Latest / The Action Catalyst / Branding Queens, with Kim Rozdeba (Marketing, Promotions, Customer Relations, Olympics)
Transcript
- 0:20Stephanie Maas: Hi, hello. So you know, I'm in Nashville.
- 0:23Where are you?
- 0:24Kim Rozdeba: I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- 0:26Stephanie Maas: Oh beautiful. My folks went to the Winter
- 0:29Olympics. They are back in...
- 0:31Kim Rozdeba: '88.
- 0:31Stephanie Maas: Yes. Did I read correctly that you carried the
- 0:35torch that those games?
- 0:37Kim Rozdeba: I was an escort runner. Yeah. So I was with it
- 0:40for four days. So there would be parts. So we got to dark and
- 0:44unsafe for having just regular people run with the torch. So we
- 0:48would have running groups, or we would run with it to make up
- 0:53some time. So if there was some time, or some areas that were
- 0:57either difficult to run steep hills, whatever, we would do
- 1:02that to keep the thing going. So yes, the part I really enjoyed
- 1:06was, I've got probably a wry sense of humor. And every once
- 1:10in a while the torch would go out because the fuel that was
- 1:14fueling it in the in the actual torch would run out, and then
- 1:18you'd have to refill it. And you'd see somebody and it would
- 1:21like, it's no longer lit and then going, Oh, my God, what did
- 1:24you do? And they're going, I did nothing. And I go, we're gonna
- 1:28have to go back to Greece. Now, what are we gonna do? And I
- 1:30said, to have a light to the match. But yes, there will be a
- 1:33horror, but there is there is the eternal flame that is with
- 1:37it. And it is capsulated. So it's protected. And that's where
- 1:41you you light it from. So it comes from there all the time.
- 1:45So you don't take a match and light it. I actually was living
- 1:48in Toronto at the time. So I actually ran it in Ontario, in
- 1:54minus 15 temperatures, but I didn't realize how incredible it
- 2:00was an honor to actually be with the torch. Until my first
- 2:04evening that I was running in with a torchbearer. The
- 2:08torchbearer was beside me, and you run beside them just to make
- 2:11sure, again, we would always sort of tell them don't, don't
- 2:14rush it, you take, enjoy this moment. Because people would
- 2:19just wanna, you know, and we were tired, because we've been
- 2:21running all day, it was to our advantage. So they went slow.
- 2:24But when we came in, this older lady came running up to me and
- 2:28grabbed me and hugged me. And she said, God bless you. And
- 2:31that was my introduction to that all week, four days of running
- 2:36with it, the people the incredible emotions, the
- 2:40feeling, you could feel the emotional in the air, when you
- 2:44come into a venue where again, we'd stop, we'd have some
- 2:48speeches, after you we went out with a group of of runners or
- 2:53torchbearers, we would take them back, and then we would do a
- 2:56debrief with them. And that debrief was quite emotional. And
- 3:00the team that went out because we take a whole team out, and
- 3:04then we, they'd be in a caravan and then we'd but you know, each
- 3:07one would have their turn, and then they go back into the
- 3:09caravan, we'd go back with them. And then a new group would come
- 3:12out, they became instant friends. They shared, you know,
- 3:15pictures and addresses. And yeah, it was very memorable. And
- 3:21I say sad, very honored to have been able to have done that.
- 3:24Yeah, that's a long time ago. Now that I'm thinking about 35
- 3:27years, but every, every one of them, like I see other ones that
- 3:30happen all over the world. I'm captivated. Because yeah, it's,
- 3:35it is something that is truly amazing. And I had the
- 3:38opportunity to work with some Olympians. And these are
- 3:42incredible people incredible in the sense of they put their
- 3:45whole life on hold or a sport, obscure sports, where there is
- 3:51no audience, there is nobody, you know, cheering them on every
- 3:55day. So they do need know to be able to have that endurance and
- 3:59that perseverance.
- 4:00Stephanie Maas: Oh how cool. Ah, that's too cool. Thank you for
- 4:03sharing that. Okay, so getting back to topic. The first thing I
- 4:07want to ask is probably going to sound like a really juvenile
- 4:09question, but I think it would be important, I think what is so
- 4:12fascinating here is this idea of branding. Can you kind of walk
- 4:16me through the differences or similarity between branding,
- 4:20marketing reputation, what is a brand?
- 4:24Kim Rozdeba: I'm gonna give you my definition of what a brand is
- 4:26to start? There's lots of different definitions out there.
- 4:29They talk about benefits, they talk about attributes talk about
- 4:34tonality, but I've sort of taken a quote from Maya Angelou and
- 4:40I've kind of rewritten it, and it's a brand isn't what it says
- 4:45or does, but how it makes its customers feel. So the end
- 4:50result of a brand is the feeling. So marketing, marketing
- 4:54can help with the feeling but marketing is really talking
- 4:57about product attributes. It's about action. In creating an
- 5:00action, you want somebody to do something, maybe have a
- 5:03promotion, maybe you have a sale, maybe it's, it's it's a
- 5:07launch. But branding is about how people feel. Reputation is
- 5:12part of that a lot of people say, you know, the most
- 5:15important element is trust. And it's true, you'd look at your
- 5:18personal relationships, you know, the foundation is trust.
- 5:22So you have to build that trust, as well.
- 5:24Stephanie Maas: So this idea of a personal brand, talk to me
- 5:28about the importance of that, especially from a leadership
- 5:31perspective, you know, maybe, you know, maybe you're not the
- 5:33CEO of a company, which you get what you're responsible for in
- 5:37terms of that brand. But what if, you know, from a leadership
- 5:40perspective, I'm running a team, I'm a business owner, I get the
- 5:44brand part as it relates to the product, but what if in your
- 5:48responsibility, it's not so much about the product?
- 5:50Kim Rozdeba: So there's two questions there, I think one is
- 5:53if you're an employee, and two, if there's about you, yourself,
- 5:57so let me talk about an employee first, from a police
- 6:01perspective, you could be an advocate of the brand. And the
- 6:04great thing about having advocates, ie your employees,
- 6:08people trust other people's opinion. So you know, if a
- 6:13person is out there talking about your product, or your
- 6:17brand, in a favorable way, that's a good thing. Ideally,
- 6:21these are your employees, because they know your brand
- 6:24better than anybody else. On a personal level of building your
- 6:28own brand, I'm still not completely sure there's there's
- 6:31a, there's a need to build a LinkedIn profile, there's a need
- 6:35to have a good resume. I'm not sure unless you're a consultant,
- 6:40or if you're a leader. And you are you are the face and voice
- 6:44of a brand, that you need to have a personal brand. If you
- 6:49follow the metrics of a brand, if you want to dissect a brand,
- 6:54being a box of cereal is not a goal for me. That is a brand. A
- 7:00brand is about consistency, and about controlling the messaging,
- 7:05and all the attributes of that. And human beings are much bigger
- 7:09and better. I mean, we're motional we have many things to
- 7:13offer. And, and sometimes we're we change our minds, right? We
- 7:17do different things. We're, we're multi dimensional, not
- 7:20like a box. So there is parts of branding that we can utilize,
- 7:25absolutely. But outside of being you know, a voice for the brand.
- 7:29And you know, being out there doing content, writing content,
- 7:32being out there doing podcasts, going, the extra step to build
- 7:37your brand. I'm not sure everybody needs to do that.
- 7:41Stephanie Maas: Okay, but let's talk about if you ARE in
- 7:42leadership.
- 7:43Kim Rozdeba: So as a leader of an organization, or of your
- 7:46consultant, or your lawyer, a doctor, should you have a
- 7:50presence? Absolutely. Today, it becomes more important because
- 7:53people want to understand your why it's about the why it's
- 7:57about your purpose, it is about your promise, it's about you
- 8:02know your values. And people want to know that if they're
- 8:04going to be dealing with a company, they want to know the
- 8:07values of those people that are working in that company, in
- 8:10particular, the leader of it. So understanding that commitment,
- 8:14your personal commitment, it's not like you're you're morphing
- 8:18the brand's commitment. Because you've got your own personality
- 8:21attached to it, you have your own things that you are keenly
- 8:24interested in, you know, every time I see a new CEO, in an
- 8:28organization, they bring different aspects to the brand,
- 8:33they take things and they may actually highlight things that
- 8:36are that are still within the brand, but it's their own
- 8:39interests. So you have to have that passion attached to it.
- 8:42And, and you can see some of the leaders, I love the people that
- 8:45were passionate about certain topics, because they live it and
- 8:49they breathe it and you you pick up, you pick up things that you
- 8:52would never pick up before from that passion.
- 8:55Stephanie Maas: Ok, so talk to me about what you call the five
- 8:58C's.
- 8:59Kim Rozdeba: Alright, so the five C's, the first one is
- 9:02commitment, and it is about your purpose, your promise that
- 9:06you're going to deliver every day. The second one is construct
- 9:10and construct is the logo. It's the it's the graphic designs,
- 9:15the color palette, it's the tonality, it's the five senses,
- 9:21you know, you know, what is it going to feel like? What's going
- 9:23to touch? Does it have a scent, what's a scent going to be? So
- 9:25it's all those things that you can construct and making a
- 9:29brand. The third one is community and a lot of people
- 9:32go, Oh, I thought I was going to be customer. And customer is
- 9:35part of your community. But actually your community is much
- 9:38bigger than just your customer. And we touched a little bit here
- 9:41already on both employees and the importance of employees of
- 9:45being advocates to your brand. So their key target audience in
- 9:49your community. But the other one really it's a really
- 9:52interesting one is influencers. There's media influencers,
- 9:56there's podcast influencers, there's a whole number of people
- 9:59out there that can amplify your brand and give credibility to
- 10:04your brand. So that's your community. And then the next one
- 10:07is your content and in content is your marketing, marketing
- 10:11fits in there. It's your advertising, it is your public
- 10:15relations, a lot of brands when they start out, they can't
- 10:18afford advertising, PR, that's free advertising. So that
- 10:23publicity, you know, you can't pay for I mean, it's it's really
- 10:26good publicity. It's made some of the brands very famous very
- 10:30quickly, you get Oprah Winfrey, to talk about your brand, and
- 10:33you are set. But outside of that, it's is about leaders, it
- 10:37is about your voice. It is about how do you present yourself in
- 10:41the industry as a whole. So it's not just advertising, and it's
- 10:44social media as well. And then the final one, the final one is
- 10:48probably the one that's that doesn't have as much sizzle. And
- 10:51that is consistency. And consistency is about how do you
- 10:55replicate every transaction, every touchpoint that you have
- 10:59with your consumer over and over and over and over the same way.
- 11:03But it's not just the same way, because you're trying to ratchet
- 11:06it up. Because once you've met expectation, the expectation
- 11:10goes up again. So you have to continually build a system,
- 11:15training, policies, governance, all of these things to make sure
- 11:20that what's being delivered, is being delivered everywhere,
- 11:24every place every time, the same way. And also improving that
- 11:28delivery. Every time. Oprah Winfrey said, you know, she
- 11:32denied being a brand for many years, until one day, she
- 11:36discovered that one of the key elements of a brand is
- 11:39consistency. And she goes well, yeah, I, I've always been
- 11:42consistent. So therefore, I must be a brand.
- 11:46Stephanie Maas: Ok, one thing I have not ever heard before, is a
- 11:49word that you use tied to commitment. And that is the word
- 11:53promise. And I think it is super interesting that when you talk
- 11:57about a commitment, you talk about a promise. You know, I
- 12:00think a lot of folks commitment. While there's usually a ton of
- 12:03sincerity around it, it almost feels I'll say a promise feels
- 12:09personal. Yes. And to me the fact that you would make this
- 12:13idea of a commitment be personal. As soon as you said
- 12:16that word I go, yep, that's a difference. And I've heard that
- 12:20you have this interesting definition of the word
- 12:21accountability, are those linked at all? Can you talk me through
- 12:25those two?
- 12:26Kim Rozdeba: Yep. So I'm gonna go back to my definition, which
- 12:29is, it's a feeling you have to get to that promise, because it
- 12:33is it's a personal commitment from a brand to to that person,
- 12:37they don't look at it and go, you're serving a million people
- 12:40you're serving Me, and My expectations are a certain
- 12:44level. And you build that over time, because that consistency
- 12:48becomes really important. Because that promise is
- 12:51delivered. I mean, you think of think of your personal
- 12:53situation, if somebody doesn't deliver on a promise, your trust
- 12:57level changes. Now, there's situations you know that you,
- 13:00you'll you'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And you'll
- 13:03do the same with a brand if a brand falls down and they do all
- 13:06the time. Yep, systems fall down, things don't work.
- 13:10Employees have a bad day, you know, you have a bad experience.
- 13:14The question is, how do they fix it, that becomes the important
- 13:18element to all of it. That's where the accountability comes
- 13:21into. Because everyone has to be accountable and delivering. And
- 13:25if you don't, somebody has to fix it, and acknowledge that,
- 13:29and people are willing to give the benefit of the doubt, if a
- 13:33brand doesn't deliver. But if it doesn't deliver over time
- 13:36consistently, then they have to reevaluate. I mean, banks banks
- 13:41is a really interesting one. Because how many times do you
- 13:43change a bank, I've got two banks, I deal with one, my
- 13:47parents actually started and I had an account with it when I
- 13:49was a kid. And the other one I started from university because
- 13:52they were on the campus, I've gone to others come and gone.
- 13:56didn't treat me as well as I thought, but has to be really
- 14:00something really big to make that change.
- 14:03Stephanie Maas: Correct me if I didn't hear you, right, please,
- 14:05this accountability is how you fix it. That just
- 14:08acknowledgement understanding that when you meet somebody's
- 14:12expectation, you got to continually go to the net, and
- 14:14it's not an aggressive go to the next level. It's just now you
- 14:18have a new foundation of what is expected. And you need to be
- 14:22always at or above but if you do, because humans are running
- 14:25these companies when you fall short, that's when
- 14:28accountability steps in and how you respond to the falling
- 14:31short, again, comes back to that trust factor. That feeling that
- 14:35promise. You're bringing this to life.
- 14:39Kim Rozdeba: At the Regis Hotel, high luxury hotel, beautiful
- 14:42hotel, they empower their employees who are accountable
- 14:46for that service delivery, every one of them if there's a problem
- 14:51they have, I believe it's about $2,000 at their discretion to
- 14:57solve a customer's issue They don't have to go anywhere, they
- 15:01don't have to get approval, every employee in that company
- 15:05can solve up to $2,000. a customer's problem. I think, if
- 15:10I had 2000, I think I could solve what a few problems.
- 15:14Stephanie Maas: That is awesome. You know, when when I originally
- 15:17heard the word brand, I thought about, you know, my mom was
- 15:21raised in a time where brands, quite frankly, established
- 15:25those, the haves and the have nots, if you brought knit, you
- 15:28know, if you could buy brand name things at the grocery
- 15:30store, or, you know, at the shopping center, wherever you
- 15:32did, that was it. So she was not raised as a half. And so as she
- 15:38grew older, that was very important to her to buy certain
- 15:42brands, because it was the feeling. And I never understood
- 15:46why she was so loyal, because quite frankly, there are better
- 15:49products out there. But she is so immediate, she will buy a
- 15:53certain name brand, she I just can't get her to change. And I
- 15:56get that now, that's the feeling. And I think about the
- 16:00generation where that I'm in, we have very little brand loyalty,
- 16:05and it's a lot about price. However, as soon as that comes
- 16:08out of my mouth, I think about what was one of the biggest
- 16:12gifts this year for over the holidays, almost every single
- 16:17female that I know, Stanley Cup, they're huge. And I was trying
- 16:22to think like, what is the feeling that the Stanley Cup
- 16:25that I have now? What does it represent? And it is a feeling
- 16:29it's an it's almost a sense of being cluded? That is super
- 16:35interesting. So let's take that. So you have this idea around
- 16:38brand and the importance and what consists of it out? Did you
- 16:41get to focus on females, because as a non female, and I'm not
- 16:46making an assumption there, that surprises me a little bit. So
- 16:49talk me through that.
- 16:50Kim Rozdeba: So I got to start with the first there's 20
- 16:53entrepreneurs a woman in this book called branding queens, and
- 16:56they all why how we came up with the name was each one of them
- 17:00was referred somewhere in the media of creative something. So
- 17:04it was kind of an obvious it was like a ha moment for me. I had
- 17:07several other titles before that. But it started repeating
- 17:11itself. I'm going this is it. This is what the book should be
- 17:14called. But the first woman that I actually had this started the
- 17:18whole idea was the champagne, Veuve Clicquot.
- 17:23Stephanie Maas: Very familiar, huge fan.
- 17:25Kim Rozdeba: So if you translate Vu, it's widow in English. I
- 17:29didn't know that either. And I go, why? Why would you put widow
- 17:33on a champagne bottle? I didn't know that it was actually a
- 17:36woman behind the champagne house. So it got me intrigued to
- 17:41go, okay. There's a woman behind this product. She started in
- 17:441810. Napoleon was raging and wars around a France, women were
- 17:50basically second class citizens. How did this happen? So that was
- 17:54my journey. That was the start. And then I go, and why did she
- 17:57put when all you have to read the book to find out? So then I
- 18:01started saying, Well, is there other women out there that I'm
- 18:04not aware of? There's quite a few that I am. And they're
- 18:07actually in the book. But are there others that I'm not aware,
- 18:12and I started digging. And the hard part was as you go back in
- 18:16time, I mean, brands are a relatively new concept. They
- 18:20really came into their, their, their place back in the 1920s
- 18:2430s, boomers, all the different brands that came up during the
- 18:29boom 1940 There was a lot of brands that started prior to
- 18:33that everything was just sort of a commodity, there was there was
- 18:36no printing presses and stuff, there was no way to communicate,
- 18:39you know, personal attachments to these things, or where it
- 18:43came from. And that's kind of the the intent, right? is people
- 18:46want to know where this is it safe is this? Is this a
- 18:50reputable organization? Am I going to die if I eat this?
- 18:54These are important things to know. But there were there were
- 18:57women out there Bissell the vacuum cleaner, a lot of cases
- 19:01they started with their husband, they were joint in the business
- 19:05because they intimately knew the business. Their husbands passed
- 19:08away fairly young, particularly in today's world. Did they have
- 19:12to continue with the company, a lot of cases they didn't. Other
- 19:15cases, they had like four or five kids, but they wanted to.
- 19:19And they saw the vision of what this brand was and they actually
- 19:23built the brand. So I took situations here where they
- 19:26actually took whatever they they had when they started and then
- 19:30did they actually grow it? And did they actually make an iconic
- 19:35brand? And did they have enough evidence attached to it that
- 19:40they actually did get involved in building the brand
- 19:43themselves. So they just weren't an icon associated with the
- 19:47brand. And I found 20 women. The youngest is Sara Blakely Spanx.
- 19:53This recently stepped down as the CEO of her organization. I
- 19:57think she's got three kids three or four kids but These are
- 20:00fascinating stories. They're fascinating stories, because in
- 20:03many of these cases, they had no experience of building a brand.
- 20:08They had no experience of building a product. And when you
- 20:10think of building a product, I'll go to Elizabeth Arden,
- 20:14she's a Canadian, she was born in Canada, and she moved to New
- 20:17York City. And she started working cosmetician doing a lot
- 20:21of facials and stuff. And she came up with a product, a cream,
- 20:26she call it a jar of hope. So she already understood the why
- 20:31but she was doing and the why usually doesn't come right when
- 20:34you start with Apple didn't understand what they were doing.
- 20:37At the beginning, it took them a while to figure out their why.
- 20:40And most products, and most brands, this is the case, you
- 20:43don't really start with something big, colossal, you're
- 20:47going to change the world, you're just trying to make a
- 20:49product that's better than any other product. And it's Joe,
- 20:52it's affordable. And you can, you can actually put it a
- 20:54distribution center. And you can put a retail plan, you could get
- 20:57employees, all of these things. So the interesting aspect to all
- 21:01this is is all these women had to learn. And they were
- 21:05ferocious, and their ability to learn different things because
- 21:08they came with just their passion. If anything most of
- 21:11them came with is they knew that there was a problem. And they
- 21:15were the customer in a lot of cases.
- 21:17Stephanie Maas: I think, and I know I'm being a little bit
- 21:19assumptive here, but I think especially for women, and I'm
- 21:23taking this from what you said about Sara Blakely stepping
- 21:25down, I think for women to really get into that idea of
- 21:30balancing work with family, and so forth and so on. There has to
- 21:35be a lot of passion, because there's a lot of sacrifice,
- 21:37quite frankly, you know, even in today's society as modern as we
- 21:40may be. But the other thing I heard, which I think is really
- 21:45good counsel for anybody who feels like they have a passion,
- 21:48and it really eliminates ego, and pride, and all these other
- 21:52things, is the ability to learn the desire to learn. And I think
- 21:57those two things together, just looking at the list some a list
- 22:00of the women, gosh, you would have thought, I don't know that
- 22:04you would necessarily go out and say they don't have pride or
- 22:06ego. I don't think you would say they were prideful or
- 22:09egotistical. But I don't know that without your direction
- 22:12here, we would naturally say that their ability and desire to
- 22:16learn was a standout or would be the advice. I think, you know,
- 22:19most people would say, hey, advice, passion, get organized,
- 22:22rely on other people don't try and do it all. But the way he
- 22:25broke that into just ability and desire to learn. It's so cool.
- 22:30Is there anything that you wanted to make sure we talked
- 22:34about or addressed in our time together?
- 22:36Kim Rozdeba: I mean, don't be hard on yourself that you have
- 22:39to be a brand. As a person, you know, I took the challenge and
- 22:42said, I'm going to build a brand, it's a lot of work to
- 22:45build a personal brand. And I don't know if all of us need to
- 22:48be a personal brand. I sometimes I think this is a social media
- 22:51platform, wanting all of us to build content, right? It's it's,
- 22:56it's to keep all the social platforms full. And I again, as
- 23:00I said, Be yourself, do you need to present a particularly on
- 23:04LinkedIn, a professional viewpoint of yourself? Yes. But
- 23:08that shouldn't stop you from, you know, having your cooking,
- 23:12Instagram, your tick tock, I know, I know, quite a few people
- 23:16have ticked dogs, for hobbies, and to have all these different
- 23:19things and not feel that you are deviating from your purpose or
- 23:23your goal because that puts you in a box, you know that
- 23:26consistency puts you in a box because that's what a brand is,
- 23:30it's going to be consistent all the time. It's going to always
- 23:32act this way. And human beings can change, right? Sometimes if
- 23:36you see famous people who are brands, and they change, not for
- 23:40the good, you know, that has a detriment to the brand. So we
- 23:43know that but I don't want to be the king of England or the Queen
- 23:48of England in the sense of you know, being confined have a
- 23:51personal way of being presented. That's not real life, I don't
- 23:55think.
- 23:56Stephanie Maas: No, no. This has been super insightful. Thank
- 24:00you so much for being here and for your time.
- 24:03Kim Rozdeba: Stephanie. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
- 24:05Stephanie Maas: Oh, thank you very much.