Shownotes
Transcripts
What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:And I'm Sara Lohse. And this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding.
Larry Roberts [:And on this amazing episode of the podcast, we're gonna be dialing it back a little bit. We're gonna get back to basics, if you will.
Sara Lohse [:I like getting back to basics. I like going back to those fundamentals of building your brand. And we talked a little bit about this in an early episode, but we're going to talk about a couple more mistakes that people make when they start building their personal brand so that y'all don't make the mistakes. I know we've made a lot of these, so maybe we can save you some time and effort so you don't make these same mistakes.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, people jump into making a personal brand or creating or building their personal brand and they think it's easy. You know, they think it is right out of the gate, they're going to jump out. They're going to be an influencer, they're going to have millions of followers, they're going to have millions of subscribers on their YouTube channel, and they're just instantly going to have a brand because they came up with some catchy logo or catchphrase slogan, whatever it may be. But I mean, that's really one of the biggest misconceptions out there, is that it's quick and easy.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I think the biggest mistake someone can make is just thinking that it's like, build it and they will come like, okay, I have this brand now. Come hang out, like, come pay attention to me. And I think part of it is we have this idea of overnight successes. And there are very few overnight successes that are actually overnight successes.
Larry Roberts [:And even those, even those, they're generally not exactly, you know, they're just not exactly.
Sara Lohse [:We don't see the, like 1015 years that these musicians were playing, like, local bars before they became, like, billboard hits. Yeah, we don't see it. We just see what happens once they make it. So it feels like for us it happened overnight.
Larry Roberts [:Well, I mean, I've been. Look at me, I've been playing this game ten years, and the red hat didn't really pop off until about two years ago. You know, people think that when they meet me now, they think the red hat's been a long time thing, but it really is only about two years old. And if I think back when I got started, I went through brand after brand after brand after brand after brand before something finally just organically clicked and the red hat stuck. And it could be extremely. I mean, I literally have what, I don't know what you call it, a dream board or vision board, I think is what it's actually called. Right. So I got this vision board in there with these pushpins of pictures of me throughout the years and every business card that I've built for every brand that I've had over the last ten years.
Larry Roberts [:And it's ridiculous. I mean, just crazy, crazy designs, even crazy shapes. Of course, I have the traditional horizontal business card, then I got really crafty when vertical business cards, then I thought I'd get really crafty with square business cards, thick business cards, thin business cards, plastic business cards, all these different brands and attempts to build a brand, thinking that that's going to be the next big thing right there. And it's just not generally.
Sara Lohse [:No, it takes a long time, and we don't. I know we talk about podcasting with most podcasts don't make it past, like, episode four, episode five, six, seven, and they just quit. And I feel like that's the same with brands. People will launch a personal brand and they don't get that instant success, that immediately success, and they throw it out and they just give up. So there's so many personal brands that have been started that have just been abandoned.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. And I. I laugh only because I've done it so many times.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I actually, you know Nate Bergotzi?
Larry Roberts [:Yes, yes. Yeah. The community. Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:He's one of my favorites. But one of his early skits, he said, you know, I almost quit stand up comedy, but then I realized I didn't have anyone to quit to. And that's what I think of with, like, thinking of building a brand is this quick and easy process. There's so many people, they start it and then they just kind of fade away because they don't have an audience to quit.
Larry Roberts [:That is too funny. I'm so glad you made that you brought that up because I've never thought of it that way, but that is freaking hilarious. What are you quitting? What are you, what are you quitting?
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:No one knows you are what you are.
Sara Lohse [:What are you doing? A thing no one knew you were.
Larry Roberts [:Doing.
Sara Lohse [:Out now, I mean, Nate was just, I call him Nate. Like, we're on first name basis, we're besties. But he was just on like, a national tour, selling out stadiums. He did three nights at Austin. I really wanted to go, but that is now versus years ago. He wanted to quit and had no one to quit to. So it's just another way of seeing that you need to put the work in and put the time in, and eventually you'll start to get an audience, you'll start to get a client base, you'll start to build this actual impactful brand, but it's not going to happen overnight.
Larry Roberts [:And then you can quit.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. Then you'll, then you could tell the people that are listening that I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore.
Larry Roberts [:No, don't quit. It takes too much work to build that brand. So once you get that thing go a bit, do not back off. Just keep the pedal to the metal and keep building that brand. So.
Sara Lohse [:Absolutely.
Larry Roberts [:What's another one of the mistakes that we were talking about before we hit record? Sarah.
Sara Lohse [:So this one, I think, is important when we're building a brand and we're built like, we need to think of it as the personal brand so that we think of it as almost like a second piece of us. So a mistake that a lot of people make is not really knowing who they are. Before trying to launch that personal brand, you have to have this really clear understanding of who you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it, what you stand for, what you value, what your mission is, and have that all laid out, because it's going to be the guidance that you need so that the brand that you build is very authentic and is very true to you and what you're trying to do.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, I think we, we've seen that mistake been made over and over. And I know I've made that mistake in the past because we'll see a brand that's out there, a personal brand that's been built, whether it be a Gary Vee or a grant cardone or the list goes on on of these influencers that have this certain delivery to their content, and you see how successful they are and you see the impact that they're having in the millions and millions of followers that they have. He thought, well, it works for them. It'll work for me. You know, I made that mistake when I first started podcasting because, and we've talked about John Lee Dumas more than once on this podcast. But I saw what John Lee Dumas was doing, and he's a very successful, very wealthy podcaster, and he built a business on his podcast, and he did it by doing the exact same thing each and every episode.
Sara Lohse [:All anyone doesn't know, he's entrepreneurs on fire.
Larry Roberts [:We don't need to plug him. Okay, let's plug but he literally did the same thing every episode, all the way down to the exact same ten questions that he asked each of his guests. So I sat there, and I listened to episode after episode, which for me, personally, was a little rough, but at the same time, I was like, man, I guess this works. So I wrote down every question, and I thought, you know what? If it works for him, man, I'm much better at this than he is, so it'll work for me, too. And, well, it didn't.
Sara Lohse [:Well, you also had, like, your first podcast was a comedy podcast. Didn't you start that one trying to be Joe Rogan?
Larry Roberts [:Well, it was definitely Joe Rogan influenced. I wasn't necessarily trying to be Joe Rogan because we were on a much different level with the. Of, what do we call it? Nastiness that we were. That we were going with. I don't know what else to call it. We were just very blue. So it was no holds barred podcast, and anything went, man, and it was crazy. So, although Joe Rogan was the influence for me starting that podcast, we weren't necessarily trying to emulate him.
Sara Lohse [:I think you really need to know who you are and not try to build a brand around a perception of you, and that's a mistake people make. It's. People expect me to be this. People expect me to do this. So that's what I'm gonna do. And not only does it come off as inauthentic, it's really hard to keep up. It's like keeping up a charade or keeping on a mask. It gets really, like, hard.
Sara Lohse [:It gets a lot of work to pretend to be something.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's also a lot of work to fulfill expectations.
Sara Lohse [:Yes.
Larry Roberts [:You know, I wouldn't say that I am fake when I have the red hat on, but we've had this discussion before, too, and the fact that when the hat comes off, I'm a much different cat. You know, it's. It's a. It's a totally different outward Persona, I guess, but it's still very authentic, and I think that's. I don't think. I know that's why the red hat stuck is because that could still be me, but it's just a different, like.
Sara Lohse [:Facet of your personality.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:That is, like, almost unlocked.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, there you go. I like that. Unlocked.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:You know, it's. It's like Clark Kent and Superman, right? He steps into the phone booth, comes out. He's Superman. He gets done being Superman. He takes off his costume, and now he's Clark Kent. And that's kind of how it is with the red hat. When I throw it on, I'm like Superman, but when I'm without the hat, I'm just chilling like Clark Kent. Not quite as fumbly bumbly, but still just a lot more chill.
Sara Lohse [:So when my book came out, I wrote my book as myself. And the feedback that I got from everybody, whether they knew me or not, the people who knew me would tell me, I can hear you reading this to me. And the people who didn't know me said, I feel like I know you. I feel like you were talking to me. And I've had people ask me, was it a decision that you made to write it that way? Did you try to write it that way? Was it something that you had to really commit to and put effort into? I was like, it would have been a commitment and a decision to write it a different way.
Larry Roberts [:Right.
Sara Lohse [:I would have had to taken my words and my thoughts and almost translated them into perfect, into corporate, into whatever it is I could have written it as, but I didn't want to do that. This is for my personal brand. I want it to be me. And if I could have written it the way that a lot of popular and really successful books are written, which are in a more polished voice, I suppose, but I would be putting in way, like, the book was hard enough to write. I don't have to put in all that extra effort to be a different version of myself.
Larry Roberts [:So when you're building a brand, take the easy route.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. The easiest thing you can do is be yourself.
Larry Roberts [:No, it's 100% true. Spot on, you know, but I think even. Even then, we're still faced with a challenge of, we're being ourselves, we're presenting our brand, we're being authentic. There's that keyword, but who are we doing it for? And I think a lot of times we try to build these brands and we build these Personas, if you want to call them that. But who are we building it for? And we end up building it for something or someone that's completely not our audience.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, that's. That's definitely the next mistake people make, is not either not having a target audience and just building it to build it and expecting everyone to be your audience or having a target audience but not understanding them. You have to really know not only who you're talking to, but what they want and why you're talking to them. What are they looking for? What do they need? What are their pain points? If you're just promoting something to people that you want to talk to, but it doesn't fit. They don't need you. They don't want you. Then you're going to end up fading away and quitting to nobody because you're not connecting with an audience.
Larry Roberts [:That's an amazing callback. Good job there. You know, you're spot on, too, because when we're trying to build these brands, so many times, we don't take the time to analyze our audience and find out who they even are. And, you know, if we want to go back to that podcast that I started, I didn't really know an audience. I wanted to talk to everybody, but at the same time, I only didn't know my audience due to my own ignorance of developing an audience because the content that I was creating definitely wasn't for everybody. It was for a specific audience that enjoyed that type of content, that type of. We'll call it comedy, if that's what you want to call it, but that's more of a compliment to me than anything. That's just an ego talk.
Larry Roberts [:But at the same time, it reached that particular audience because we were very clear what we were doing. Yeah, but we just didn't know what we were doing. Now, as I built these brands and I've developed these audiences, I have an understanding of who am I talking to and why am I talking to them. And I think that's something that we have to take into account when we're laying the foundation of these brands, is that's got to be one of the first things we do is figure out who it is.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I know I've referenced this before, but one of, uh, the podcast that we produce, the health marketing collective, they had a guest on their show that was a social media expert, and he said, you don't need to talk to the entire world. You just need to find your people and create a space on the Internet that they are happy to be in.
Larry Roberts [:Mm hmm.
Sara Lohse [:I'm paraphrasing that completely because I don't know exactly what his words were, but that it's so true. You have to just find your people. And there are some instances where talking to everybody is fine. Things like a general interest podcast where anybody could listen to it, but that's generally not done for business purposes, that's done for entertainment. When. When you're doing something for business purposes, you're not just trying to reach a person, you're trying to reach a customer. You're trying to reach someone who's going to give you money to do something. And not everybody needs the same thing.
Sara Lohse [:You are not for everybody. And if you. I know, right? If you're trying to reach everybody and you're trying to please everybody, you're gonna please nobody because your message is gonna be so diluted, because you have to make it fit everybody, man.
Larry Roberts [:I like that, the diluted. You know, when you dilute yourself down to try to get that message out to everybody, you don't end up delivering your message. You know, what is your story, what's the backstory of you and your why and your who and your when and your how you miss all of that? Because if you're talking to a general audience, most of them, they don't care. They don't even want to hear that side of things. But if you're speaking to your audience, your story and your authentic brand and self are absolutely critical, because that's how they relate back to you. That's how they become these raving fans. That's how they become these repeat clients. And that's what we need to build while we're building this brand.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I know. I liken a lot of things to stand up comedy. Cause that's where I learn a lot about storytelling, and storytelling is my bread and butter. But with a lot of the big comedians, especially when they get started, when they haven't found their niche audience, they have to talk about the most generic topics because they need. They have an entire room of people that they don't know, that don't know them, and they have to tell stories that relate to every single person. So that's why we have those stupid, like, how about airline food? Like, those really just stupid. Like, everyone knows about this. Like, you can do, like, three minutes on the hand dryers in a bathroom and how much they suck.
Sara Lohse [:Like, all of those really just basic things that, because they know everyone has dealt with these, but once they find their people and they find their fans, they're able to go deeper and go into their personal experiences, because the people are like, okay, I get it. I know what I go through, but I want to hear you. I want to get to know you.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And that's part of just that, finding that audience. It allows you to give the message that you want to give without having to pander to all of these other people who otherwise wouldn't be interested.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, go to any open mic, and you're probably gonna hear the same version or different versions of the same joke from comedian to comedian to comedian. It's just like, oh, God.
Sara Lohse [:Because.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, yeah, it's it's. It can be rough sometimes, but, you know, setting yourself apart, that's what breaks you out of that mold, too. So. But again, you have to know who you're trying to set yourself out apart to.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:You know, if you look at all the comedians that are out there, if we're gonna stick to that theme, they all have a different audience. You know, we mentioned Nate Bargotzi. He's super clean. He's like the cleanest comedian out there. I don't even think he says the d word, you know? I mean, he is so clean, but he's so hilarious.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:So he attracts an entirely different audience than, say, Kevin Hart that's out there or a Dave Chappelle. You know, they all have different audiences. Going to the other extreme there, Dave Chappelle, you know, he does a lot of commentary, comedy, so he tells some deep stories, and he touches based on some controversial topics, but he still finds a way to make them funny. But that's dangerous. Not for everybody that's out there. If you go to a Dave Chappelle show, you know, you got to be braced for some. Some stuff that could be pretty highly offensive. But if you go to a Nate Bargotzi concert and everybody can laugh and you can bring the kids so it two different audiences, but they know their audience, and they generate their content for that audience.
Sara Lohse [:It's John Mulaney's latest special, baby J, when he's in rehab and nobody knows who he is, and he's like, ask your daughters or your sons if they don't play sports.
Larry Roberts [:He knows his audience.
Sara Lohse [:He knows his audience.
Larry Roberts [:So now that we know our audience, how do we nurture that audience? How do we grow that audience?
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. Another mistake that people make is they have. They start to have an audience. They've built a foundation of an audience, but they're still focused on finding more and bringing in more people so they don't engage with the audience that they already have. And that engagement piece is so important. People don't want to interact with or follow a logo. They want to follow and interact with a person.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:So the person behind the logo has to be at the forefront. So you need to have it be a conversation. It's not just you putting out content for people to enjoy, it's you putting out content and then turning that into opportunities to talk to your audience.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. I think it's interesting because I used to get so excited when I would post something business related or brand related and would get some good engagement there people would comment, they would like. And as far as that engagement goes, we have to remember that that's two ways I would get back and engage with every person that commented as well. But something that I've seen as of late. And this just reinforces for me that what I'm doing is working, and I'm building a real brand and a real community. More of my posts that are personal get more engagement and more likes and more comments than anything that I do that's business related. And I have found that to be extremely. I mean, I posted a picture the other day of me building a house, a little kitty house to put in my backyard for a stray cat.
Larry Roberts [:So it had some shelter. And I'm sitting there, my run around PJ's and my little. My little slippers that I wear around the house. And that post got a ton of interest related to that post, more so than most of my business posts. And I was like, oh, my God, this is insane. And it was actually me without the red hat, too.
Sara Lohse [:So I was going to say, I think part of it was a shock factor because you didn't have the hat on. No one knows. No one knows what the top of your head looks like.
Larry Roberts [:Well, they do now, so. But that's what, that just plays into what we're saying here, in the fact that we're nurturing that audience and engaging with that audience. And if you do that, they start to know you and your brand, and it becomes synonymous.
Sara Lohse [:And the algorithms love it. If someone comments on a post on any social media and you respond to it, you will then see your reach is going to increase, because that's just more engagement on the post. You go from having one engagement to two if you respond. And algorithms are programmed to increase views on posts that are getting interacted with. For me, it's like, I can post something business related and I'll get a couple interactions. I post something personal, it gets more. If my mom posts something about me, I might as well be the president. It blows up.
Sara Lohse [:When I posted my book coming out and everything, I got a lot of engagement. But then I looked at my mom's facebook, and she had posted that her daughter wrote a book.
Larry Roberts [:Oh. And it crushed.
Sara Lohse [:Oh, my God.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, that's hilarious.
Sara Lohse [:I think that's the only reason I hit number one. Like, my mom posting it and all of her friends, like, I'm ordering it right now.
Larry Roberts [:Hey, man, that's awesome. That just. That just goes to show, you know, that you've got that brand, you got that support, and having that community, your community in this case was your mom, which is perfectly fine, also bought ten copies. See, so that's great, too. But, but, but it works, man. So, you know, but it goes beyond social media as well. And that's where I see a lot of people drop the ball, is because they build their entire house, what we'll call on the sand of social media. Yes, but they need to have that foundation of their own home base, they need to have that website, they need to have that connection with their audience in the form of an email list.
Larry Roberts [:They need to be able to get in touch with people. If social media disappears and we, we see people missing this mark all too often.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. Big, big mistake that people make is not laying the foundation. You can't just make a TikTok and think, I'm going to go viral and that's going to be it. You have to have those foundational elements, you have to have a website, you have to have an email list. With social media, especially, email marketing is so much more effective. We see social media and content creation and content marketing as number one. But if you post something with the algorithms right now, if you have 100 followers, maybe like three to five people are going to see it. The algorithms are really, really hard to get around.
Sara Lohse [:They minimize the reach of some of so much of your content. But if you get these people that you're trying to reach into an email list, everyone on that list is going to get your email. They're not all going to open it, but you're going to see an open rate way higher than you're going to see an engagement rate or even a reach rate.
Larry Roberts [:No, you're 100% spot on. And we've seen this in action before. We've seen where people haven't had that email list and they haven't had that website, they haven't had that centralized hub that they, quote, unquote, own, and they found themselves on the wrong side of a social media shutdown or on the wrong side of a third party platform shut down. We've seen people get deplatformed from their, their providers. So again, absolutely critical that we establish that strong foundation and we build on that with our own unique, individualized engagement going forward.
Sara Lohse [:And I think we got time for one more. And of course, this one is going to be my favorite. The biggest mistake, I've said biggest for all of these, but I guess the fifth biggest mistake, and no particular order, not telling your story. People don't care about sales messages. And the way that marketing has transformed in the past couple of years is amazing. Stories are what sells now. And nobody cares about a marketing message. We see through them.
Sara Lohse [:We know it's an ad. We know this. But when you're able to tell a personal story and connect with people on that personal level and have them see you and know you and trust you, they're not buying a product. They're buying into who you are. And that's going to be far more profitable because they're going to turn into those fans and those brand evangelists. And I know this person. I support this person. I'm going to tell my friends about this person.
Sara Lohse [:No one's ever felt that way about a Facebook ad, pretty sure. Unless it's one of the, like, sarah McLaughlin dying puppies one. Everybody.
Larry Roberts [:Everybody feels like we don't need that one, though. Please. I don't want to cry on this episode.
Sara Lohse [:I do make my dog watch those whenever I feel like he's feeling extra spoiled. I just need him to know.
Larry Roberts [:You need to know who you are, son.
Sara Lohse [:This could have been you.
Larry Roberts [:God, that's horrible. Appreciate me, but going back to telling your story, you know, I was recently on a podcast, and, um, I didn't know where this interview was going to go, but it really ended up being almost my life story because the interviewer, we'll call him an interviewer, uh, the host of the show, was like, all right, so tell us all about Larry. How did all start? And, man, I dialed it back all the way to 1972 when I came out the womb and was, you know, just born. And I took it every step of the way. And interestingly enough, a lot of people that listened to that episode reached out and personally said, wow, your story is amazing. I had no idea you did this or that or this or that or this and how you got where you're at. And it's just really inspiring to hear that story. And I was really blown away.
Larry Roberts [:And I think, again, for me, that reinforced the fact that the brand is doing what it needs to do because that demonstrated to me that people actually care. They wanted to hear the story. They were able to resonate with certain aspects of the story. I promise you, no one can resonate with all of my story. It's so random. But at the same time, it still can, can inspire others that have been through similar situations. And all of that, all those people that reached out and all of that feedback that I got was just. It just blew me away.
Larry Roberts [:And it simply reinforced that each and every opportunity we have to tell our story, regardless of if it's a similar story to somebody else. It's still your story with your unique aspects to that story, your unique experiences to that story. And we need to tell it, because if it just impacts one other person, then you've done your job.
Sara Lohse [:Absolutely. We, as people, want to connect with other people. We people care about other people as much as it doesn't seem like it these days, but we people care about other people, and they want to connect with people. We crave connections. We always have. Storytelling is wired in our DNA. Even back with cavemen, before we had spoken languages, they were telling stories. Just look at the cave walls and the paintings.
Sara Lohse [:Those are stories. Everything comes back to stories. I'm going to get on my soapbox with this because, you know, this is my thing, but it's so important. And the pieces of the stories that matter are the parts that are relatable because we want that connection. Connection comes from shared experiences. And also, it's just part of just proof. I can tell you, hey, come work with me. I'll do this for your business.
Sara Lohse [:Okay? Says who? But if I tell you, hey, this is what I've been doing. This is what's been happening. I've worked with this person, and this has happened. I learned how to do this when I went through this. Then, oh, okay, maybe she does know what she's doing. I should work with her. It's just proving your point. It's adding credibility and it's adding vulnerability.
Sara Lohse [:So it's like, this is a person. I feel like I know this person. I want to work with this person. When I work with my clients, it's me hanging out with my friends, having coffee. But we're just being productive. That's how it feels. And that's what I want, because I want them to want to work with me because of who I am, not because of just. I'm another person that does this job.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And when you tell your stories, you lead with that. You lead with that, who you are.
Larry Roberts [:And I think that's why they keep coming back to you, because they relate to you. And although you are being very productive, you do tremendous work. You also are establishing a relationship and a friendship beyond just the work agreement that's in place there. And I think that's absolutely critical. So a lot of people can learn from that message that you have right there. You know something else, real quick, I love the fact that you brought up a caveman, because in the next episode of our podcast, we're going to be telling you about a branding mistake made by someone that would have you believe that he's a caveman. So it's kind of an interesting lead.
Sara Lohse [:In there that is. I just learned about this guy. So if y'all if y'all don't know him, go listen to the next episode, because it's gonna be wild.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, wild. I love it. Hey, I tell you what, though, man. If you found some value in this episode, and I know you did, listen back to these five common mistakes that people make when building their brand. And if you want more information on building your personal brand, do us a favor. Hit that subscribe button right now so we can continue to bring you these episodes each and every week. And with that, I'm Larry Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:I'm Sara Lohse, and we'll talk to you next week.
