Robert Friedman, founder of Fearless Branding, helps experts maximize their firms' potential with fearless branding. During this conversation, Robert explains how to determine clarity versus differentiation in your brand's story using a Central Organizing Principle to hold it all together. We discuss major, global brands but this strategy can help any business or solopreneur win and stand out.
Notes from the Show
1. The Power of a Central Organizing Principle:
Robert emphasizes the importance of identifying a singular, central idea that drives everything a business does. This "central organizing principle" becomes the foundation of a brand that resonates deeply with the right clients.
2. Standing Out in a Crowded Consulting Market:
With an increasing number of consultants entering the market, it's crucial to differentiate yourself. Robert explains that relying on generic claims like "20 years of experience" won't cut it. Instead, consultants need to fearlessly express what makes them unique.
3. Five Key Questions to Define Your Brand:
Robert outlines five essential questions every consultant should ask themselves:
Who are you?
What do you do?
Who do you do it for?
What do they need or want?
What do they get?
These questions help consultants clarify their brand and communicate their value in a way that stands out from the competition.
4. Why Fearlessness Matters in Branding:
Robert explains that being "fearless" means being willing to narrow your focus and express your uniqueness, even if it doesn’t appeal to everyone. This approach filters out the wrong clients and attracts the right ones.
What’s Inside:
What is Fearless Branding?
How to use a Central Organizing Principle in your brand story.
The key difference in clarity and differentiation.
Defining your audience, problems, and solutions.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:38
Hi everyone. Welcome back. Thank you for being here, and a special thanks to my guest today, Robert Friedman, owner of Fearless branding, where he focuses on service firms and consultants that sell high value services. Welcome, Robert.
Robert Friedman 0:52
Thanks, Susan. It's so great to be here with you. Oh,
Susan Tatum 0:54
it's good to have you here. You know, I'm not sure how we met. I think you might have reached out to me on LinkedIn last year, but we've managed to have some really thoughtful conversations over the last, I don't know how, almost a year now, I guess I really appreciate that. You know, I talked to, I talked to a lot of branding people, and I look at a lot, I mean, literally hundreds of LinkedIn profiles and positioning lines. And the thing that caught me immediately about you and your work is that you tend to focus on the individual and really capture the essence of what makes that service provider different and why clients should you use them, and you do it all with like, four words in a headshot. I mean, I know that there's an awful, awful lot more that goes into that, but it comes out just being so crisp and clear and really, really hard to misunderstand. And so I'm done gushing, but I ask you here to talk about your approach to branding, and before we really get into it, or as part of that, would you just take a few minutes and tell us about you and your story and how fearless branding came to be and what it stands for.
Robert Friedman 2:06
sure, sure. So I started my career many moons ago as kind of a madman on Madison Avenue in New York City, and worked for big advertising agencies back in the day. Then I moved to the a small marketing consulting firm, and I then became a brand manager. So I moved from the agency side to the client side, where you're responsible for everything for a business, from just making sure you hit the sales to product development, advertising, etc. And I then was doing some work in brand management for, frankly, some really boring companies for craft. I mean, I'm sorry for for contact and Nestle. So my last corporate gig, I was working on coffee mate, and it's basically artificial power. And I just thought, you know what, this has been fun, but right now I'm really miserable because I don't want to spend my life talking boxes of artificial powder. It's just it's not what I want to be doing with my life, with my talents. And I was really thinking about, Do I need to leave marketing? Do I need to leave branding and become a psychologist or something that had more meaning. And then I looked at some other brands, specifically Apple Nike. It's like, okay, I'm working on coffee mate. The guy next to me is working on carnation, Instant Breakfast. But somebody else is doing Apple, somebody else is doing Nike, and there is a difference. And then I started thinking really deeply about like, is it just that those brands are cool and they've got the thing like the popular kid at school, or is there something that is actually systematic? And so I started reverse engineering those businesses, and what I saw was that it wasn't just that they were making great products, that they were providing a meaningful experience for their best customers. Then as I continued to analyze, what I solved was there was what I call a central organizing principle. Those businesses were created around one single meaningful idea. So for Apple as an example, if you look at the logo, it's not just an apple, it's an apple with bite taken out of it. Where does that come from? It comes from the book of Genesis. It's our creation myth. Apple is the creator, and when you think about it that way, it makes sense, right? Like that's their their heritage. If you want to be more creative, Apple has this, this gift, right? Like your brand is your gift, and they distill it down to a single essence, one idea, Nike. I don't know to what extent people know this, but it's the Greek goddess Nike. She is the winged goddess of victory. Nike is all about winning, like whatever winning is for your life. So I got very excited by this insight, and I built my whole business around that. And it is still the thing that drives my business 20 plus years later. And so, you know, you were talking earlier about how I can create a brand based on, you know, four words and a headshot. I mean, sometimes it's six words, right, but it's really built on knowing what the idea is, the central organizing principle that then drives everything that the brand, the business says and does, right? So you know what the focus is. And the problem that I see is too often businesses, they're just, like, trying to throw everything in there, just like, you know, like here and there's a kitchen sink, and they putting too much stuff in there. But when you know your one thing, which is the biggest gift you give, which is the value you deliver to your customers or your clients, and it's all organized around that one thing, then your best clients, your best customers, understand you at a deep level without having to think too hard, and you're able to communicate like, why should you choose us? And it's not going to be right for any everyone in a given category, but for the right people who are wired that way, you're going to create incredible resonance. And those brands and and a few more have used this strategy to create fierce customer loyalty, willingness to pay premium pricing, and it results in a huge amount of of company value, just the market cap of the of the stocks right for public companies. But the thing is that this can be applied, literally down to a solo business. Anybody can use this same strategy to find your big idea.
Susan Tatum 6:51
I think that is particularly important with so our listeners are primarily consultants, and most of them independent consultants, and any service provider you're selling yourself. I mean, that's what's there, and the and the the, yeah, that's what people are buying. But you also, I want to make sure that everyone heard you say that when you when you have, when you hit on the right brand, or you hit on the right idea, it's not going to appeal to everybody. And that is really important, because you don't want to appeal to everybody. You don't appeal to everybody, and it's going to filter out wasting time talking to the folks that are not going to be good clients for you, and at the same time, it makes you stand so far above all of these other people that are doing generic, we'll call it safe stuff, saying the same thing, like, pull the logo off the website and you don't know who it is.
Robert Friedman 7:42
yeah. Yeah, agree. So there's two points I want to make in response to what you just said, the types of clients that I work with are really frustrated, you know, kind of like all the way to angry that they know how good they are, and yet they're struggling to attract and then win the caliber of client that they know they're capable of serving, but they can't get their attention right, because and the culprit the enemy, is that they are. They look and sound like they're competitors. They are articulating their value in a generic way, and it's because they haven't been fearless enough to tighten the parameters, right? And we'll talk about that more with some questions that I asked to help people, like, define what their real, true best market is and who their best clients are. Yeah, the real value they deliver. But like, that's, that's the critical piece around not being perceived as though you're generic, as though you're a commodity. The other point I wanted to make, though, is that when you said, you know, as consultants, and most of my clients are either consultants or professional service providers, people who own firms and some solos, they are selling who they are, but often, when you say, Okay, let people know who you are. But well, like, how do I do that? So to me, what that means is, what do you stand for that could be? What do you believe it could be a dominant value? Like, one single value, like, for me, mine is fearlessness, right? What is it? And what fearless means is being more willing to like, push the edge. How do you figure out if this is your cliff, right? If you're way back here, you're playing it too safe. If you're on the other side, you fall over the edge and you go splat, right? So how do you figure out where that is? And that's, to me, the fearless part, like, because, if it's very easy just to be be like everybody else, because there's one of the things I think about is this tension between clarity and distinctiveness, or differentiation. Like, you could be very clear, I am, you know, a compliance consultant that I make sure that your business is not going to get into regulatory issues with whoever the governing body. Like, okay, that's clear. I understand that, but you are not giving me a specific reason to choose you versus your competition, if all you're doing is telling me the basics of what I need to know. I do need to know the basics. But that's not all I need. If you are in a crowded and competitive space, if you are fortunate enough to either be in a space where there's more demand than supply, let's say, like, my observation, many people like in tax, you know, tax prep, there's just not enough of them. You don't need to be differentiated necessarily. Like people will just find you if you're good at what you do, or you have a great referral network. But when you're in other, much more crowded spaces, like my client, who's a personal injury lawyer, and there's so many of them, and they are all going after the same body of people who need a personal injury lawyer because they've been seriously injured, you really need to stand out. So it depends, it depends on your market, but it does come down to who you are, and who you are is driven by your values, what you stand for.
Susan Tatum 11:22
So let me say something to to what you just said, Robert, because so I've been, since the first of the year, I've been on this mission to talk to 100 at least 100 people, experts and executives from big companies, big consulting firms, that that are haven't left for whatever reason, they've left the corporate world, and they're forming their own firms. And I've talked to I think it's 8788 of them now. And one thing that I keep hearing over and over again is I had no idea how much competition there is out there. And I think with consulting, sure, there's going to be some some some people that have got an expertise that that few other people have, but with, you know, starting back at covid, going through the, you know, a weak economy, all the layoffs that began with the tech industry and went through, through everybody, and I've never seen so much high level talent and expertise available on a contract basis. Then you put that couple that with, okay, it's a shaky economy. We don't know what's going to be happening businesses and people don't spend money that they don't have to spend, you know if it's got to be a big problem or a good opportunity. So I think the point that you're making about the need to stand out is just, it's non negotiable. Really. It's, you've got to do it.
Robert Friedman 12:47
Yeah, yeah. I agree. It is so much easier than it's ever been to just have a zoom connection.
Susan Tatum 12:58
Oh, yeah,
Robert Friedman 13:00
but have a website and you're a consultant. Yeah, right. So how do you define what your expertise is? And the number one question that your brand should answer for your prospect is, why choose you over competition? And same thing for referral sources, why should you be our go to referral partner in your space, when, just as you said, there's so many choices, so many options, and the more you're willing to be fearless and define your specific turf, the more you will be the choice for your people, your area of expertise. When you're trying to be all things to all people, you're leaving too many doors open. Then you run the risk and nobody's going to choose you.
Susan Tatum 13:43
Well, I've also found that the Why choose you over the competition? The answer is not, I have 20 years of experience.
Robert Friedman 13:52
Yeah. So what one of the pitfalls that I see among consultants and professional services firms is so many of them fall into the same traps. Of, I have 20 years experience, or when you add up our team's experience, you know, there's three of us, and we have, and I did not mean years of experience. Nobody cares.
Susan Tatum 14:14
As team mistakes, you know what you're doing,
Robert Friedman 14:20
or you know we're so responsive to our clients, or we put our clients interest first, or
Susan Tatum 14:25
we don't really care,
Robert Friedman 14:26
Right, like you really have to be ruthless and look at what you are saying, and take your logo off, put your hand over your logo and ask Who else can say that? Who else is saying the same thing and it's the same story, the same language that your competitors are using. I you know, I think you're just in your bubble. You're deluding yourself about whether that is, in fact, something that's going to resonate with your prospects.
Susan Tatum 14:57
Yeah, I think that's a great tip, Robert, I think of that it would serve us all well to go and google and find who the top 10 people are that come up for whatever you know. Is it leadership consulting? Is it whatever it is, yeah. And go look at their websites. Go look at their their LinkedIn profiles, and see, see what they're saying. And then don't bother to say that.
Robert Friedman 15:19
Yeah, yeah. So to me, you know, I've heard this articulated a lot, and you were alluding to it like the one thing that sets you apart is you, yes, right? So there's this story that's, I think, my favorite story in business history. When Steve Jobs went back to Apple. He founded Apple. He got fired, basically, went to start a new company called next computer. And then Apple was about to go under there but they almost were about to declare bankruptcy, and they brought him back because they had to. He was the only one who seemed to be able to turn the business around. So he came back, and the first thing he did was, he said, The Apple brand needs love. He hired an agency, an ad agency, and he created this campaign think different. And so there was this moment when he was introducing it to his internal team. And what he said is, marketing is about values. It's a complicated, noisy world, so we have to be very intentional about what we want people to know about us. And then what he said is, the Apple customer doesn't care about our speeds and feeds and why we're better than Windows, which is like the function, right? That's a trap. What they care about is, who is apple? What do we stand for? Where do we fit in this world? And so then he introduced the thing different campaign, not a computer insight, not a mention of what they do, but what it showed was Einstein and Gandhi and Mandela. And these were people who created art, music, political movements, something amazing out of nothing. These were the creators. And what Job said is, people with passion can change the world for the better. I just still let further to like these are people who created something amazing out of nothing created. Yeah, right, so that is when I work with a client, there's five questions that I ask, and that's the first one, who are you, and that story is like, what I mean by Who are you like? What do you really believe? Who are you really for? And what is the gift you give? So those are the questions, the way to really get in there and define what differentiates you versus your competition, because those are personal qualities. You apply those personal qualities to the technical part of your work, or, you know, or the actual methodology of your work, but what impacts them because of what you deeply believe? So that's the first question, who are you? The next ones, in a way, are kind of simpler. So who, what do you do? So that's related, but if you have, let's say, a methodology or a process, you don't have to do every single thing different than your competition, because then you're going to be in some different category. But there should be certain things that you do that is that are different if you do the same darn things that everybody else does in the same ways, then if you are trying to differentiate, you're just kind of like making a story that doesn't have grounding. You need to do something different because you believe this is the right way. So then the next questions are, who do you do it for? So that's really defining who that audience is, and there's demographic ways to define it. So that could be, let's say, what type of company would your clients be? How big they are, where they're located, how much money they make, things like that. The other is psychograph. How are they wired? What do they believe both. You know, the company culture, the psychology of the decision maker. Then last thing is, what is their problem? So what do they need, right? And it could be a problem could be an opportunity. What do they need? Or what do they want, you know, depending on whether they're trying to solve a problem or capture an opportunity. And then what do they get? So that's the benefit. And so that's kind of what rolled everything up. And I really feel like the way you answer one question is the way you answer all of them, at least at the at the level of the heart and the gut, right? Like, who are we? We are the creators. What do we do? We create. We help you be more creative. We do it for people who value that you need to feel creative. That's part of who you are, like, that's what you get if, if you are, if you're an apple person, right? Right thing for me, and fearlessness, right? Like, there's, there's depth of the specifics, but at a high. Level you want to find that. Like I said, it's your central organizing principle that really drives everything, and that's your answer, and that's what that's the glue that holds your value proposition, your brand story, together.
Susan Tatum 20:13
I have a question, how long did it take you to come up with fearless, fearless branding? Because it's perfect.
Robert Friedman 20:19
I know? Well, the answer is, I don't know if I've ever told you this story, so the answer is, like, 42 minutes, probably. And I didn't do it. I knew that I wanted to become a branding consultant. And I thought, like, Okay, well, I'm gonna need to put up a website. And I started writing like, what do I believe? What are my ideas? One of the things I wrote was consumers love brands that fearlessly express their unique guess. And I was thinking about Apple. I was thinking about Nike. So I had a brainstorming session with a bunch of friends and colleagues. Like, there are probably eight people in the room, and this one guy said, can you read that sentence again? It's like consumers love brands that fearlessly express their unique essence. He said, That's it, fearless branding. And believe it or not, this was like around 2001 it was edgy then, and I thought, like, oh, I can't do that. I can't say that. And literally, he and everyone in the room said, Oh, yes, you can. And they walked out the door. They just left. And I remember when I went to my graphic designer and I said, fearless branding is like, you're sure, right? And so that became it, and and then over the years, I've grown into it, and I've seen it's not just a name, it's a way of being, it's a philosophy. It's the thing I stand for. And when you've got that thing, it really can help. When you've got that idea, and you are able to express it and articulate it consistently, it makes a big difference in the way the world and your people experience what you have to offer, right?
Susan Tatum 22:07
Yeah, because it because you want fearless clients. I mean, they may be a little bit afraid too, but they're right that
Robert Friedman 22:13
they want to be fearless like that inspires them.
Susan Tatum 22:18
Yeah. All right, so tell us, um, you, there's these five questions that you mentioned that, and I know from personal experience with you that they're not easy to answer, especially that first one about who you are.
Robert Friedman 22:29
Yeah, the questions are so easy, but it's not necessarily easy to answer them.
Susan Tatum 22:34
It's going to take some time. Yeah, so we're taught, so just to reiterate, we're talking it's who are you? What do you do? Who do you do it for? What do they need or want, and what do they get
Robert Friedman 22:45
exactly.
Susan Tatum 22:46
And then, just to make it more complex, the way that I've seen you present it, it's in a circle. And it continues to go around the circle, answer asking questions over again, right?
Robert Friedman 22:59
So the reason I think about it that way is because it doesn't matter what what question you start with, and it's an iterative process. It's not like that you keep going around that circle forever, and it never stops. But when you start to think through your answers to the questions, they inform each other. So it's not like a linear process where you start with who are you, which, frankly is it's the biggest and most difficult of the questions, but it's a good place to start. But in my experience, if you start there, you get some great ideas to begin with, but you're not going to just finish it and nail it and then move on and not revisit it, like you start there, right? You keep going through it, and then you see how the other your answers to the other questions inform who you are, and so on. And you kind of work through it a couple of times until you get to a place where you feel like that's it, like this is solid, it feels distinctive. I got it and just, you know, to make things perhaps a little more complicated. It's like you want to do it for yourself, but you also might want to get some additional external input. You could talk to clients, potential clients, strategic alliances, referral partners. You can get some some input from people who know, you know your work, understand the value of it, and you want to look at your competition as well to make sure that you don't have that tunnel vision of, like, oh, that's brilliant. Like, yeah, my client said it was brilliant. It's like, well, you know what? That's what all the competitors are saying. And so it's really not going to work. So you got to make sure you don't have your blinders on, and you're, you're really being rigorous about, you know, are you really, you know, the the option that your best clients would consider, and they're not hearing that from somebody else
Susan Tatum 24:50
well, and then in your story that you told about where fearless branding came from, that's something that you probably never would have done on your own without the input. Yeah.
Robert Friedman 24:59
Right. Right
Susan Tatum 25:00
Yeah. So it helps to get you may not have a room full of friends that will get up and walk out once, once they're happy with the answer, but, but there's a lot of things that you're going to then, this is the royal you. But subconsciously, we're weeding out some very good things because you think they're not right. And so having other people to pull that out, I think can just a very good thing. Well, I appreciate so much you're stopping by. This has been, as usual, very informative and fun.
Robert Friedman 25:31
Oh, my pleasure.
Susan Tatum 25:32
So have people that want to follow up and learn more about you and fearless branding. What's the best way to do that?
Robert Friedman 25:36
The best way is go to my website. It's fearlessbranding.com. You can also find me easily on LinkedIn. Robert Friedman, fearless branding. If you Google that, you'll you'll find me on LinkedIn. Some things I'll mention. I have a brand strength assessment. It's very simple. It's just 12 statements that represent the ideal state. You can score yourself based on where you think you are right now. You can download it from my website. Feel free to email me and happy to go through happy to go through it with you.
Susan Tatum 26:08
Excellent. All right, well again, thank you so much, and enjoy the rest of your day.
Robert Friedman 26:14
Thanks, Susan, it was a pleasure to talk to you.
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