Latest / MaxValue Podcast / Tell 'em Who you are Ft. Robert Friedman

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Tell 'em Who you are Ft. Robert Friedman · MaxValue Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes a step forward and sometimes a step back.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: These great brands were built on the foundation of a single meaningful idea.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Branding as a way to express your highest value to your best client.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Being able to say no definitively to some piece of work that doesn't necessarily fit your desired profile is super hard.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: And there's brands that were doing something other than just selling stuff.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just because we are positioned and branded in a certain way, it doesn't mean that we don't do other work.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: We identified the underlying meaning and we told the story differently.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it made a huge, huge difference that even though we can say no to quite a few things, that we're saying no to literally everything else other than what we want to be known for.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Max Value, the show for business owners and their trusted advisors who are on a mission to maximize their value with business valuation, exit planning, strategy, and amplifying your brand.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode features Robert Friedman, the creative brilliance behind fearless branding.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be talking about how your brand can affect your business value.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Robert, welcome.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Ben.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to be here.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being on.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what let's start with the obvious.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with the name, Fearless Branding.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where does it come from?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I had been working on some really boring packaged goods products in the first part of my career.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was working on CoffeeMate, and I just was thinking, this is artificial powder, and this is not how I want to spend my life.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so I really started thinking about do I need to get out of marketing?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then it occurred to me, well, I may be working on CoffeeMate, but somebody else is working on Apple, somebody else is working on Nike, and there's brands that were doing something other than just selling stuff, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it was even more than just selling good stuff.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: And what I saw was that there were some brands that were contributing to their best customers' lives in meaningful ways, not just about providing products as good as they may be.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I set about kind of reverse engineering some of the brands that I really admired.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: And what I came to the conclusion that these great brands were built on the foundation of a single meaningful idea.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like Apple, it's not just an apple, it's an apple with the bite taken out of it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's the creator.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Nike is uh, it comes from the Greek goddess Nike, the winged goddess of victory.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's all about winning.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, long story short, is about delivering something really meaningful to your people.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that is, and it means that you have to be fearless, you have to be precise in defining who you are and what you do and who you're for.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And what I saw was that so many businesses were not doing that.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: They were trying to be all things to all people.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, as as clients, and being able to say no definitively to some some client, some piece of work that doesn't necessarily fit your desired profile is super hard oftentimes, especially for professional service firms, professional service providers like well, like me, you really get into the uh uh dearth mindset.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's not enough out there, and I I need to get everything because if I say no to this, then I won't get the next thing that I actually do want, perhaps.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and one of the things, you know, in fact, we've we hired uh we hired you, uh town advisory hired you uh to go through some of our branding, uh, and it it's it's helps quite a bit.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll you know, we can talk about that in a second.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, at the end of the day, I I will say one of the big takeaways that you know that engagement helped us with was that even though we can say no to quite a few things, it's not that we're saying no to literally everything else other than what we want to be known for.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's that we still do quite a range of work, but at the same time, we have a market positioning that we are solid behind and that helps take us to where we want to go and to be known for something.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And in our case, that's uh great exits are built trademark, uh, because that's what we want to be known for.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for the help.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you said a lot of things.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one is um courage to say no and courage to really define exactly what's right, and where I run into fear-based thinking and and acting is when firms don't declare exactly what's right because they want to leave more doors open.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so what ends up happening is that their messaging is mushy because their market position is mushy.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: So you mentioned our engagement, and I don't know if you remember, but it started because you knew you were redoing your website, right?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: You needed to redo it, there were some visual issues, and you were in the process, and then you said, Hey, because we were just friends before that, and you said, Could you take a look at my at my copy?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And what I remember telling you is it wasn't precise, and it doesn't tell me the best client to refer to you.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Who should I be referring to you, and what do you really do?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it it also revealed um the fact that you wanted to do more, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: You were kind of pigeonholed in a way, um, and you wanted to establish your value in a more strategic way.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Specifically, yes, you do valuations, but there was also a more strategic context where those valuations could live and more that you could do for your best clients, and that's how we developed the exit planning engagement and storyline great exits are built.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of funny because in in one instance, we're saying that we're we collectively, and in in our case, we're narrowing down our focus, but it's really just narrowing down what we say to the world and who we're saying it to.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that um because as you said, I was feeling pigeonholed into valuation, whatever that, you know, whatever anybody else thought that meant.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in order to help us refine the discussion and the messaging, we had to figure out well, what does valuation mean to me, really, and the strategic application to our best clients and how that works and how that helps.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And us getting clear on our messaging and on well, really our brand, you know, really let us amplify it much better.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you know, if you're just kind of shouting, hey, we do valuation, we do valuation, we do this, we do that, and we're shouting it to everybody, it it has very little impact, it's very diffuse.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was also commoditized.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think when what as we went through the engagement, one of the key things we discovered was the market saw valuation as a more commoditized offer.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: There was a definite ceiling on the prices you could charge, and um it was just a very narrow offer, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like my pipe is leaking, you're gonna you're gonna tighten up that pipe, and it's not gonna leak anymore.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Boom, you're out, versus uh a more comprehensive approach to understanding and defining and building the value of a business and putting that valuation into context.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so when we went through, so I asked you to go through your various clients and tell me stories and really define where did you deliver the most value, what were the best engagements for you historically, and then create a vision for the kind of work that you wanted to do.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so that really is an essential component of branding, right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Not every brander who's kind of sits in my chair does it that way, but I think about branding as a way to express your highest value to your best client.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And until we went through that process, I think it wasn't 100% clear how you could serve your best clients.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, or to use the fish in water metaphor, it was too clear.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't we couldn't see it, and therefore we couldn't articulate it well to that best client.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that you should be asking from us and what should we be providing to you so that you get the maximum value out of what we're doing with you?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because that that's the thing.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we were talking about benefits that our clients were already getting, but they had to get to us first, and so the the big change is that our branding and marketing is doing more, being focused is doing more to pre-educate, pre-uh filter, if you will, but more from the standpoint of pre-align us with the clients, pre-align the clients with us so that everybody understands the the scope of the value that that everybody's going to bring to each other.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: There's a few things that I see when I work with professional services firms.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they need more clarity.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: They need to define their target market more precisely, they need to define their engagement in a in a new way, which is which is what we did when we kind of figured out.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like I didn't figure out what exit builder was, you defined it, but I coached you through defining it, and then we named it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then other times, even if a firm has a good amount of clarity about those things, they need a more powerful story, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're they're talking about the right things, but they're talking about it in a boring way, and so they're not they're not connecting, right?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I think you need both.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so are you finding that even just that language?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because the the thing that I liked about Exit Builder was or the idea about great exits are built, is there's an aspiration there, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you are you're pouring your life into something, but it's also um that exit's not gonna get handed to you on a platter, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: So so it's kind of there's a natural segue between what that client wants and the core of of what you do.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's still a little bit of work to be done.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're you you guys are close to the end, but don't give up quite yet, or don't, you know, don't throw in the towel quite yet because there we we got something to do still.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's it's based on everything that you've already done, yeah, to date, making a good business, that sort of thing.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um when uh one of the things that I thought was really great when we did our engagement was yeah, I came to you as like like you said, as a friend, okay, can you check out this real quick?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh check out the content that I'm gonna put on this new website.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you had you had some notes uh which were which were totally relevant and accurate and accurate.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's a lot of times that people get worried about that, where you have this you know string of the sweater, and if you give it to a professional who really knows what the hell they're doing, like you, they pull the string of the sweater and the whole thing unravels because it wasn't really well put together in the first place.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things I really appreciated about how we worked together, don't worry, it's going somewhere, is that is that we we took it really in manageable steps at a time, such that it wasn't like, hey Ben, let's do this thing, let's you know, do a full rebrand and because we're a small business, it's not like I had a you know$100,000 budget just to plunk down on the table and have you go nuts on.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be that would be wonderful for everybody involved.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not you know our reality that we that I live in, at least.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So being able to tranch that up and you know, uh we already trusted each other, but also you know, really see the the progress of the results come in at each stage was super, super helpful for a a smaller business like like me, such that we yeah, we end did end up doing kind of not a full rebrand, but a you know a a very comprehensive study of our brand value and and how we went about deploying that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So did you have a question for me?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: If it's if relevant, um you want to talk about what you remember coming out of each phase?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't like to tell a client like here's what it should be, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: The process reveals the right answer, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: So first we looked at what your engagements were historically, and we rated all your clients.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Who's an A, who's a B, who's a C, what was great about the A's, what was still maybe lacking from the A's, where could you, where could you see adding more value, defining that vision.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of the first piece.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Then we talked about your values, we talked about your work, what it is, what it isn't, um, what's included, exactly who the kind of clients were.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and that was actually quite a bit of work because you have two sides to your business, right?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you were focused more on valuations, more um on founders who've kind of built their business brick by brick.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Your partner was more focused on outsourced accounting, more for venture-backed firms, and and how do we bring those kind of two different types of typical clients for both of your practices together under one brand?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where you that's where we found the thing that everybody has in common was they wanted a great exit.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I feel like it kind of revealed itself step by step.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes a step forward and sometimes a step back.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it you know, what it wasn't linear compared to the uh efforts put in, and it was difficult, but that was just because I think we had a in our case, we had a particularly intractable situation.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that we totally you know eventually busted through and figured out.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but you you do have to take it step by step, and it's not like you know, you just give Robert some some information and he comes up with the the brilliant thing.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a team effort all the way because you know it has to be something that is specific to the firm.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that that firm provides that is of unique brand and value?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I mean, speaking of brand and brand value, when when we're question to you, when we're talking about the elements of a brand, what it what are the components, how does that contribute to the enterprise value of a of a business, particularly a professional services business?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: So what I offer so a brand is one way to think about it is the way you tell your story to the market, such that the market knows you for a particular thing, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: They associate you with a certain type of client as a certain type of problem, you deliver a certain service, and that delivers a certain type of value.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: And what I often see is that if a firm has been around for a while, the principal or you know, the the senior people, maybe they do what they do, and it is like to use that fish and water example, they're just kind of going through what they do organically.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: And what a brand does is it sets you up to win so that if somebody doesn't know very much about you, before you get to that meeting, that first meeting, where you have to decide, is there a fit?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: A strong brand would convey to that prospect, ah, you're really talking to me, like I'm supposed to be here or I'm not.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: I have the problem these guys are good at solving, and I understand what I'm gonna get, and I see the case studies and the proof points so that I already understand these people are the real deal.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to, I don't have to have you explain that to me when we sit down, which in a biz dev context could take a while.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: It could take an hour, it can take an hour and a half if somebody says, Hey, what are you all about?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas if you've defined a strong brand and that is mostly clear to the prospect before the conversation ever happens, then the seller, the owner or the senior person at the professional services firm can spend time focusing on the prospect because they've already established that position of expertise and that communication of value before the one, you know, before the live conversation ever happens.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: It happens in advance.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so what that means is that, you know, usually the kind of clients that I work with, they know they're at the top of their game.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: And often there is some level of frustration or at least desire, like we want to be working with better clients, more lucrative clients, more substantive engagements.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we're not quite getting that traction.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so the brand is your ability to define that expertise so that the right people see ah, you can really help us.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so when that happens over and over again, So I'm getting to the you know the nuts and bolts answer to your question.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: When that happens over and over again, it impacts revenue, it impacts average client engagement size, it impacts profitability.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you see when when you've got new engagement over new engagement that's bigger, that's more profitable, then the firm becomes a different beast.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: It becomes a more valuable beast.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, I want to take a second here to share something about who we are and why we make this show.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably here because either you or a client of yours is thinking about buying or selling a business, bringing in investment, or planning an eventual exit.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that is why we call this show Max Value.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: We provide you with information and insights about how to maximize the value of your business.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Our team at Town Advisory guides business owners through the crucial, often once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to exit their business.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: We use our trademarked exit builder program to help business owners prepare early, protect the value they've built, and obtain maximum value through an exit.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the secret is our clients define what value means to them.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Taking the right steps now can make all the difference in creating a successful outcome for yourself, your family, and your work team.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: If you think you're ready for the next step in understanding and increasing the value of your business, make a comment, send me a message on LinkedIn, or send me an email.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: All those links are in the show notes.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: It makes your marketing spend to whatever extent you do much more effective.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you have to be good at what you do.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, you have to be atop your game in order to make sure you get that either repeat client or you know, the client retention and the client satisfaction overall.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: But again, they have to get in the door first.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: They have to talk to you first and having that positioning conversation, which I I've always had with clients, but that didn't happen until I was talking to them live, rather than them already having two or three touch points through strong branding, you know, website, podcast, whatever.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, not even whatever, usually through firstly through the uh our center of influence that brings us in, you know, the CPA or attorney or whomever needs to know our strong branding so that they can make the right connections and kind of communicate that ahead of time with with the referred client.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it's the third or fourth time a lot of times that they're that the client is actually seeing some of the same story and language before they even talk to us so that we can kind of get it get to the next stage quicker and easier.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and people who find our branding you know off to them, they don't like it, then they just we we never get to that call, which is also fine.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they self-select, no big deal.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I know, you know, we wouldn't know, but yeah, right.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I think you made a really good point though, which I hadn't touched on.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: The brand is just as important, if not more important, to your referral sources, to those centers of influence, because in crowded competitive categories, that referral source needs to understand who are you a good fit for and why should they refer town advisory when they have so many different options.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that really is that is the job of the brand, is to answer that question why should we choose you when we have so many other options?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I really believe that the answer to that, if you say because we're better, that is not a good answer.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think you have to be much more specific and say, we're better if you've got a client that looks like this, if you've got a client that's a valuation firm or an expert-led firm, and you're a certain size, and you have certain problems, and you get really narrow and really specific, not so narrow that there's no market for you, but just narrow enough that there's enough of a market, but you're not trying to be all things to all people.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really what what the brand does is it it just uh it just accelerates those conversations so that clients can recognize themselves in that brand and referral sources have a really clear idea of like who you're for and what you're really great at.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of firms don't do that.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're just they're they're just too broad, too vague.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and the interesting the interesting thing and very, very important thing for for me to realize through that process, and I kind of alluded to it before, is that just because we are positioned and branded in a certain way to to highlight our strengths, it doesn't mean that we don't do other work, although a lot of times we're doing that other work kind of with that that perspective.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, we do a lot of you know, estate and gift valuation.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, that can certainly can be and often is part of an exit plan, certainly is something to be thought of in your life cycle, in your business life cycle as well, as to well, what what are we gonna do with this business?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's it's really just having a very for me personally, a very slightly different perspective on things we were doing already and still maintain doing and that are very important to our business, but we are still making it within the context of the overall brand and market positioning.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have the choice.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I always tell clients, you always have the choice of whether to say yes or no to a certain prospect, right?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right, even if they may not be the exact match for what you may be articulating in your in your brand positioning.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: But there's kind of two ways to think about it.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can either go really broad and then everybody fits, right, or you can go narrow and then you can say, okay, I can see how this can work, we're gonna take that client, or we get to say no.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's really just about having being intentional about what your best work is, who your best clients are, right?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: And putting it and putting that out in the world and telling a story about it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh were there any examples?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've kind of gone through my firm as an example, but are there any other examples that you really like telling?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anecdotes that you really like telling in order to illustrate what the heck you're talking about that are, you know, through through metaphor, through analogy, through uh uh somebody else's pain and suffering, uh, somebody can learn something.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you mentioned how branding makes your marketing work harder, and that really is, you know, that's the that's the driver.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had clients, um, we've talked about my client, Marjorie Heinrich.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she's a personal injury lawyer, she's really amazing, human, amazing lawyer.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And she came to me a number of years ago and said, I'm seeing competitive firms win these really big cases, like the top cases.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that we have more expertise than they do.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: So why are they getting those cases when we're not?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: And she was investing in marketing.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: She had uh this happens a lot in law firms.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're uh they have SEO-driven, but SEO is search engine optimization, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: SEO-driven marketing plans.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And what we saw was she had an amazing story to tell, but her marketing wasn't telling it because they were telling a very generic story that was kind of templatized, and everything that they were that her agency was saying about her firm could easily be said about other firms.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we completely revamped her story.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she had been a defense attorney before she was on the plaintiff's side, and it became a modern-day retelling of David and Goliath.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, her brand is We Will Be Your Warriors.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we're just taking her best prospects from where they are, seriously injured, and they need a warrior to fight giant insurance companies and municipalities and public entities and huge corporations.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: And her firm was the firm that knew how to be a giant slayer.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: And just that it wasn't so much that in her case and her firm's case that they were doing something all that different.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's that we identified the underlying meaning and we told the story differently.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it made a huge, huge difference in her ability to get traction with the seriously injured people who had the really, really big cases.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: And just in the last year, I mean, it takes a while to get the get the traction, but just in the last year, she's closed, you know, dramatically, dramatically bigger cases, a wrongful death case, just you know, really, really big multi-million dollar cases that um that she was able to do to describe it as a one-to-punch.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have to have that story, that's your first punch.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Then you've got to be able to communicate your expertise to the client in that biz dev, you know, in that initial call.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so having the story and the expertise combined has made a dramatic uh difference in her ability to attract the clients that she really wanted.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I I love I love metaphor.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: So one one two punch really works for me.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you know, you you jab, and it's that's not what's gonna, you know, gonna win you the round, but it it lets people know you're there and and then your uh your second punch ends up being uh being a little bit heavier.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um the uh another thing that you would said was with with with Marjorie and and in my case as well, it really goes to identifying what the the unique value is of the firm as opposed to just the person.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's very, very difficult and important for small professional service firms uh in particular.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, most of our clients still come through personal referral or you know, referral to you know the one of the principals.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, our firm, her firm, is known to be good at you know a certain thing.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's much more easy for I think potential clients to to understand and believe that the the firm as a whole can deliver on a certain brand promise rather than just a person.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so it really is transforming that personal goodwill to entity firm-level goodwill, which means basically, you know, in addition to all the good things that you were talking about, you know, more revenue, more margin.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but there are things like you know, lower key person risk, because you should be able to have somebody succeed you in into your business and have it be much more seamless because now you're still that firm that can do this thing.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there it's much more transferable um that goodwill.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it that's part really the biggest part of how branding affects saleable goodwill, at least you know, from my perspective.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you have another perspective you want to add to that.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I uh I agree with you, right?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to valuing a firm, I think about it as embedding when you define that brand, both the story and the and the firm's way, right?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: When you embed that in the firm as opposed to only in the founder and the owner, right, then you're putting more value into the firm.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: I have learned over time it's really a dance, right?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like that that firm owner has to decide what's really important when it comes to being that key person for clients, and how do they want to invest in developing their team?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: And there's no one right answer, right?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can say, I want to develop, I want to hire and develop people who have the ability to be a certain way, right?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Not just like do a certain type of work, but they can embody um attributes that are essential to that firm.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: And some like a lot of times, you know, I talked about Marjorie, she had spent 20 years as a senior criminal, uh not criminal, um, insurance defense attorney before she went to the plaintiff side.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: I have another firm owner who's in trust in the states who was um uh he was a senior person at one of the big, big banks um advising high net worth firms.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Not everybody that that that person hires is necessarily gonna have that background.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, so you you learn a lot through your life experiences, through your professional experiences.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: And some of that you can teach, and some of that, you know, it's just a lived experience.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you really have to decide, you know, how you want to implement that strategy.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I I used to say, like, oh yeah, that's the goal.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: You got to embed it in the firm.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes that's that's a reasonable goal, and sometimes it's not.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: In particular, as teams get smaller, and uh, you know, there's sometimes less of a pyramid underneath that maybe maybe less of an issue.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um by the way, I wanted to take a real quick pause and say that two things.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: You offer a what you call a brand strength assessment, and I think I can go ahead and offer that to everybody else out there.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: How would they get that?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: On my website, uh bottom of the homepage.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so it is um it's quite simple.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's 12 statements and you self-assess on a scale of one to 10.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it starts with commitment, right?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do you want to grow?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to attract a different caliber of client to your business?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because what I see is that if we start with a low level of commitment, we can do a ton of work and it's probably not going to work.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I would say, look, a lot of those surveys, I mean, I have a survey about you know exit planning as well, and a lot of them can feel like they're designed just to make you feel bad about yourself, because you're doing a horrible job at exit planning or you know, or branding or whatever it is.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I I I really liked uh your brand strength assessment because if if you actually did give it some real thought, it did you know open my open my eyes to a few things.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, after I uh got over being depressed for a little bit, then I could do something about it.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the intention is not to make you depressed, the intention is just look at how it's working.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like anything else, your personal finances, your health, your whatever.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you first you just have to take an honest uh provide an honest sense of what's really going on.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, everybody in professional services is in sales, and we know if there's if there's no pain, if everything is fine, then you don't you likely don't need help.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's got to start with a sense of well, could something be better?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want something like a better client that is worth your while to invest in improving something to get those better clients?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's your brand, maybe it's not, right?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the you brought up you know a really important point.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: This comes up with you know exit planning, it comes up with you know building your brand, whatever it is, that especially when things are fine, and things are mostly fine most of the time, right?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: When things are fine, it feels like a that you're you're possibly paying money and putting in effort in order to risk fine, hopefully for something better.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so you so I know a lot of your your your clients and actually even my clients have to be pretty convinced, have to be convinced that there is not as much risk to it as you as they think, usually.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Also, that there really is a payoff at the end of well, why are we going through all of this?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not a fun pro well, some of it's fun, it's not a truly fun process to to to you know peel open you know your your brand and really try to dig in there what what you know what is your heartbeat, and uh it, you know, try to get some graphic metaphor in there.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: But but basically, it's not that fun in a lot of ways, it's very revealing, but at the end of it, after all that effort, some pain, some money, there's a point to it, and it does make an impact on not just my daily operations.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I do get a lot of people that say, Hey, I saw that post or I saw this, and it you know was effective.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it also has that endgame effect of, well, now there's more value built into the business entity, and it's not just the Ben show or the Allen show, it's the firm as a whole has a more of an identity.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And even though you're gonna have your your own culture anyway, now we're telling what that culture is.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're saying how we deliver and who we deliver for and what that's all about, and that's it's delivered through marketing, but it is the message itself is the brand.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's been extremely helpful for just my clarity.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I think there's a couple of things.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: One is you have to, I really feel like you have to want something more, right?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like that that good enough isn't really good enough.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you know you're at the top of your game and you're playing a solid, you know, kind of B plus level game, but you know you're really an A player, you have to decide how much is that fire in the belly, you know, that's going to take you from doing pretty good to what you're capable of.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's one part of it.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Another piece of it, like in your case, you were ready to do that work anyway, right?
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: You were you were you were in the process of doing it, and that's what I see is a lot of firms are doing the marketing, they're doing the right things, they're trying, they're spending their time.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're networking, maybe they're spending money on marketing, maybe they're hiring an agency, and you said you like metaphors.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: I use this metaphor of bikes on a bike path, right?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could be on that old school beach cruiser and having like a totally fine ride down the bike path, and you're getting somewhere.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like you're stuck, but you could also be on a finely tuned Tour de France racing bike, and you could be putting in the same caliber of pedal stroke and getting so much further.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of how our engagement started because I saw what you were like you were starting to ride on that beach cruiser, like crazy, and there's so much more potential in terms of how you positioned yourself and what what you could say.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're gonna do that work, if you're if you believe in marketing at some level, um even just biz dev, and if your brand is just okay, but not really fine tuned, you're doing the work anyway, but you're not getting as far.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Robert.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've gotten some really awesome stuff out of out of this, but before I let you go.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do a couple of uh a couple of get to know you questions.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me something that's not on your LinkedIn profile.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh a couple of things.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a dancer, and so I don't know if you knew that.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I do a dance called the West Coast Swing, um, which is super, super fun.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh sometimes people uh refer to it as modern swing.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: So if you Google West Coast Swing, you'll you'll see lots of cool examples.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and related to that, because I have been hosting a dance, I became uh I founded a nonprofit, which is um I work with the city of Oakland.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: I lease this incredible WP era, you know, beautiful, beautiful building built in the 20s with these great ballrooms, and our nonprofit leases uh individual spaces to dance programs so that instead of this great building being dark um evenings and weekends, it can be used by these community dance programs.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what's not on my LinkedIn.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it should be.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so next up, what we're always trying to improve ourselves one way or the other.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I do it through reading.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what are you reading these days?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so one book that comes to mind is there's a guy who's really smart, his name is Blair Enns.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and his mission is to transform the way creative and marketing is sold.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: So he's got this brilliant book called The Win Without Pitching Manifesto.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: He wrote that a number of years ago.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's got a new book out called The Four Conversations, and it's this very systematic way of looking at the steps and the stages of conveying your expertise to a prospect and then setting up the sale so that you really identify what the real value that's going to be created is, and you're able to um to present the options in a really strategic way so that you can you can maximize the value of that sale.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, that's what I'm reading.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Four Conversations by Blair Anns.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: That I I believe I've heard of that one.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'll often pick it up.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great book.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: So lastly, then we'll put it in the show notes, of course, but how can people get a hold of you, assuming you want to be gotten a hold of?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: Easiest way, my website, fearlessbranding.com.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you can find my email and my contact information there.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm easy to find on LinkedIn, Robert Friedman, uh Fearless Branding.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, everybody, don't be afraid to reach out to Robert.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he is, I don't know, he's just brilliant.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's a creative genius on on branding, and I've really enjoyed working with him personally.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, nobody paid either one of us to uh to uh to say any of the nice stuff, but it but it's all clear.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much for joining me, Robert.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a pleasure, Ben.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's a wrap.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to Max Value Podcast.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if this episode provided any interesting information, hit that subscribe button, smash a like, and drop a comment below.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Ben Kennel Town Advisory, and I'll catch you next time.