Brands Beat Logos, Build An Experience That Lasts | Episode 138

It's very familiar to an iPhone. Listen, nobody wants to be seen with a phone other than an iPhone. Nobody, like, if if if Joe Schmoe is wearing a pair of Reebokes, people are going to have an automatic assumption about Joe the Reebok wearing.

Why are you wearing Nike or Adidas?

It's very similar in that that, and I'm referenced in this before, in that the iPhone doesn't need to be the best phone. And there's room in the equation for their business model that they actually don't have to make the best phone because the brand is so powerful.

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Right here, guys, reach out to John Stacks and his team at Property Management Redefine. Take good care of you. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Timothy Michael, James Garrety the First.

And I am Tim's co-host, Sean Mooney.

See, next time I'm going to introduce myself as Sean Mooney's co-host. Let's do it. I should.

Let's do it.

Yeah. So we got something uh interesting on today.

Parker Parker.

Was this the original Parker Lewis shirt? No, no, no.

No? Is this a new one? This is just a recent addition.

This is like you typed in 90s geometric.

No, I went to Grok. I went to Grok and I said, hey Grok. If I was Parker Lewis and I needed a shirt, find me a link to a shirt that would be Parker Lewis. Okay.

And then also, if you're not familiar with who Parker Lewis is, there was a show in the 90s called Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Check it out. You'll see what we mean. Alright, man. What are we getting into today?

Today we're gonna talk about marketing specifically. Okay. In what sense? And the difference between uh what a brand is versus what a logo is. So within business, talk about some companies and how they've utilized building a brand and what that means in terms of the components that are behind it. And then maybe some businesses or different things that are more just a placeholder, like a like just a logo without everything else baked into it.

Yeah, so what spawned this one? I was listening to another podcast. I can't remember who the guest was, so forgive me that I don't remember who actually said this recently, but the line was from Seth Godin, and it goes like this not word for word, but close enough. Nike is a brand, and then Hyatt is just a logo. Everyone knows Nike, sneakers, clothing, apparel. You got it. Hyatt is a hotel. And you and I were talking recently, uh, you know, right before we started this one, and I had said, like, okay, this is what we're what we're doing for this one, and you were like, okay, you're like Hyatt. You started looking up Hyatt. And I know the name, but I'm like I'm assuming you were probably like, I couldn't even tell you what a Hyatt looks like. Can't tell you if it's low end, middle end, high-end. Because there is no brand experience with Hyatt, but there is a brand experience with Nike. If you go buy a pair of shoes or a pair of shorts or a t-shirt or a jacket from Nike, most people would say it's a high quality piece of athletic apparel, leisure wear, whatever. It's it's nice stuff. If you were to go ahead and book a room at the Hyatt, you probably booked it because for whatever reason the location worked for you and the price worked for you. So you're just like, okay, I'll stay at a Hyatt. I don't care. It's I don't think it's crappy, and I don't think it's like super nice. Seems middle of the road to me. So when we were talking about this, you had said something about hotels. Let's start with that. So we were talking about Hyatt, you're like, I don't even think I even know what it is.

Well, I guess my point is Nike is is so it's easy to build a brand around a sneaker.

Okay.

I would say that.

You're going deeper than that. Right. Okay.

So building a brand around a sneaker to me is easy.

Okay.

Maybe it's I don't know.

That's just my take. All right, so let's not compare Nike to Hyatt. Let's compare the Ritz-Carlton to Hyatt. Yep. Okay. And this has come up before, remember? You're like, I want to be at the Ritz-Carlton.

Well, listen, you have and and let's just talk about what comes with that, right? So Hyatt, I have no idea, right? Could be good, could be bad, I don't know. It's a it's a Hyatt. It's the room. So somewhere I need to be, right? But if you're booking it with the intention that you want something specifically, right, and you want an experience and you want to be wowed and you want them to think about all of the the little details when you're booking that room and that stay, from the minute you walk in that door to the to the minute that you leave that hotel. That's the experience. And that to me is like the brand. It's it's what is your expectations when you stay at that hotel? So you could have the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons or whatever other hotel on the high end. And when you book that room, there's a pretty good chance that you're gonna know exactly what you're going to get. If you stayed there before, there's a level of service that you're going to enjoy when you stay there. And so that's what I think it is, is they put the um the emphasis on the experience and the brand. Whereas another hotel chain, motel six, Econo Lodge, some of these other ones, um, they're not so concerned with what your experience is with them.

Correct. All right, so here's a good example. Did you read you didn't read, did you read the Phil Night Book by any chance? The Nike book? Yeah, I I didn't read it either because I don't really read books. I love how you bring up books and you're like, I didn't. Well, the reason I was asking, because you do read books. Yeah, but like, how long's Nike been around? 50 years, 60 years, something like that?

So they've actually we can look it up. I don't know how long they were have been doing sneakers. They've been doing Noah.

When did Nike start, if you don't mind helping us out on this one?

On it. But they I know that they did not do sneakers for basketball prior to like the Jordan era. Okay.

Nike has been around for over 60 years.

There we go. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. 1964.

There you so yeah, and but they were like track shoes or or or or other types of sneakers that they did, not basketball.

Okay, so I'm gonna start with 60 years. Within that 60 year period, here's here's what Nike has done. They've put out lots of new shoes, they've they've stuck to quality, they have athletes that they want to, you know, endorse. You know, we talked about the gold shoe from you know the Olympics, that whole thing. So like they're very smart in continuing to build their brand in a high quality way. Top athletes use it, lots of style and the different kinds of shoes.

I would actually argue that they are not high quality.

Okay, but let me keep going. Yep. Top athletes use it, uh, you know, lots of different styles. Any sport, whether you're running or basketball or tennis or whatever, you know, you can you can get a Nike for any sport, and here's the price you pay because of that. And that price has always been higher on the shoe end. So the reason they've been able to do it, because you make the point like, I don't even know, is quality really even a thing today? And let's just take that and push it over here for a second. They have got most people believing, myself included, because I own Nikes. If you buy Nikes, they're not gonna be cheap. So that's first and foremost. The Ritz-Carlton, same deal. If you're gonna stay at the Ritz-Carlton, it's not gonna be cheap. Why is it not gonna be cheap? Because the service is gonna be up here, the rooms are gonna be up here, your food and beverage options, uh, the politeness of the staff, uh, the building itself, the quality of your sheets, uh, the soaps in the bathroom, uh, nice towels, all this stuff. You pay more money to stay at the Ritz-Carlton. Doesn't even matter if the soaps are higher quality, doesn't even matter if the sheets are really that good. They have cobbled all this together to get you to believe that if you want to stay at Ritz-Carlton, it's never gonna be cheap. Where do you want to go with that?

So I think this is uh this speaks to the power of brand. Exactly. The sneaker doesn't have to be high quality. Exactly. If you can get and I I don't own Nikes, I don't buy Nikes, they're not my thing. Okay. Um as we've reported on this show previously.

Nothing's his thing.

Um if you can hire influencers and pay athletes to wear your stuff, there's an assumption or an association that you are going to I don't want to say convince people.

You're going to build what? No like and trust. You're going to build trust with a brand. I trust that the Nike will be high quality enough to my liking that they're always going to come out with the nicest shoe for this, for basketball, for tennis, for running, for leisure, whatever. They're always going to have high quality stuff because their prices are always $100, $200, $300. So the trust is there to pay more.

I have uh nephews that wear the Jordans and they're the high top Jordans. And they're like, oh, well, I I can't play basketball on these. Actually, I can't even get them on. I remember buying my nephew a shoehorn so he could fit into his uh high top Jordans. And I'm thinking to myself, there you don't play basketball with them. You can't even get your foot in them, but you have to have them. Have to have them.

This is the power of brands. And what all Nike has also uh created is is style. They've Jordans are a style. You can wear Jordans to a wedding or a business meeting. You wear Jordans to actually play basketball. Like, and there's different kinds for different reasons.

I don't like that people get a pass when they wear Jordans and I wear globes and I don't get a pass.

That's true.

I don't like that.

You should get a pass because what what did globes cost in their heyday? $47?

It's not about the cost, but the look.

I don't think the Globe brand has done as well as Nike. Uh no.

No.

Well, okay, so so we were talking about brand builds. There's trust with a brand. The reason you go with a brand is because you trust them. You trust them to deliver like an experience or a level of quality or whatever it is you're looking at. I don't want to I don't want to sprain my ankle. So I'm gonna wear a Nike when I play basketball because they're probably built the right way that my foot will be protected, or I'll run that much faster, or I'll jump that much higher. Like these are things that go through people's minds with a brand. Hey, if I stay at the Ritz-Carlton, let's take Hyde out of it for a minute. If I stay at the Ritz-Carlton, everyone's gonna be polite. It doesn't mean you won't run into an asshole.

This is uh actually, this is great because I would argue that Nike doesn't have to deliver on the and they don't have to execute on the shoe. Correct. But if you go to the four seasons and you don't have an exceptional experience, you're probably done with them.

No, no. I'm gonna see, I'm gonna take this one level further. All right. So if the Ritz-Carlton, if you book a Ritz-Carlton, let's say like the the room service person was an asshole and they come and they're rude and they're having a bad day and you felt that, you first of all, you know it's your right to call customer service because you're at the Ritz-Carlton say, hey, we we just had uh Ed here and and he was not nice. So I'm just letting you know in case, in case you wanted to know. Not only would they say, Thank you very much for calling, we will speak with Ed for you. We apologize for any inconvenience. What we're gonna do is we're gonna comp your room $100 to pay for that meal and your next meal in order to make sure that your stay is that much more elevated. And let's say you don't say anything during that time. You go home, then you get an email from the Ritz-Carlton to say, How was your experience? And you're like, five, five, five, three for service. And they're like, tell me more. And you're like, Ed was an asshole. Do you know what they're gonna do? What we're gonna do is we're gonna give you one free night at any Ritz-Carlton, anywhere in the world, because guess what? They know it's gonna probably be a two or three night minimum. And they're like, they're still gonna buy another night or two, but they know that we made it right. We can't control the eds of the world, but we can control your experience, whether it's before, during, or after your stay.

I know, but that's that. It's they I should work for the Ritz. They have to deliver. Like, that's my point, is that they have to deliver, or else they're losing a client.

Might not. Because there are exceptions to the rule of brand. If I get a shitty pair of Nikes and I actually called Nike and I said, Look, these these fell apart, they'd probably be like, Hey, you know what? Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna give you a credit, or we're gonna give you you don't know that.

You're no, take this customer service out of this, right? Sure. Buy the Nikes. You're here, here's the point I'm trying to make is that the brand is so powerful that it doesn't matter if the sneaker stinks, you want to be seen in a pair of Nike.

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Okay. That's the point. Yeah. So my point in that is that the brand is so powerful that you don't need a quality product.

It doesn't need to be perfect.

It can have flaws. Correct. And you're going to continue. It's like honestly, if if you really want to get into it, it's kind of like we can get into it.

We're only 15 minutes.

It's very familiar to an iPhone. The power of the like, listen, nobody wants to be seen with a phone other than an iPhone. Accurate. Right? Right. Nobody like if if if Joe Schmoe is wearing a pair of Reeboks, like there people are going to have an automatic assumption about Jo Joe the Reebok wearing.

Why aren't you wearing Nike or Adidas?

Right. So it it's very similar in that that and I'm referenced in this before in that the iPhone doesn't need to be the best phone. True. And and there's and there's room in the equation for their business model that they actually don't have to make the best phone because the brand is so powerful and it's almost an accessory of sorts that you want to be seen with an iPhone.

Or the fact that you're like, Apple is a massive company. They're always putting out top technology. Maybe they were like the first major player in this space. So you have this level of trust in your mind. Let's say it's the first time you're buying an iPhone. You're like, well, Apple seems to be like the player. And then you go to their website, it's gorgeous. And you look at all the phone features and you call customer service or email them, hey, a question about this feature. Hey, it's just like this. And then you go through that experience. You're like, okay, I gotta get this thing. And then you get it, and six months later, it's got all these bugs. You're like, what's going on? What's going on? And you talk to someone, and they're like, oh yeah, you know, that happens every now and then. Just go to the genius bar and the King of Prussia Mall and they'll work out your bugs for you. And you're like, okay, so they can suffer on the quality, or they can maybe not deliver on your initial experience of it being kind of like the best or the perfect phone. Because so many people have them, you think it looks cool, they think it look it looks cool. Even if you have a problem, someone's like, oh, well, you just do this or go get yourself a new phone. You're like, yeah, I'll just go get a new one. I got a lemon. So I'll go ahead and get a new one you'll probably buy another iPhone. Because you're like, why wouldn't I? That's the brand in smartphones.

If I can dovetail this into insurance, I always like these opportunities to please. Oh, I can't wait to go into it through real estate. The uh big brand national insurance companies spend millions and billions of dollars on building their brand. Everything we're talking about. They don't need an exceptional experience. Correct. Or even the lowest price. Or even the lowest price. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. They have people buying their product thinking that this is the best because of the advertisements and the marketing campaigns. Which there's a recent study that uh was put out in terms of claim denials.

There's this circling uh You mean someone makes a claim and they say, like, no, we're not we're not even entertaining that. Right. Okay.

And there's a lot of beef online about claim denial rates. And if you look at the spectrum of claim denials and percentages, who holds the highest position of claim denials? Biggest companies, probably. The biggest companies.

Because they can.

Because they can. They're they're allowed to do that because you see you see their offices in every Neighborhood in town. They have commercials on TV all day. They have commercials on social media, YouTube, billboards, sporting events, anything and everything you can think of for those big insurance brands, big box insurance, as we've called it. They're everywhere.

When we got hit with the tornado in Upper Dublin Ambler area, um, there was two standout um carriers that were the worst to deal with with these claims. To the fact that I had people two and three years after the event calling me, say, I'm still dealing with this claim with this carrier. Uh-huh. And it was two of the national brands that were not, I would say, fulfilling obligations to their insureds and doing the repairs and doing everything necessary to get them back in the homes. So it's just to illustrate the point that they spend the money to build the brand.

They don't spend the money to, you know, indemnify the clients or to they're they're spending more money on branding to build their influence as number one or the best or the coolest or whatever it is. Yeah. They're spending their money on that rather than being like, well, how do we get our expenses down and charge less on insurance so we save our clients money? They're more because they know the power of brand is more valuable because if you save someone a couple bucks, someone else can come along and save them a couple bucks too. So what differentiates one from the other? Yeah. I have a very good real estate brand for you. Okay. Love to hear it. Sothebees. Sothebees. When you think of Sotheby's and residential real estate, what do you think? I think high-end. High-end, maybe, maybe uh vacation areas on the coast. Uh could be high-end urban stuff. Luxury. Luxury. You think luxury real estate when you think of Sotheby's, okay? Yeah. Now again, Sotheby's was also a brand in, I think in the auction space before they got into residential real estate. But I want to just let's just stick to residential real estate. So again, most of the time if you see an agent and they work for Sotheby's, you might assume in your mind that they only do or primarily do luxury real estate listings, buyers, landlords, whatever. That's not the case. Okay, there's some agents that I meet that are with Sotheby's that are doing the same level of price point or least lease price that I'm dealing with, and I'm not in the luxury space. Have I sold things over a million dollars? Yes, I have. Is that what I do all the time? No, it's not. But Sotheby's wants to be in that space. They want the brand to be like that for their signage. They want the office to feel like that. They want their agents to exude that. Everything you think about with them as a residential real estate brand speaks to the million plus market, I would I would call it. Anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. Just like if you go back to Ritz, it's the same thing. There'd be a hotel in Hawaii, uh, Philadelphia, or Tokyo. It's still going to be here. Sotheby's could be selling in Houston, uh, New York, or Singapore. And it's gonna be here. So again, power brand. All right. So now that we've talked about brand versus logo, let's talk about some of our actionable advice if someone is interested in starting a brand. Um, we could take it from the standpoint of like a company brand, like you've started a company brand, or even we could talk about a personal brand. So what would you say would be like a good way to get started or an actionable step or advice for how to get started with a brand?

I think the best uh advice you could uh receive is is get specific. Okay? Explain that, yeah. About trying to um get specific about what your offering is. Um get your ideal client. Work real hard on finding who your your perfect prospect is. Uh-huh. And and build your brand to speak directly to them. That's what I would say. Because the wider you are, the broader you are, the more you know, you're thinking, oh, well, I want to do more, and I want more clients and more than you're you're not your brand isn't going to have a focus. Correct. So I think that if you're wanting to start spin the wheels about building a brand, get specific about who that ideal client is and and build your marketing to speak directly to that exact prospect.

One thing I remember you'd said on a past podcast, can't remember which one. We were talking about the Mooney Insurance Broker brand. Yeah. Okay, you start it, you put your name on it. You had said, even like to this day, you're like, would I have done it that way again? Maybe not. Yeah. Put your name on it, and then you had your list of a hundred people. And you're like, okay, here's my target audience. If these hundred people are who I'm trying to appeal to, I also need to think of that when I design my logo, my website, my customer service, like who am I working with for my carriers? Like, what do I offer? What do I not offer? Speak to that a little bit. When you were developing that brand and you had that list of 100, what was going through your mind as you started your brand?

Yeah, and I don't think I necessarily knew exactly what it was back then. Um, but I definitely knew who I wanted to work with, right? Uh, and I knew who I didn't want to work with, right? And and and so I think that's a key component to this is that yes, you may know who you want to work with or who your client might be, but it's almost as valuable to know who you don't want to work with. The deadbolt. The deadbolt. So the reason why that's important is because if you don't have that um separation, yeah, like an avatar. Yep. You're going to find that those types of people that you don't necessarily want to work with are going to bleed over and absorb your time that takes away from trying to serve your ideal candidates. And we have this conversation in our office a lot. We try to get to the know quick. There was a guy, we got an email, it was a cold email yesterday from a gentleman, very nice guy. He's building uh a five million dollar home out in Newtown, and he gave me what looked to be some AI dissertation about what he needed. Right? I need this to do business with you. It wasn't even that. It was this is what I'm looking for, and in great detail was like and right away, immediately like see on paper, just an awesome candidate.

Yeah, who doesn't want to insure a five million dollar home?

But there there were certain particulars that are to me like a tell of what this is going to be. Yep. And I uh and I just replied back and said, Hey, you we don't have what you're looking for.

Yes, you're very polite about it. Not like I don't feel like dealing with you.

Uh we don't have what you're looking for. If uh if you still need help, uh I would I'd happy to refer you to someone that can give you everything that you just mapped out. Wow. Just let me know.

Nice. Did you get anything back?

I did get a response. Thank you for your prompt response. I appreciate uh you letting me know. I'm still working through a couple things. If I do need the help, I will come back and let you know.

Awesome. So you're you're polite and helpful about it, as we always said. It's like if you can't help someone, just help point them in the right direction. Yep.

So um speaks to your brand.

I think it's just im I I say that because it's it's to illustrate the point of knowing who you want to work with. And in the beginning, you're trying to make stuff fit that probably shouldn't fit. Yep. Because you're trying to grow your business or whatever, and that's fine. I I I I will say that if you're new and you're trying to do this, you don't have to be as selective out of the gate getting going. But over time, what you should have is a practice to get to the point where you are trying to um really understand who you want to work with and who you don't, and and and gravitate more towards those and don't be afraid to not work with people. Awesome.

All right. So for me, I would say brands take time. This goes back to your line: marathon or mindset. Like if you want to start your own brand for whatever it is, a personal brand, a company brand, a real estate team brand or whatever, an Etsy t-shirt brand, whatever you're trying to do, brands take time. Not only do they take time, they take money, they take effort, they take dedication, and just zeroing in on why are you even creating a brand? So, like recently for me, I, you know, ever since Copper Hill was no more, I started a personal brand for my very small real estate team called the Tim Garretti team. And I remember when I was talking to shout out to Brent Bush, my boy, check out Brent Bush Design. Also was a guest on our show. When I went to him for our team for my team brand, he's like, all right, what are you thinking? I'm like, here's what I'm thinking. I just want text. I don't want any shapes or low, you know, I don't want a logo. I just want text. Okay, why do you want text? Okay, I explain why. What colors? I explain why. Literally within like one day, gave me like a couple treatments, and I said, it's that one. That's the one. I think I maybe made one tweak on it.

And the reason I didn't really spend a whole lot of time on when you point, you actually could probably just like that's true. Brent did this. So you knew. You knew right away, like that's it.

That's it.

And then for me, maybe this went through your head when you were um starting your brokerage with your name. You just said, look, I want this to appeal to people that I know. I'm only doing this for people that I know, my current clients, people that I would love to work with, friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, like grow it organically through my network. Like that's where I went with my personal brand. On top of that, we just happened to be starting the podcast around the same time. Again, it's your name and my name on this thing. Okay. The Tim and Sean show. We we created that with Brent as well, but that only existed because of you and me. Because you and I got on these mics and we said, hey, we're just gonna start spitting, sharing what we know, and hopefully people tune in. And if they don't, guess what? We'll probably keep doing it because we're crazy.

I should ask Claude what our brand is.

Like, like you sh we should get a sense. Not like what what is the bricks and wrist podcast? No, what is the bricks and wrists podcast brand?

I'm gonna report back with some some information on that.

Please text me something later. Yeah. Or maybe on like Friday evening when I'm already have like a glass of wine in my hand, I'll make it that much funnier. Um, so my advice is if you're gonna start a brand, think long term, not short term. Just like he did with his company, I did with my personal brand. Both of those are long-term brands. Well, if you think about it. That's what we gotta give you.

Um, like take a person like Lisa Murphy. Yep. Shout out to Lisa Murphy. Lisa has a brand, right? That she's kind of developed over years and years. Did she have a brand, you know, day one of her real estate career?

No.

Probably not. I'm just, you know, guessing. Um, but over time, as you do transactions, as you build a following, as you deliver for people, they get to understand what makes you tick, you know, what what value you can bring to them. And so, you know, to your point, it's the cumulative effect of what you can deliver year after year. And that's for us too, right? Like what did my what was my brand day one? Was it my name? You know, probably just that and nothing more. And what has it become, right? It's you know, protecting families and working with people that care about having the proper insurance and and want to work with an insurance partner, right? That's kind of like what we strive for. And I think that that people, clients, prospects understand that that's the value that we bring. Yep. And that doesn't happen, you know.

And not everyone wants that. Like someone could look at your brand and be like, I just want the lowest price. If you don't have the lowest price, I'm out. Right. Or if I don't agree with like how you're uh looking at your carriers right now, I'm out. Right. You're just like, cool. Wasn't meant to be anyway. Yeah. So that's that's a really good point. So why don't you go ahead and shut this one down?

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Awesome. That's all we have for this one, folks. Thank you for tuning in again to another episode of Bricks and Risk. See you next week. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all BR episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else to get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.