years later in late 2008, 2009, um, by which time it became obvious and with another recession and outdoor [00:04:00] step that we should, or I should move, uh, the formula for marketing success that we developed to the cloud. So we spent a year moving, uh, out of effectively a very large office in central London, getting cloud based. And in 2010 I went out on my own. And today I work with five to seven corporates a year, fundamentally changing their systems and processes. So they're all marketing led and very much building the brand, helping, uh, [00:04:30] leaders, business leaders. So I mentor 16 business leaders at the moment. I speak professionally. I spoke to over 15,000 companies worldwide now about how marketing's fundamentally changed and the role of marketings changed and the importance of brand has changed. And I write books, as you said, and just generally having a great life at the moment.
Speaker 1: So brand development, marketing, it's a, a broader concept than [00:05:00] advertising per se. Can you help people distinguish the terminology marketing, brand development,
Speaker 2: Advertising? Well, it's very, it's a great question. So, so I, I used the core, core of what I, uh, I developed was a thing called a brand bucket, which was developed in 1985 to launch. And,
Speaker 2: Um, we used that to really help us define what a brand was way back in 1999. And we came up with a very particular definition of brand. And [00:05:30] often people think it's a logo or a look and feel or something like that. It's absolutely not that anymore. So we define brand as every experience that affects the relationship between a product or its buyer. And what we mean by that is you can really only have a true sense of brand if you've actually purchased, uh, the, the, the product or service I you've exchanged time or money, which are broadly the same thing. Cause money is just a form of time. Uh, but the key thing about business is [00:06:00] you are trying to create relationships and relationships that are perceived by the buyer to be worth more than their relationship with the money they have in their pocket. And if you can do that and create every experience so that portrays this sense of a relationship that's worth more than the money in people's pocket, then people will give you the money in their pocket in exchange your product or service and marketing. So that's the definition of brand and marketing is the discipline of creating all of the experiences that affect the relationship between a product [00:06:30] or service and its buyer.
Speaker 1: Understood. Understood. Now, is it there a key point in the growth of a business when it's optimal to, to have a, a brand development consultation to a project to, to come in and at the right time build the brand? Yeah,
Speaker 2: At this stage, I, the reality is that you should be having that, that conversation right at the beginning of, of a business. [00:07:00] The challenge you've got is of course, that if, if a brand is defined by the number of commercial relationships you've got, then you probably don't have any at the beginning when you start a business and therefore probably don't have very much money. So what tends to happen in the business life cycle is that people, they go through an investment mode, uh, they eventually then, uh, sell fund by starting to sell things, then eventually they break even. And uh, at that point they continue on through the growth [00:07:30] curve and effectively start to plateau out at which point they probably got what's constru construed as a lifestyle business. Even then, they're probably the dominant force, the founders, the, the product, the service are probably the dominant force in in, in selling itself.
Speaker 2: If it's not selling itself at that point. So if you've got a shop or, or you've got a particular product, it's probably your to be selling itself, but you, there's a limitation to the amount of growth you can get from that. And then what you, for some businesses in the UK it's [00:08:00] only about one in 1700 businesses they recognize. They built a system and process that has scalability attached to it. And the point at which you need to scale, that's when you really need a brand because you as a, as a business owner or a leadership team or a board, can't get out and make every relationship happens. So what you therefore need is the brand to, to do all the heavy lifting on the relationship building. And then that's the key point when you need, need a brand. So as you, as you turn the curve and then really start to [00:08:30] go for exponential growth, that's when you absolutely need a brand.
Speaker 2: Clearly, if you've, if you've built one from the beginning, that that job is a little bit easier. But my experience has been that, that you can get away without a true, a true brand in the sense up until the point where you're looking for scalability. Of course then if you are heading towards exit, then you need the brand because the whole essence of s exit is you are going to leave the business I did with a bit of a bit of cash and, and the opportunity to do something [00:09:00] else with your life. But so therefore you have to leave something behind and the thing you leave behind is your brand. Um, sure you leave the operations, the products or services, but the thing that investors are looking for, what's your traction with the marketplace? Where are your commercialized relationships coming from? Cause that's the thing that they're going to grow and make money from.
Speaker 1: And how, how do founders, uh, who reach this point of scalability and need to and make an investment in their brand, how does it typically come to their attention? [00:09:30] What makes them have this realization that they need to invest in their brand?
Speaker 2: I, I think, and it certainly was my own personal experience, and and from observation, what happens is you find that you are, you, you have this sense of busy fall about you, you are getting busier, you are working harder, you're probably even selling more products and services, but you profitability isn't really shifting and you are getting progressively more exhausted. [00:10:00] And you are putting in, I i I got to a stage where I was, I was put easily putting in 17 hours a day in my business and it really wasn't growing in terms of profitability. It was growing in size, it was growing in number of clients. It was growing in, in, in many aspects, but it wasn't growing in profitability. And that's the time when you sit there and think, actually I've gotta, I've gotta think differently. I've gotta find the machine that's going to help drive the growth without me having to work more hours. Cause you've linked yourself with the systems and processes, [00:10:30] so you've gotta exit your yourself from the systems and processing in Michael Gerba style and you've gotta exit from that. And the legacy that you leave behind has got to be the brand to keep your, your value set going forward.
Speaker 1: Gotta have a brand, gotta have something that you're leaving that's gotta, the business has gotta be able to thrive without the founders. Can you describe for us the, the, the process, the brand bucket process of brand development?
Speaker 2: Sure. Thank, [00:11:00] thank you for asking. I mean, so at a very simple level that there, if, if, if you take the premise that a business is a series of commercialized relationships, the first thing you absolutely must do is define the key constituent elements of that relationship. So the very first thing you must absolutely do is come up with a value proposition for your business. And when I talk about a value proposition, I don't mean a set of fancy words that are marketing, uh, consultants written for you and it's [00:11:30] been nicely crafted and you frame it and put it in the front page of the annual report and stick it in a frame on the boardroom and never look at it. What I'm talking about is really defining four sets of, of, of values, which all begin would be fun enough. And the first set of values you've gotta do is you've gotta define your your behavioral style, what's your style of doing business?
Speaker 2: Because it is very unusual to have anything that's unique. In fact, the the concept of the USP we found died in 1995 and there is [00:12:00] no such thing as USP anymore. So anybody who talks about that is misguided, um, and that, I mean by that unique selling point or a unique selling proposition, they don't exist anymore. So you've gotta have a unique style because you are probably selling something that's broadly similar to, to what other people are, are offering. The second set of of values you've gotta define and what are your benefits? So how do you benefit people? Now business founders are brilliant at communicating the features of their business. Um, you would only [00:12:30] have to look at your own website to realize that it's covered in features, but actually I, as a buyer, I'm looking to, to understand what you are gonna do for me.
Speaker 2: So you have to communicate benefits and that's another set of values. The third set of values, and I I'm ties in with with the title of this this podcast is you gotta begin with the end in mind, the Stephen go, uh, thing, which is, and to do that you ought to define what you want people to believe about your business after they've interacted with you. Because what happens then [00:13:00] is when you're creating marketing, you can charge whether anything that you are producing is gonna drive the value set that you want your, your buyers to have. And finally, the final be is what you wanna be famous for a value, a set of values, which really combines all the things I'm talking about. So that's your value proposition, what your behavioral style is, what your benefit hierarchy is, what your, what you want people to believe about you and ultimately what you wanna be famous for.
Speaker 2: So that's one part of the relationship. The second part of the relationship is in who you are targeting. [00:13:30] And again, there is a tool I I was taught when I first came into the industry 30 odd years ago was demographics. Now demographics is a, is a, is a bit of a fraud. It's a, it's a pie that broadcast media slice up and tell you you're buying this slice of pie. They don't actually tell you you're buying the whole pie and you're gonna waste most of your money on 80% of people who are never gonna buy from you. You're just gonna buy the slice of pot. The reality is, and people are still using that today, if you, if you, [00:14:00] if you sign up for anything, it'll ask you what your, your, your name is, your age, your post code or your zip code. It'll ask you what your disposal, your income, and then that's, that's a demographic profile.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely useless, uh, in a modern day because what you really want to target is people's value set. What's their mindset? What's their attitude? So we use psychographic profiling as our profiling tool. So all you need to do is create a psychographic profile of your ideal prospect, how they think, how they feel, what [00:14:30] they believe in, what their experiences of your particular sector, your particular product, your particular service, what they're looking for, what they're seeking to achieve, what kind of life they wanna lead. That's a profile you have to design because now it's a journey. It's a journey of getting the value set of your ideal prospect to buy into the value set of your business. We buy from people we like. So that's gonna be a very simple thing to do. You've got the value set so you create your mind. And then I, I [00:15:00] use a, uh, a methodology called the brand bucket.
Speaker 2: It was created for SAR in 1985. It's been used on over 4,700 brands worldwide. I bought that methodology in 2001 from as, as part of the agency package that I bought. And that has essentially, uh, six steps, but they're, they're summarized in three core strategies. The first thing you've gotta do is you've gotta engage your prospect. So, and there's lots of ways of doing that. Um, you've gotta have [00:15:30] a strong brand icon. You've gotta create an imagery that the prospects that you've now defined psycho, like, because it's like them. And then once you've engaged them, you now then need to, to demonstrate your value. And the way you do that today is through communicating your benefits on everything and every, all your website, your online activity. And then what you need to do is run a test drive. So you need to get people to immerse themselves in your value proposition in some way, some form.
Speaker 2: Once [00:16:00] you've done that, and only once you've done that do they then buy Cause they go, That's fantastic. I really like what I'm doing. And if it's a good test drive and you take, try and take it away from them. And they go, No, no, you can't take it away. I've integrated it into everything I've done. And I said, Well, sorry, you, we've gotta take it away. We're not charity, we're not a not for profit. We can't give you this for free all of the time. So what we're actually going to do is, is take it away. And they say, You can't. You can't. And I go, Well, I don't have an, actually I do have an answer. And they go, Well what is it? What is it? And they go, Well, if you give us money, [00:16:30] we'll carry on this relationship that we've been giving you for nothing.
Speaker 2: And they go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, just, just, And they don't ask the price if you've got the test drive, right? So then they buy, and at that point, most marketing people run for the run for the hills or go to lunch. They kind of go, We, we've taken the suspect, we've turned them into a prospect. We've taken them from cold to warm to hot, We've given them to you, you've converted them. We are job done. Actually we've found during our research that actually the point when people buy is when [00:17:00] marketing should really kick in. And so the next, uh, and final phase is you've got to deliver on the promise that you've been doing it. And that needs to have marketing thinking on it. And again, you'll need to make it the, the experience of being an owner of that particular product service or a user of that product or service. Amazing. And there's lots of ways of doing that. And then ultimately what you've gotta do is look after the people who have spending money with you, using your product, using your service, you've gotta look after. And that's got to be on your marketing plan. You've [00:17:30] gotta communicate regularly. There's lots of ways of doing that. So the model is value proposition, psychographic profile, and link those two together through an engagement demonstration delivery strategy.
Speaker 1: That, that is an extensive process that you've just described there. And I, I find that development of a psychographic profile that sounds amazing, that, uh, that, that it's, the studies are [00:18:00] done that can develop the profile of, of psychologically who, what buyers are we looking for out there? And then to be able to target those individuals. Tell me about a little bit more about that. How do you, how do you develop this psychographic?
Speaker 2: Okay, so I I I I, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to let you into a little secret. It's not quite as difficult as you think. So I will, I will tell you how to do it to be fair because um, there is an art to, but, so this is something [00:18:30] we did in the appetizing world, often for our creatives. So what we would do is we would create a mood board of the kind of person that we wanted them to design the ads for, and we would take it in as part of the briefing process. And we say, The person we want you to write this ad for is on this board. Now what, what's, what the research, when we were researching this between, between um, 2002 and 2008, we discovered that of course we buy from people we like, David, it's, it's, that's an obvious [00:19:00] thing.
Speaker 2: But we found an extra dimension to that, that was a direct result of the digital economy, the knowledge economy, and the fact that there was so much choice. And we found that people not only buy from people they like, they buy from people who are like them. So in other words, if you go into a marketplace and there are four providers of the same, broadly the same products or service, the one you are most likely to buy from is the one that's kind of how you see yourself. So what we do is we go into organizations [00:19:30] and we get the people in the organization to describe who they would absolutely love to work with. And it's a very simple process. We just get them to get a pile of magazines and cut out all the words and pictures and stick them up on a sheet of paper of people they would love to work with.
Speaker 2: And it's an astonishing thing when you do it across an organization because you suddenly find this commonality of, of pictures and words that appear, um, even [00:20:00] though it's from entirely different magazines takes about an hour. And what you then do is ask people to describe them montage. And they say, Well, we want them to be adventurous, or we want them to be outdoorsy, or we want them to, to, to love crafting, or we love expensive things, or we love, they love, uh, fruity things or something. It's amazing. And what happens is if you then combine all of those, and there is a bit of a skill to that, I appreciate if you combine all of those profiles from insight into one profile, then what happens is if you [00:20:30] then make that the people you attract when they get to the organization, they go, I really like you because you are like me.
Speaker 2: Because what you've actually done is you've created a, a, a profile that's like the people who work there that make up the culture, the essence, and actually are designing the whole experience from a business point of view. It's a fascinating, uh, dimension. And we, we, many years ago, we threw it into a three day, uh, masterclass where we did all this as a filler. And at [00:21:00] the end of it, when people wrote the report, they said, um, they said the best part of that was doing the understanding who we really wanna attract to our, our party, our business party. It was, it was fascinating. So that became part of the, of, of the, the formula. Um, now once you've got one, of course, once you know the type of person, you can then use your marketing in a very particular way. You can use it as a, don't talk to me at all.
Speaker 2: Because if, for example, [00:21:30] let's, let's pick up if, if for example, people are adventurous and outdoorsy, right? If all of your advertising is adventurous and outdoorsy, people who don't like adventure and don't like outdoorsy will not contact you cuz they go, That's not really for me, it's not really my stars. It's not really what I think. And and you probably exclude loads and loads of tire kickers who would normally contact you, Tell me what you do, tell me how you can make a difference, and you go, fantastic. And go, Oh yes, thank you very much. I think I'll go and buy over there. [00:22:00] And you waste a lot of time in your organization. Now when you are building scalability, you need to be very efficient in bringing in large numbers of people, but they're always as close to being the right kind of person as you can. So you can, you can build the machine so it converts them and you can spend all of your delivering great products and services. So the more filtration you can, the better
Speaker 1: It. It sounds like this process must be extra challenging when we're, when we're doing it across [00:22:30] borders or in multiple countries at, at once. Have you worked on projects that are multinational?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, very much so. And in fact, uh, I, there are, there are clearly differences culturally and certainly when, when, uh, when we, when we launch Detroit, the tried cross the globe, you know, one of the, one of the the, the challenges we had, uh, and, and, and Chrys Ackers who used to run it there was, was [00:23:00] ex ex Vietnam War vet. So the culture there was very, very, very, uh, direct in that sense. So of course, um, they said, We don't all this to work in the us just run it in the uk. And we just looked and went, Well, that's just not gonna work in the uk. And uh, and they said, Well try it. And we tried it cause it didn't work. So we then got to, to do it all over again. Um, quite clearly there are, I I I I I've spoken internationally in, in Iran and they, they, they have all sorts of, we can't show, [00:23:30] show naked flesh.
Speaker 2: They can't use women in advertising. And actually where they're at is much more about the product narrative rather than it's its benefits and things like that. So yes, there are nuances. Um, I've had, um, I've shot international commercials, what our take lives nice, for example. And when we, when we did the pre-production meeting and we had all of the marketing directors from from 19 countries, we discovered that of course if you, if you wardrobe somebody in a black shirt, that doesn't go down so well in Italy. [00:24:00] It's just, you know, because there's the black shirts. And so, so we, we were showing more. The guy said, Look, we can't really, And then we had, we, we found there were different glasses and people drunk drank and cause the way people drink cold tea and Southern Europe is entirely different to the way they don't drink it in the UK cold tea. We just don't drink cold tea. So it was a whole thing. So yes, absolutely. But what's really exciting about lot is if you get the people who understand the market dimensions and then you create the psychographic [00:24:30] profiles, it fixes itself. The value proposition is always the same, but the psychographic profile just shifts. And then what you can do is design the nuance, the big idea, the big brand idea to the individual markets. It's a really neat tool actually for that. And uh, and we have done that in the past
Speaker 1: As the son of the South. Uh, it is amazing that you Brits can drink so much tea without enjoying the best tea of our sweet, cold, sweet tea.
Speaker 2: [00:25:00] But don't I, it's interesting you should say that, but don't forget what our experience of cold tea is, right? It, it's normally halfway down a cup, right? And it's got like a scummy, milky on fatty surface on it, right? And it's just about to go down the sink and get washed up, right? It's our experience of cold tea. So it's a heck of a mind shift to ask people say, actually here's the thing, you can make [00:25:30] it. Yeah. Having said that, I launched, I launched Snapp here in the UK as well. Um, and you know, for those that try it and love it, of course it's, it's, it's as good a good as soft drink as anything else, you know? So,
Speaker 1: So you've mentioned a few of the bigger projects you've, you've been on. What, what are, what are your favorite big projects you've handled in your career?
Speaker 2: Um, so I, I think I, and that's, that's a variety. I I have a, a little p for charity work. So [00:26:00] I've rebranded, uh, three of the top 10, uh, charities here in the uk. My favorite one is, uh, uh, a charity called Mary Cancer Care, as was called Ben, now called Mary. And they, they, their, their brief in in 2002 was, you know, should we make our nurses famous? And we have this funny little daff door thing, and actually what, uh, what we went, we went back to them, created the Valley proper and said, You must use the DAF door was a, as an icon. And nowadays [00:26:30] if you, if you walk anywhere in Britain, it would be unusual for you not to walk around and see somebody with a dil attached to their bag or their lapel or something like that as a, as a, as an icon of the fact that they're supporters of that particular charity.
Speaker 2: And that, that makes you feel very proud. I'm really proud of the work we did for trade. Cause we got from north to 25,000 customers in 18 months. 1.7 billion pounds on, on, on reserve, I was told. Um, again, by absolutely rigorously running the ram bucket, uh, program [00:27:00] for, for them. Um, so that, that's a great thing. I've launched VoIP, I've launched avatars, um, all great friends on the technology side. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I've got some, some big wins. Um, uh, and I've even launched a, a, a gay bank as well in the past. So it's, it's, and that was, that was a whole experience that, uh, that I never forget. So, so again, at a time when, when, you know, the, the [00:27:30] whole um, diversity thing was just, just breaking out at that time. So that was a really challenging project. Well, so I liked the challenging thing.
Speaker 2: I launched washing detergents the way into a market where people can't launch another washing detert. So, um, there's a, there's a detert in the US called Tide, which I think has really glowy or used to have very glowy packaging where we, we, that was adopted for a brand called RA here in, in Europe. And I launched that across Europe and everybody said, you can't do that cause there's personal and there's a, and you know, they dominate. [00:28:00] And we did that. I've launched catalog Greek retails, uh, launched a cath one, which is a big French retailer, sports retailer into the uk. Again, you know, there's a thing with the French in, in the uk so, you know, lots and lots of projects where you just think actually, and you know what David, I feel very privileged as a brand bloke because I get to walk down the high street, you know, I can see a bit of myself on, you know, on on shop windows and over doors and on people's people carrying bags [00:28:30] with my, with my work on it. It's quite a, quite a rewarding career to be a brand bloke to do Fair.
Speaker 1: Well the, this podcast is about selling your business and it's indispensable, or, or rather, the founders of a business need to be dispensable. The the business must be able to thrive after the founders. And, and nothing is, is better to do that than, than having a, a brand, a solid brand. But how often [00:29:00] do you see businesses, uh, down in the the middle, mid-market, a small businesses, they feel like we can't afford to invest into our brand and they, you know, they may or may not ever reach that size, that critical mass to become something that could be passed along. How small can you scale down and help a business to develop their brand?
Speaker 2: Oh, so, so, so my mentoring, you know, I I, for obvious reason, I developed a poor portfolio [00:29:30] of services where I can service those, those people. So my mentoring, I mentor business leaders who are saying, my ambition is to get to a size. And actually even when I'm sitting down with them and there's only three or four in the, in in the organization, I'm immediately saying, systemize, create processes, Put it in a manual, document it, measure it, link it to your business plan, link it to your KPIs, make everything. Cuz at some point, at some point you'll need to sell it. And [00:30:00] they go, Okay, we've no intention of saying, I said, No, no, no, no, you need to sell it to your next cto. You need to sell it to your next fd. You need to sell it to an investor who's gonna give you a chunk of money.
Speaker 2: And actually an interesting story, which many years ago we were approached by a VC and they said, What we'd like you to do is we'd like to take our, our pitch documents and we put out to the investor community and we'd like you to brand them. Yeah. And we said, Well what does that mean? They said, you know, tar it up, make it look fancy. So [00:30:30] we went, Okay, but we can't really do that. And they said, No, no, just do do what you do, but do you know, don't, don't cost an arm and leg. So, so we would create a value proposition and all this sort of thing. And we, we, we, we design the documents and we give it back to them. And then we, they invited us to lunch after about 18 months. I said, We've invited a lunch for a very particular reason.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, What's that? I said, Well, so what, what you haven't appreciated is we've been split testing your document against the one we've been doing for the last 15 years. Oh, [00:31:00] okay. That's interesting. And we've discovered that we are getting four times more investors using your document and releasing 50% less equity, um, for, for the deals because of your document compared to the one we've been using. And what we'd like you to do is, uh, do all of our proposals. And we went, Okay, how many is that? And they said, We do, you know, 30 a year and you know, it was, it was a substantial, substantial win for us. It [00:31:30] was just prior to, uh, to the, uh, 2009 recession <laugh>. So we never got any, So, and by the time, by the time wed come outta that, I, I, I'd, I'd moved on and, and cloud based myself.
Speaker 2: So there is absolute evidence that even at the small scale, even at the growth scale, if you can tell the story via a brand rather than via a very engaging founder, you're much more likely to get investment. [00:32:00] You're much more likely to get a buyer because they're buying us something and actually a brand, until people realize a brand is an asset of the business, a core asset, they, they say that when Ogre made was sold to wpp, there was a 60 million pound figure in the balance sheet, which said for the brand name 60 million pounds, though, just think about that. Yeah. Um, and uh, [00:32:30] and, and, and this member came around and said they, they paid six, WB paid 61 hour. Whether that's true or not, it was just, you know, just a concept of you must see brand as an asset and it's a really valuable asset if you are selling a business because it allows you the founder to exit and leave your values. Cause that's what we would do. We asking you what your value set is and putting it into the brand, um, leaving your values in the business in the way that, you know, if you went to a Chanel or a Gucci [00:33:00] or, or you know, or any of these, these big brands, the, the, the values of the founders are still in those businesses through the brand.
Speaker 1: How often are you brought in on projects like the one you've just described where the, the customer is an investor and you're, you're trying to help a company pitch itself and raise capital?
Speaker 2: Uh, um, I'm working on three right now, <laugh>, So, so, uh, uh, out outta the, out, uh, outta the 16, [00:33:30] uh, mentoring, I'm working on three specifically right now. One in the, uh, uh, one in the hearing industry. Um, so it's a piece of software that will, uh, will manage, um, the noise going into your ears cuz we're gonna, because of headphones, we're gonna create a, a whole generation of deaf people, um, very, very soon as they do it with free software. Another one for uh, uh, uh, a problem solving escape room based business where we're going into to, to race funding and that in September. So [00:34:00] I'm currently working on, on both presentations right now because actually even just just me coming in and over putting a, a brand bucket slide all over your, your pitch presentation fundamental change in this, um, because of the language changes and when people read it, they go, Okay, I get why people wanna buy this.
Speaker 2: I get why lots of people wanna buy this. I get that if I give you money, I can see that if you do what you are going to do, there's gonna be a return for me. I might even get my money back. And, you know, and I love what you are trying to [00:34:30] do, really exciting to, to, to, So actually rather weirdly, more often than, than than not, I prefer to, uh, to, to create campaigns than, you know, do stuff on, on, on online and build amazing online experiences and things like that. But, uh, you know, if if people gimme the the money, David, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll do the work
Speaker 1: That's crucial to keep in mind that we, we always need to be marketing no matter whether we're working with, uh, end [00:35:00] customers or investors or, or exactly who our business is targeting. Um, yeah,
Speaker 2: There was, there was, I, I was, once I did, I re I've rebranded a number of law firms and one law firm had used to have these seminars and they said, Oh, would you like to come to this one? We've got one of the leading, uh, investors, uh, guys that get investment for businesses coming to speak to us. And the place was packed through standing room only there was 80 chairs. And then we were standing around the walls and the guy stood and he said, so he said, So, um, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna reveal to [00:35:30] you the best kind of investor, um, and the way to get the best kind of investor. And we're all there, all we're all poised with our notebooks and our pens out and all that sort of thing. We're all poised. And he said, So what you've gotta do is from day one, you've gotta sell stuff and everyone they're gonna sell, you know, we're all blindly writing and gotta sell stuff to go look at that.
Speaker 2: You go, Well, he's joking. He said, The best investors you'll ever get, other people who buy things from you. He said, because they give you money in [00:36:00] exchange for your product or service, and they don't take any equity, they just take the product or service. He said, too often, I'm with startup businesses, early stage business and they're giving their work their products away to get market traction. He said, That's absolute nonsense. You say you've got to sell on day one. He said, because the best investors you'll ever get are the people who buy from you. And of course, if you take that thinking, you've got to apply that same thinking, [00:36:30] that same energy that you're trying to get a, a, a prospect to buy from you. You've gotta apply that same thinking to an investor, to a new employee, to another board member, to uh, uh, a company that's gonna buy your wholesale company out of you.
Speaker 2: Why, why people go into this kind of rational, Oh, I've gotta give you all the charts and how clever we are and all that sort of thing. It's still saying, No, actually I'm gonna treat these buyers in the same way as I treat the person that walks up to the counter and says, Can I buy such and [00:37:00] such? And that's an art that seemingly just gets lost along the way, David, when, when, when, when people are trying to sell or, or, or exit their business, there's something go into this kind of, I've got to, I've gotta show how clever I've been in building this business. No, no, no, no, no. You've gotta you've gotta convince the person that's giving you money, they're gonna get more money out of you. You've, you've reached as far as you're gonna, it might be an age thing, it might be an energy thing, it might be a inability to to scale thing. It might be loads of reasons why, why, [00:37:30] why you are, you are exiting. That's irrelevant. You've gotta tell the story if somebody's gonna buy you. And doesn't matter whether they're buying, you know, chocolate bar the counter or where they're buying your business, the rules are the same.
Speaker 1: If one of your children, were gonna start a business today, and once they obviously begin with the end in mind, build it into an enterprise with enough value that can go on, survive and [00:38:00] thrive after they depart, what one bit of advice would you give them?
Speaker 2: Uh, so, so um, all business propositions are a journey
Speaker 2: And it is an imperative that they start out with a clear destination and they focus on that destination and [00:38:30] that destination alone. I am entirely taken, um, by Kennedy walking announcing 1961 that they were, that America was gonna put man on the moon by 1969. Um, or by the end of the, by the end of the end of the, uh, the decade. Um, and some in, in 62. He's walking, he's [00:39:00] walking around Kennedy's Space Center and he, he engages with the janitor of, of, of one of these things. What, what do you do? And the Janus says, I put man on the moon. It's, it's, it's all in, it's, it's, there's a big Clint in, in the White House of this, this particular conversation. In fact, if you look on the internet, Obamas, there's a picture of Obama shaking hands with the janitor in front of this story.
Speaker 2: The destination was clear, we are going to put man on the moon by the end of the decade. Right? [00:39:30] And I would give my children the advice that they must define the destination. Um, and then obviously go start with where they're starting. Because what I often find with business is they just start a business and some, some hit paid and, and start to grow and they get really big and then they, and then they sell. But most struggle, cause they haven't, they're not working towards a destination. So they can't judge and they can't judge whether what they're actually doing, the system [00:40:00] or the process that they're building is going to get them to the destination. So I would want my children to say, okay, and I I, in my methodology, I have a one number, which is I, I I get business owners to sit down and tell me how much money they would like in the bank in five years time.
Speaker 2: And, and then they say, so they might say, Well, I'd like 5 million. Great. Okay, and what are you selling at the moment? I'm selling nothing. Okay, so what are you planning on? So I'm gonna sell these items that a dollar up a to a piece, [00:40:30] and I'm gonna do, um, and I'm gonna make a five, 5 cent net profit in it. You go, Okay, you're gonna, this the machine you've gotta build to sell enough of those to get your 5 million is, is massive. Can you do that? They go, Okay, now I don't wanna do that. Okay, so, and I I sit with business and I move them from selling time for money to programs for 50 $50,000 for a hundred thousand dollars. And do you know, what if they sell five in a year? And [00:41:00] all of the energy and all of the effort goes into telling that story and building relationships with just, with people who will spend a hundred K with them and they set it five times in a year.
Speaker 2: They've got themselves a half a million dollar business. I I'm not into this be a millionaire stuff and stuff. I just go, Okay, what's the process of doing that? What's the process? So I would sit with my children and say, Okay, what's the destination? What's gonna be the outcome? If you do this for five years, what's your outcome? And if they [00:41:30] can't tell me, I'll say until you can tell me that we can't say, where are we right now? What do we have to do? What do we have to build? What, how do we, how do we get the rockets to go into space? How do we get to the moon? How do we find a way of taking off the rocket and getting another little machine down onto the moon and landing and stuff like that. It's, it's, uh, they, I, um, on a complete aside, I i I, I don't know if you, you get for all mankind on Apple tv, it's a series about [00:42:00] the fact that the, the Russians get to land on the moon first and it completely messes up. The whole American psyche is fascinating.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. I've heard of it. It's
Speaker 2: Such a great a been completely locked into it. Uh, uh, you know, I'm a, I'm a small boy with, with pictures and Apollo Rockets models in my, my bedroom. I always was so absolutely love it. But it's all about, about how, how, um, it starts with first landing on the moon and it turns out to be a Russian. And of course, America is [00:42:30] in, in tail spin from that point on. The whole series is is about, uh, about the impact on, on the American psyche, that they weren't the first to get from me because it undermined the whole, the whole destination piece. It fascinates me. Fascinating. Um, so that will be my advice.
Speaker 1: I will definitely check out that, that show, that program raw
Speaker 2: Mankind on Apple tv. You'll absolutely love
Speaker 1: It. Okay, well, Barna b I am grateful for the, the, all the [00:43:00] modern technology that allows me to bottle up a a bit of your spoken wisdom here today. Where can where are you gonna be speaking again next?
Speaker 2: So I, Yeah, so unfortunately as a professional speaker, our industry has been decimated by the, uh, the, the covid, uh, pandemic. So there are no live events at this moment in time. So in reality, if you were to type in Barnaby Wynter into the, into Google w y nt, you'll see my name pop [00:43:30] up at various online events, which, which people are marketing. Um, I've got, I've got a couple of conferences coming up in the autumn now. I've been doing a lot of, uh, networks. I've done a few, uh, I'm, uh, but they're all predominantly UK based, to be honest, David. So I haven't, I haven't at this moment in time, I'm, I'm actually in conversation with the, uh, uh, the, the, uh, trade body here in, in, in the uk the government trade to, to get me out, uh, internationally. Uh, and, and America's certainly on, [00:44:00] on the list for that.
Speaker 2: Um, I've not actually spoken in America. Um, I've spoken in, in in many places, but I haven't, I've come to America as yet and I'd love to. I love America them many times. So, so that will be fantastic. Um, so just check me out online and, and see if you can pick things up. There are, um, if, if, if you search harder, there's, there's actually quite a few of my keynote that people have recorded on Zoom and are now live on, on on the inter, and that's where I talk about how marketing's [00:44:30] fundamentally changed fact that the digital economy, the new the new age means that you've got take an entirely different approach to your marketing. It's gotta be insightful. And I talk about challenges, behavior has changed and all sorts. So there's some good keynote out there on, on, on YouTube, I think.
Speaker 1: Have you got any new books or articles coming out soon?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've got, uh, so I'm working on book number two, book number one, the brand Bucket mate, Martin, where [00:45:00] it's done really well. Um, and I'm just, I've written 70,000 words and I'm unhappy with about 59,000 of them. So I'm, I'm currently rewriting, um, as, as all technicians tend to do, they're not quite satisfied. Um, so I'm kind of rewriting the style of, of, uh, of the book right now. I'm, I'm aiming to, to start getting that two publishers in, in, in the autumn and hopefully have that in market, uh, in in 2021. And that will be, I'll [00:45:30] be supporting that within the speaking as well. It, it, it embraces what I'm saying in my keynotes right now, but it's, it's gonna be designed to allow business leaders to just sit back the fine glass of whatever they, their choice of drink is cold tea if you want. That's up to you. Um, and uh, and, and just sit back and go, okay, I I, this framed what's going on around me and I understand why my marketing's not working, um, and therefore I need to do something about it. That's the ambition for the next book. Um, uh, and [00:46:00] I'm very excited about it. It has to be said.
Speaker 1: Well, I can think of plenty of businesses. I've, I've worked with that at the early stages to help plan them to build something, uh, that they can sell that will be a saleable business. And, and, and so many of them would've benefitted from your programs. So I hope that you're absolutely, your wisdom spreads and, and people follow you here. You get more followers here in the United States.
Speaker 2: That will be fantastic. That will be fantastic. I would, I would like [00:46:30] that.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining me, folks. Barnaby Wynter, internationally acclaimed speaker, author and practitioner. And with that, thanks again Barna. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: It's a real pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And with that, folks, I'll sign off. We will see you next time on Selling Your Business with David King. Be well.