Cut The Tie Podcast with Jason Vana
Most business owners think branding is about colors, fonts, and logos—but that’s only the surface. In this episode of Cut The Tie, host Thomas Helfrich sits down with Jason Vana, founder and CEO of Shft Agency, to uncover what brand strategy really means—and why most companies get it wrong.
Jason shares how a side hustle turned into a thriving agency, what it means to truly understand your ideal customer, and how cutting the wrong assumptions can unlock business growth. With over 20 years of experience helping B2B service firms build brands that drive revenue, Jason breaks down how to create a brand that not only looks good—but sells better.
About Jason Vana
Jason Vana is the founder and CEO of Shft Agency, a B2B brand positioning firm that helps service companies uncover their unique market value and turn it into strategy that drives sales, marketing, and growth. Based in the Chicago suburbs, Jason brings two decades of hands-on experience in branding, marketing, and leadership. He’s known for helping businesses simplify complexity, focus on differentiation, and build brands that make selling easier.
In this episode, Thomas and Jason discuss:
- Cutting ties with the myth of “branding equals design”
Why your logo, color palette, and fonts are just the tip of the iceberg—and what really defines your brand. - From accidental agency to intentional success
How Jason built Shift Agency from LinkedIn DMs while working full-time—and turned it into a leading B2B brand strategy firm. - The partner that almost broke the business
Why the belief that “I need a co-founder to succeed” nearly stalled his growth—and how buying out his partner unlocked real momentum. - The freedom formula
Jason shares how defining success as time freedom changed his decisions, leadership style, and agency model. - How to find your true differentiator
The practical framework for discovering what makes your company truly unique—and how to use it to build an entire strategy.
Key Takeaways
- Your brand is the customer-facing side of your business strategy
If it doesn’t connect to real business goals, it’s just decoration. - Challenge your assumptions early
The wrong belief can hold your company back for years. - Know who you serve—and who you don’t
Focus on the ideal customers who stay longer, pay more, and trust you deeper. - Don’t fix weaknesses—amplify strengths
Hire or outsource for what you can’t do, and double down on what you do best. - You can’t scale a brand that depends on you
Build systems and IP that outlive the founder.
Connect with Jason Vana
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonvana
🌐 Website: https://www.shift.agency
Connect with Thomas Helfrich
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cutthetie
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfich
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 https://www.instantlyrelevant.com
Serious about LinkedIn Lead Generation? Stop Guessing what to do on LinkedIn and ignite revenue from relevance with Instantly Relevant Lead System
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tide Podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, ThomasHelfrick, and I'm on a mission
to help you cut the tide.
Whatever it is holding you backfrom your own success.
Define your own success, though,because if you let someone else
define it, a parent, co-worker,society, you are chasing someone
else's dream and you're notgoing to be very happy in the
end.
So we're going to be uh talkingabout brandy today with Mr.
(00:20):
Jason Vanna.
Vanna?
Vanna like Vanna White or Vanna?
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Van Vanna like Vanna White.
I actually met Vanna White'sbrother.
I just want you to.
Yeah, you won't you won't see mein a sequence dress like her,
but you know, it's just like.
SPEAKER_01 (00:33):
You know what?
The show would have been a lot,a lot higher rated if you had a
sequence dress on, right?
Probably.
Jason, take it to a moment,introduce yourself, you know,
where you're from, what it isyou do.
SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
Yeah, yeah.
So my name is Jason Vana.
I live in the Chicago suburbs.
Um, and I am the founder and CEOof Shift Agency.
We are a brand positioningagency that focuses on working
with B2B companies, specificallyservice companies, to really
help them uncover and own thisunique value that they bring to
the market, and then turn thatinto a brand strategy, marketing
(01:07):
strategy, content strategy,operation strategy, sales
strategy, basically everythingthat you need for your business.
And so this is really um kind ofmy the world that I live in.
I am a big branding nerd, I'm abig Superman, as you can
probably see in the backgroundthere, big, big low uh Lego
nerd, um, all of that.
So that's kind of a little bitabout who I am.
SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
You know, before we dive into kind of why you guys
are different, are you a Legoguy that builds something and
keeps it on the shelf?
Or are you the giant ADHD bucketof just pick whatever you can
and build the spaceship of yourchoice kind of guy?
SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
So I am more of the buy the set and do this for now.
I still have all of my old Legosets from when I was a kid, and
it's all one big tub with allthe loose Legos.
And so uh trying to create aspace to be able to do the I'm
gonna build whatever I want.
I just don't have the spaceright now.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know if you guys anyoneknows this out there that Legos
are equivalently gold in price.
So if you get a Lego, find it onthe street, keep it.
No matter what's pizza, it's uhfor a long time I was buying on
eBay.
I'd see like these deals forlike a dollar a pound.
I'm like, oh, we gotta get it.
And I'd buy like you know,Legos.
Seriously, and they'd show upand I'd have an entire
Millennium Falcon in it.
I'm like, oh, that's great.
(02:26):
Anyway, so um side note.
Uh hey, that's what nerds dowhen they see what they like,
right?
You know, I'm not super mad asmuch.
There's been too many of thecharacters, though I think the
guy that played the Witcher,that guy was the best, best.
Oh, like 100%.
Yeah, but then they got rid ofhim the Witcher anyway.
Tell me though, in the brandingworld, uh it is highly
competitive, and and you'recompeting against you know
(02:48):
outsourcing and in AI andeverything in between.
Uh you know, dive into why firmsreally should pick you and why
they do pick you.
SPEAKER_00 (02:56):
Yeah, so I I think this comes down to defining what
brand really is.
Now, most companies, mostfounders, entrepreneurs, when
you say the word brand, theythink logos, fonts, colors,
design, a website, maybe they goas far as like, oh, it's a
feeling or an experience.
It's what I it's what I I uhexperience when I work with your
(03:18):
business.
And and all of that is kind oftrue.
It's all a component ofbranding.
But really, when we talk brand,what we're talking about is the
gut feeling that people haveabout your business based on
every interaction with yourbusiness.
So this is more than just a nicedesign and maybe some like a
(03:38):
carousel that you use onLinkedIn or Instagram.
This really is the uh I've heardit described this way, and I
love this definition.
Your brand really is thecustomer-facing side of your
business strategy.
So, whatever strategy you havebuilding your business, the the
model that you're using, howyou're gonna make money, what
(03:59):
you're bringing to the offer,um, or the offer that you bring
into the market, your brandreally is the customer-facing
side of that.
So it's it's a deepunderstanding of those ideal
customers.
Now, without getting into toomuch detail, because I could
talk about this for three hours.
Um, when you're when you'retalking about customers, I use
(04:22):
the term ideal customer becausethere's this target market of
anyone that could buy whatyou're trying to sell.
And then there's the subset ofthese are the ones that I
actually want to work withbecause they pay more, they
trust us more, they will umthey're they like jive with us
better.
Um, you're so a brand and andspecifically a brand strategy is
(04:47):
understanding those idealcustomers and creating an offer,
creating an experience, creatingum like marketing and sales and
operational processes thatattract and convert delight and
keep those ideal customers.
When we talk design, logos,fonts, colors, all of that,
(05:09):
that's like if you look at brandlike a an iceberg, the the
design side is just the tip thatyou see above the water, but
your brand really is everythingunderneath.
So how the how your foundercreates content on LinkedIn, how
your customer service teamanswers the phone, how your
(05:31):
receptionist answers the phone,if you've got a receptionist,
how your sales team sendsemails, how your marketing team,
like the messaging that they useon your website, the type of
content they they create, it allcreates a brand.
Um, and if you don't know thoseideal customers you're going
after, if you don't know theposition or that differentiation
(05:53):
that you want to hold in themarket, you're not gonna create
the right brand.
And if you don't have the rightbrand, you don't attract and
convert the right people.
And so, yeah, all that to say,getting back to your question of
like what makes us different, orlike why us as opposed to AI,
one AI doesn't understand thataspect of branding.
(06:17):
Now you can I've used AI promptsof like, here's my business,
create me a positioningstrategy.
And what it gave me was whatevery other branding agency says
out there.
Like, we'll make you stand out,we'll make you unique, we'll
make it feel like you.
Like every brand agency kind oftends to focus on that design
(06:40):
side because that's where Ithink what happens is a lot of
business owners because they seebrand as design, that's what
they want.
When they think brand, it's likeI just need a company that can
make me a logo.
Um, and so that's what theyfocus on.
And and AI, when I put it intoChat GPT, and and just to give
(07:03):
you some clarity, like I have aprompt that helps me write
better prompts, so I didn't justgo in and be like, create me a
positioning strategy, like I hada page-long prompt to and and it
and like I had it ask mequalifying questions or
understandable questions to likeget more out of me.
(07:23):
And it still generated this verybasic very average.
And so, I mean, if you're ifyou're budget strapped and you
don't care about blending in oryou don't need revenue for a
while, AI will get you a brandstrategy that you'll eventually
have to pay someone like me tofix in about a year or two when
you realize it doesn't work.
(07:44):
Um yeah, that's kind of whatwhat makes it different, and
like I know a lot of companiesdo branding.
Like, there's I I know somemarketing agencies that also do
branding, or there's I know somewebsite companies that even say
we do branding, and so I thinkwhat's happened is we've we've
diluted what a brand is, andpeople don't truly understand
(08:08):
it, and so they don't get thepower of a brand.
When when brand is uh is onething of many, you don't really
understand, and you're reallynot getting the solid brand
strategy.
Um like let me let me use liquiddeath as an example, and and I
(08:30):
usually like to use smallerbusinesses as examples because
liquid death is one that likemaybe most of your founders
aren't a liquid death type ofcompany, but it's just in the
back because people know yeah,it's just yeah, it's just water.
It's really what they said.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
You know, yeah, it's crazy because you're like, who's
gonna drink liquid death?
Like somebody's somebody at somepoint said no, they're gonna
love it, and they're right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
Well, and and that like the reason I like to use
liquid death is because peopleimmediately go to well, look at
the branding.
And when they say branding, theymean look at the cans, look at
the name.
Like it's this very weird, andand that's not the branding,
that's the design, that's thename.
Really, what liquid death did,if you if you know the story
behind it, they saw a problemfor a very specific group of
(09:17):
people.
The the guys that started LiquidDeath, they went to a lot of um,
like a lot of uh band likeconcerts and stuff like that.
And so they would be in thesebars and see these performers
performing, and they weren'tallowed to drink alcohol on
stage while they wereperforming, so they had bottles
of water in a bar that was likea Dasani or an ice mountain or
(09:42):
any of those bottles of waterthat like everyone else had a
can of beer and they have thisvery uncool looking bottle of
water.
So Liquid Death's brand strategyis not the name, it's not the
logo, it's not how they how theyposition themselves.
It really is their strategy wewant to make water look cool.
(10:04):
That was their brand strategy.
Now, when you understand that,everything else they do makes
sense, like because they weregoing for a very specific group
of people solving a veryspecific problem.
We have all these musicians orthese people that are trying to
do cool things drinking water,but water doesn't look cool.
(10:25):
So, how do we make it cool?
That was their brand strategy,which then drove what is the
design of Liquid Death.
Well, it's based on musicians atbars.
If you look at the can of water,it looks like a can of beer.
That was intentional because ofwho they were going after,
(10:46):
solving what problem.
That's what a brand and a brandstrategy really does.
You get that in place, and itmakes sense for them to have a
skull on the camp.
Like most people look at it andlike, oh, this why would I drink
liquid death?
You're not the target market,they don't care.
Like the drive.
SPEAKER_01 (11:06):
That's what a brand of Stanley's with I'll interstit
me because it's I I did a fakead for Stanley and I looked at
the camera.
I'm like, does water tastebetter in Stanley?
And I'm like, fuck yeah, itdoes.
And like that was my that's whatI did for him.
Um anyway.
Uh so I love the in-depth I andI I really wanted you to take
some time on that.
Um, and I am definitely with theI'm gonna keep all that in the
show because I think it's soimportant for businesses to
(11:29):
understand that it's I actually,if you're just starting, do the
do the AI, give me a basicapproach.
It is it is a smart way tostart.
You don't need to go drop a fewthousand into branding before
you've proved any of the otherpieces.
Um the piece that I think ismost important to that, and when
and and I this resonates with meis because in our own growth
system, the first thing we solveis problem.
(11:49):
What is the unique problem yousolve?
And you know, for my owncompany, it's like, man, I
really need to take this anotherlevel, right?
I need to say we help B2Bmarketing agencies grow because
we're really good at doing that.
But then we have all these like,you know, we have a
billion-dollar architecturalfirm and we have a hundred
million dollar software companythat we do.
So it's kind of like it's kindof hard to pass those up.
So it's you have to really getfocused because then your brand
(12:10):
goes all around those things.
So I think that's superimportant.
Um, so thank you for sharingthat.
Uh let's come back to kind ofthe flow of this.
Uh we're or simply, how do youdefine success?
SPEAKER_00 (12:23):
For me, it's it's changed over the years.
Um, but the the definition ofsuccess for me is like having
the freedom to do what I want orneed to do without the
constraint of I have to besitting in this chair from a
certain point of day to acertain point of day.
(12:43):
Like that's success for me.
As long as I can pay my bills,live like the life that I want
to live, um, I can help peoplesolve their business problems,
and I can set my own schedule.
That that is success.
I don't have like a, I want tobe a$10 million agency.
Like, I don't have those type ofgoals.
It's more, do I have theautonomy to say, you know what?
(13:06):
Like, and and I did this lastweek, like it's Friday, I don't
feel like working.
I'm done for the day.
Like, that's the freedom to methat feels successful.
SPEAKER_01 (13:17):
Captain of your calendar is a is a is an often
pick for that.
And and and I think uh, youknow, along your way of your
journey, uh talk about yourjourney a little bit, just
because you said you've beendoing this for a lot of
companies.
This you've lived this, this isyour whole uh life, which means
you have a high passion for,otherwise, you would have you
know become a basket weaver orsomething else.
But uh nothing wrong with basketweaving, just a course.
(13:38):
Um, there used to be a marketfor it, and probably it's just
it's not pit anyway.
Yeah.
Tell me about your journey.
And and so you could achievethat success you just defined.
What's been the biggest, youknow, kind of metaphoric tie you
had to cut to get there?
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
So the so I I've been in the marketing and
branding world for about 20years.
Really, since I graduatedcollege, every job that I've had
has been some form of brandingmarketing.
It's all kind of built up to melaunching Shift, which ended up
happening by accident.
Um, I was really just trying to,I was the head of marketing for
(14:15):
a B2B company.
Um, took them from like 14million to by the time I left,
it was about 60 million.
Um, yeah, it was a big, it was abig jump.
Um, and it was in a rural partof the state.
I was like, man, I just I'mlooking for a new job, like uh I
want to move to a differentarea.
Um, so I got on LinkedIn and wasstarting to apply.
(14:38):
And at that point, LinkedIn hadjust kind of started doing the
you can create content on ourplatform now.
So I was like, hey, I'm amarketer, I know how to do this,
so I'm gonna start creatingcontent showing people I know
marketing and branding, andmaybe that will help me stand
out as I apply for these otherbusinesses.
And what ended up happening wasI'd have all these founders
(15:00):
hitting me up in the DMs, like,hey, I can't afford to hire a
marketer right now, but could Ipay your company, your agency to
do XYZ?
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
And I'm like, Yes, the agency.
Now you got to be a attorneysolicitor, like, hey, I know you
get hit.
SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
But but like it was I was like, yeah, I was like,
Yes, the agency I totally havewith the packages I totally
already have put together, I cantotally help you.
So it the business actually didstart by accident.
I was not intending to start acompany, and after I started
getting enough of those, I waslike, there's a there's a
(15:39):
business here, like I need to Ineed to like get serious about
this.
So the problem was, um, youknow, I know this this podcast
has cut the tie, and like,what's the tie that like you
gotta cut to damn it?
Tell me the tie, Jason.
Get to it.
Yes, yes, I know.
So when I when I started thecompany, it was on the side of
(15:59):
my full-time job.
So I was working nights,weekends, kind of doing smart.
That's a great way to start thebusiness.
Is have it.
It really is.
Yeah, it really is because I canhave to worry about how am I
gonna pay my own bills.
So I could be, I was very pickywith who I took on as clients.
SPEAKER_01 (16:15):
And what I love about that, to interrupt you, I
think people should understandthat the best part is there's
something about making a fewthousand bucks on the side, it
feels so much richer, like thatfirst$300 you got, whatever it
was, feels so much moreempowering than the maybe
bigger, much bigger paycheckyou're getting on the other
side.
And you're just like, why do Ilove this$2K?
I remember my first one was like$299.
(16:36):
And I was like, I love this$299so much more than that$20,000.
Right.
It's a it's it's a great feelingthat is that is the little
addictive hook that that getsyour brain going, how can I do
this myself?
Because it feels so much better.
So I don't interrupt, man.
SPEAKER_00 (16:53):
Yeah, no, no, no.
So so when I was starting thecompany, there was a few other
people on LinkedIn that I hadbeen following that were kind of
in the same stage that I was,um, starting a company on the
side of their full-time job.
And it, you know, it was eitheryou know, like website
developer, ad company, like allthis kind of stuff.
Um, and I was watching some ofthese other companies like
(17:16):
really, really take off.
Um, and shift was kind of justtrudging along.
Um, some of it is because we dobrand, and most people don't
understand what brand really is.
Um, there was a lot moreeducation that needed to be done
than hey, if you need a website,I can build you a website.
Very different model of businesstangible style.
(17:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's it's you don't need alot of education to understand I
need a website.
Um, so what was happening wasthey they were growing and I and
my business wasn't.
And so I was like picking theirbrain, so to speak, of like how
do I crow shift?
And one of the biggest pieces ofadvice I heard from multiple
(17:58):
business owners was you need toget a business partner who who
like can help you build this.
And so for years I had it in mymind, this can only be
successful if I have a businesspartner.
Like I need someone who can comealongside and do some stuff to
(18:19):
free me up so I can do uh otheraspects of the business.
And that mindset kind of held usback for probably the good first
what, like three years, two,three years of the company.
Um, now I did end up finding aguy that I uh didn't come in as
(18:41):
a full partner for a while, butlike was hey, I will give you
profit share.
I will help you like you takeover this side of the business,
I'll handle this side, and likewe'll work together to build
this thing.
And um, nothing against him,great guy.
Um, but it was it was likehaving two heads to the company,
um, and two very differentvisions of where we wanted to
(19:05):
go.
And because brand strategy wassupposed to be his side of the
company, even though I had donebrand strategy more, like it was
I found the wrong type of per.
SPEAKER_01 (19:18):
Like well, you copied yourself as opposed to
some of the I did, yeah, yeah.
And that's a bad plot.
You don't want to, I don't knowabout you, but I can't stand
people like me.
SPEAKER_00 (19:26):
So, yeah, well, and personality-wise, yeah,
personality-wise, verydifferent, but like I can do
brand strategy, and in in a lotof cases, I was doing brand
strategy far better than he was.
You need some brand strategy,yeah, yeah.
And and really what I needed wasmore of the operational person
(19:47):
to come in and be like, I say,hey, I want to be able to do
this, and they build out thesystem to make that happen.
That's really what I should havebeen looking for.
Um, but that that feeling, thatneed of like, I need a business
partner to make this work, kindof, and and again, it was the
wrong decision of of what typeof business partner I needed.
(20:09):
Um, but that that like mindsetreally held us back.
And it wasn't until I bought himout of the company that the
company actually took off.
Um, and we started generatingmore revenue, we started landing
larger clients, we startedgetting better results.
Um, and so it was this idea ofthis limitation of I can't do
(20:33):
it, I don't have what it takesto make this thing work, and I
need someone else to help memake it work, is really what
what hindered me.
Now, that doesn't mean I haven'thad business coaches and you
know, I'm not like I have allthe answers and I'm right.
That's not that's not themindset to have either.
But when you when you have thisfundamental idea that like it
(20:56):
can't just be me, I need someoneelse to do it.
That's gonna be the wrongmindset to come into your your
own business.
And it was one of those caseswhere I had started the business
and allowed him to buy into it,um, which is something I would
tell most business owners, don'tdo like that's your tie you had
(21:16):
to cut, was that that belief.
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
And how many times we do this that we we we go on a
hypothesis based on a foundationthat's crack?
And and and that is like that isthe most dangerous, like is this
thing uh possible, and it's inevery aspect of it.
It goes on now.
We'll discuss that maybe towardsthe end.
But I think that principle isalways look at your assumptions
of it.
(21:39):
Just advice those obviously notyou, but like just kind of
talking to the audience,challenge the assumptions of
which you're operating on,because there's likely sometimes
when you get stuck, you don'trealize the glass box you put
around yourself by doing it andyou don't see it, no matter how
many times you run into it.
And uh the the example I say inmy own personal life, because I
I live this cut-the-tie idea, iswhich was with ADHD, is that's
(22:01):
just me.
But then you know, you have allthese challenges with focus and
relationships and all theseother things you do, and you're
like, you know, that's the timeI'm cutting this year.
I'm tired of all, and then whenyou break through it, you're
like, Holy shit, I'm so pissed Ididn't do this at 13 years old.
Yeah.
But so you get clarity, right?
You realize, you know, movingmaybe past that, you're like,
(22:22):
what is the actual gap I need tofill?
Right.
You know, and maybe take that.
Did you did you quickly identifythat as part of that, you know,
three-year experiment and thenbe like, oh no, what I actually
need is this, this, and this.
I just need an employee.
I don't need to pay anybody forthat.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (22:35):
And and that's kind of where it came down to was
we've got employees now insteadof a business partner to do to
fill in those gaps that I justcan't do, that it's not my
strength, it's not somethingthat I'm gonna like.
I think growing up, and andmaybe it was just my generation,
I don't know, uh like youngergeneration, how uh kind of like
(22:56):
what they were they were told orwhatever, but like we were kind
of taught like focus on yourweaknesses and try to make them
better.
Um, and this is something thatI've kind of adjusted probably
in my 30s.
I'm in my 40s now, so it's about10 years ago, where I kind of
had this.
I I forget if it was a uh coachI was working with or a book I
(23:18):
read, I don't remember wherethis came from, but like um this
idea of trying to improve yourweaknesses, taking something I'm
not good at, like realistically,you might become marginally
better at it, but it's not gonnabe the type of life-changing
thing that if you took yourstrength and built your strength
(23:39):
up, how that can change yourlife.
And so if it's a weakness thatis hindering your life, if it's
a weakness that's going to breakor or destroy what you're
building, like if you'recheating on your wife, if you're
out there consuming pornographyevery single day, if you're like
if if it's a weakness that couldreally destroy you, yes, work on
(23:59):
it because that like you'reyou're gonna have an implode
moment if you don't.
SPEAKER_01 (24:05):
Yeah, it was a it was a weakness as much as uh
that's a like a care characterissue.
Well, it's a negative, right?
It's like it's not likesomething I'm not good at, it's
something that's actuallyhurting you.
Right.
So, like you have a drugproblem, we just stop that,
right?
There's a difference betweenlike I don't do content well
versus I can't stop drugs.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
Completely different, and and everyone else
can't go do those drugs for you.
Right, right.
And I think a lot of times wekind of group the weakness into
the problem and say, I have towork on this because I'm not
good at it.
When really, I mean, for me,operational-wise, I'm not the
greatest.
Like I can create automations, Ican do it, I'm I'm like this
(24:44):
bare minimum kind of I can getby with it, but I'm never gonna
create or have the ideas thatsomeone who is an operational
person um will have.
And so I can focus time tryingto get marginally better at it,
or I can take the strength thatI have and try to get even
better at that.
Which one's gonna make thebiggest impact?
(25:06):
And so that's that's kind of thethe mindset I have now is like I
could try to learn this and doit myself, or I can hire
someone, or I could just talk toa consultant that like could
just be like Jason, do boom,boom, boom, and your team will
be fine.
Like that's that's more themindset that I go into with now
(25:29):
is I don't have to have all theanswers.
I don't have to be able to doeverything.
I focus on what I do well, and Ieither outsource or hire what I
don't.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
And you're describing a book called, you
know, who not how, right?
Uh you don't figure out how todo it, figure out who should go
do it, and then you can actuallybuild a business.
Now there's revenues and thingslike that that come behind it.
Um and it's impressive.
Like, you know, as an agencyowner, I use offshore teams and
we use a bunch of technology,but we're in a different space
than yours.
Uh so I avoid W-2s just becausethey're expensive.
And uh a lot of the gaps I Ipersonally find offshore to be
(26:01):
just as effective and you know,a hundredth of the cost.
Um and they're totally fine withweek-to-week PayPals.
Like it's no, there's noadditional eight and a half
percent you give to thegovernment, right?
You know, so uh I I think thoughwhat you're describing from uh
from a tie-to-cut, let me justto kind of bring it forth is you
know, challenge those initialassumptions, and yours was I
(26:21):
needed this specific type ofpartner to go.
And you're like, no, actually, Idon't want to need to do this,
build gaps that are weaknessesof what I couldn't do myself.
But but the biggest piece was torealize I think you didn't need
to do it yourself.
unknown (26:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
And I think that was a that's actually you had the
right step initially.
Uh, so I wouldn't beat yourselfup too bad because I still
struggle five years in now withletting it go to other people,
like though I want them to.
I oh yeah, I'm like, no, I don'tknow.
It's finding the right person.
So uh, but I I want to moveforward a little bit on this.
Uh-huh.
You know, since you've made thatchange, maybe describe the
(26:56):
impact that's had, not so muchfor you, because I'm I I think
it's pretty obvious that'shelped you kind of free your
mind, Captain Calendar, butwhat's the impact been to your
customer?
SPEAKER_00 (27:04):
I think to our customer, like the the biggest
impact is that we're gettingbetter results for them right
now.
Um, because there isn't this umdual layer of what you should be
like what the client should bedoing.
It's all kind of like I'm theone that builds the brand
strategies, and then I've gotteam members that kind of build
the marketing, do the design,like do all the rest of that.
(27:27):
Um and so they have seen betterresults since then, like since
we cut that tie.
Um, because they're like I'vegot more experience doing this
and and more of a uh let meexplain it this way like every
(27:49):
company that I've worked for asan employee, when it came to
marketing, and and I'm the moreI talked to marketers, the more
I realized that this is veryrare.
Um, they weren't concerned onlike MQLs and SQLs and like how
many leads did you actually getin and what are the impressions.
The companies that I worked forum were smaller companies, but
(28:11):
their biggest thing was we'rebringing you in to do marketing
and we better see revenuechange.
That's all we care about.
Whatever you need, if we'reseeing revenue go up, we will
give you what you need, um, orlike what you ask for type
thing.
Because if if you're generatingmore revenue for us, you're
giving me a tip to an idea,right?
SPEAKER_01 (28:29):
Yeah, to cap easy math.
It's a capital machine to mostpeople.
Exactly, exactly.
And so that I'll tell you what,but in your world of B2B
services, that's difficultbecause oftentimes the sales
cycles are long and marketing isa component of a wedge, not if
your product sucks, yourservices are hard.
Like it it's hard to do the ROIattribution to that, and and
(28:50):
that's a big challenge,specifically in branding,
because then you're like, how doI approve ROI with something
that's you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:58):
So well piece, yeah.
And I I think I think that'swhere really what makes shift
different is we look at brand asthe full piece, not the small
piece.
So when we come in and we dobrand strategy, we are fixing
your offer.
SPEAKER_01 (29:15):
If you've got a shit off, see where you guys do a
more consultative approach.
So you you and I have a verysimilar alignment on our agency,
which is you want brand, youneed these things.
Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (29:27):
So this ties really you really get destroyed with
yeah.
Well, really, the the mindsetthat we have is this is brand,
it owns everything in yourcompany.
So if it's not like sorry, lookat Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_01 (29:46):
My pleasure, my you know, like their brand is first.
Everything inside of it isaround what that brand mission
statement is, and they are areally good example of that.
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
And and that's how brand should operate is I create
like.
Like, and this is this is wheremost people build backwards.
They build they build a productor a service.
This is what I'm gonna bring tothe market.
And then they're like, who needsit?
And that's that's backward.
And then then they start workingdown to well, now I need a
(30:16):
design, I need a website.
And then maybe they get down to,well, crap, what what makes us
different?
What's unique about us?
What we do is we come in and wesay, we need to figure out
what's unique about what youwant to bring to the market.
It's like the liquid death.
They didn't come in and say, wewant to create canned water.
They came in and said, we wantto make water look cool.
(30:38):
That's the unique value we'regonna bring to the market.
Now, how do we do that?
We do that by not improvingwater.
In fact, for me, I don't thinkliquid death tastes better than
the generic stuff I get atWalmart.
Like, I actually like thegeneric stuff more than I love
the tap water.
SPEAKER_01 (30:55):
I'll be honest with you.
I like good old fashioned tapwater.
Actually, my favorite is after ahose hose water.
SPEAKER_00 (31:04):
Yes.
So so they didn't revolutionizethe product.
They came in and said, We'regonna create this unique value,
and now we're gonna figure outhow do we do that.
Most companies come in and say,Here's what I want to do.
Now, how do I make thisdifferent?
It's a very different mindset.
And so when we come in, we'relooking at that, in fact, when
(31:26):
we work with a client, the veryfirst workshop we do is we're
gonna go through your offer,we're gonna pull it apart, and
we're gonna say what sucks aboutit, what doesn't work about it.
One of the questions I ask everycompany I work with is five
years from now, of everythingthat you sell, what do you not
want to be selling anymore?
(31:46):
And when they are like, Well, wedon't really like doing this, or
this doesn't really this isreally difficult and it doesn't
make us more money.
Great, you're gonna stop doingthat, and we're not gonna build
a brand around that.
Like, so we start with what isthis offer?
Let's pull it apart, let's findlike we had a client.
Um, this might explain it alittle better, give some
(32:08):
tangibility to it.
We had a client, I think you'vedone a great, great job
explaining it.
SPEAKER_01 (32:13):
So no confusion what you're doing right now.
Like, uh, I'm zoned in.
I'm just listening honestly,this is just a free consulting
session.
I'm not even sure this podcastwill air.
I'm just gonna take it.
SPEAKER_00 (32:21):
That's that's what I hear every time I'm on a
podcast.
But um, anyways, like we havethis client that sells website
development, MVP development,and like any of the tech stack
you need around it.
So, like if you if you want tobe able to send an email
newsletter to people that signup on your website, let's say
this company will go in, theywill figure out what platform
(32:44):
that email newsletter needs tobe on to work with your website,
to work with every like your CRMand everything.
They will go in, they will testit to make sure that it works,
and they will determine like,hey, if it's active campaign
that you need, you need theirgrowth level in order for all
this to work.
And here's what that monthlycost is going to be on top of
our development costs for yourwebsite and your MVP, all this
(33:06):
kind of stuff.
So they they had a greatproduct, like their offer, they
they had great clients, bigclients.
They were trying to break intothe US market, they were having
a real big, big trouble doingthat.
Um, and they were spending likea month building these custom
proposals, like multiple callswith the team to figure out what
is it that you actually want tobuild, what do you need built,
(33:29):
blah, blah, blah.
And then creating theseproposals that would get ignored
or turned out.
And they were like, We we don'tknow what's going on, we need
help.
So the very first thing we didwas like, let's dive into your
process, understand your offer.
And out of that workshop came anidea for what I call a paid
(33:49):
discovery offer, where insteadof doing that one month of
discovery for free, what if webundled that up into its own
offer and you sell that for likeI think they're selling it for
like the smaller version is athousand and the larger version
is 1900.
(34:10):
Really, what this offer is, ifyou peel back the layer and
actually look at it, it is allthe questions and the
information they needed toprepare a proposal.
They're charging for it.
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
And what they're doing isn't there's 20 years
consulting for KPMG as and thePWC's extensions of the world.
You win the assessment, you winthe work.
It that is a that is that is it.
So you you you but you have towin a vested assessment, which
means they have to give you somemoney, and all you got to know
is what their signing authorityis, and you smash underneath it
to pick out time travel and alittle bit of yours because
(34:42):
you're just basically doinginformation discovery to give
them the roadmap they need to gosell it.
And I I I agree with you ahundred percent.
Um, and when you have a leadmagnet that does like that
initial 45 minutes top of levelstuff, we do this, and it says,
here's your this is what I woulddo next to win that assessment,
the full you're you are spot on.
And and just conscious of time,I I want to make sure you know
(35:02):
you guys have got to get all theJason here.
Uh, just because you know, I'mgonna follow up with you too,
because some of the thingsyou're describing are very, very
close to where I am, and and I'mI am definitely um capabilities
are here.
unknown (35:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:15):
I'm gonna go I salty side, not this other part.
So I'll be following you.
Tell me something today, though.
What to so just kind of fastforward and and we can we could
probably well, I'm sure we'll gofollow up episode because you
know there's actually anotherpodcast, and I invite you to do
this in much.
Um I really love this, Jason.
I mean it.
Uh I'd I'm glad the personbehind you cancels.
So we can go on and it's likesure, it's like divine
(35:38):
intervention.
No one ever cancels.
This guy did.
I'm like, oh I can all right.
So you're a long podcast today.
All right, long enough of that.
Uh what is the top biggest tieyou you are struggling to cut
today?
Ooh.
This, by the way, this is mybusiness development question.
I hope you answer it in acertain way so I can help you.
I figured.
(35:59):
My good question, because likethen here you are today, why
aren't you cutting it?
So what is what is the tie?
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
Yeah, yeah.
I would I honestly that onewasn't off the list.
Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't, so I didn't thinkabout this in advance.
Um I I think the biggest thebiggest tie, which is still a
little bit back to to what Imentioned before, is I still
(36:26):
have this mindset of I'll justdo it to get it done rather than
I will hire someone to do it forme.
Um, and some of this, like andand you kind of ask like, why
haven't you taught you cut thattie?
Some of this is out ofpracticality.
(36:49):
Um, I most uh I've shared thison LinkedIn, but most people, if
if they're not part of myaudience, they don't know this.
Like um, I have I am the primarycaregiver for an aging parent.
Um, and so there are somelimitations of what I can do for
the business, even financially,because like we uh we're very
(37:13):
limited on what we can do rightnow because of doctor's
appointments and all the allthis kind of stuff.
So um some of that tie is veryum, there just isn't the
finances to do everything, liketo hire more people.
SPEAKER_01 (37:30):
And that's actually a valid piece, but you're like
at some point when that 10k amonth that I'm spending on my
parent comes out, you're gonnabe like, I'm hiring somebody.
SPEAKER_00 (37:38):
Yes, yes.
And so so there's there's kindof that that balance for us
right now.
It's a very weird, like I've hadpeople ask me, like, what's the
what's the biggest problem?
And I'm like, I don't have thetime to take on more clients
right now.
SPEAKER_01 (37:55):
Here's the uh very space, very little.
You you could answer thatquestion since you uh euthanasia
is not legal for a parent yet.
Um I have to spend all thismoney.
Okay.
But you laughed at that, whichtells me you're a dark humor
guy.
100%.
He's not laughing at dad jokes,people.
(38:16):
He's taking care of a parentthat's aging, dark jokes, dark
humor right in the zone.
So if you call him, send him adark joke or dark humor joke,
but it might have soundedanywhere.
Uh let me uh let me just kind ofgo with this.
Uh, there's two questions I'llhave left outside of the
shameless plug question, ofcourse.
Uh what uh where in yourtimeline, if you could go back,
(38:38):
would you go and what would youdo differently?
SPEAKER_00 (38:42):
Honestly, I think I would go back to the start of
the company.
Um biggest thing I would do isfocus on, and this is advice
that I give to every client now.
I would focus on one offer forone client, um, and just do that
until I was seen as the experton that thing.
(39:05):
Yeah.
So instead of bringing in like,hey, I need a business partner
so that we can kind of becausereally what happened is we were
starting to do this dual, like,we do brand strategy and we do
LinkedIn content.
And it became very hard forpeople to understand what Shift
did.
And when I finally was like,Nope, we're only gonna do brand
strategy, I'm gonna do it, we'regonna get the results that I
(39:28):
want.
That's when the company tookoff.
So, like, I've actually done aLinkedIn post and a video on
this.
Like, if I started the companyover, what would I do
differently?
It would be that screweverything else.
We're doing brand strategy,that's all we're doing.
I'm leaning into that hardcore.
We kind of took us a while toget to that point of like ditch
everything else.
SPEAKER_01 (39:49):
This is what this is what we yeah, and sometimes
though there's a there's alearning that happens to
discover what that is.
Uh I'd actually even argue ityou might as just do that now
because where you are, how youdescribed it, uh, and what I
find is on a lot of agencies,specifically solopreneurs would
say with an extended offshoreteam, they can only handle at
best 20 clients a month.
(40:09):
Uh there's just not enough timebecause the intimacy of because
you've you've bought yourself ajob or you've created your own
job, basically, is what happenson most services, marketing
services companies.
And that's okay.
Because that means you just gotto find 20 that pay you a you
know a good amount of money, athousand to three thousand a
month, and you've got an awesomelifestyle business, an awesome
one.
And if you've known for onething, you'll be able to do that
(40:30):
for a very long time.
Uh and and quite honestly, whatI'm gonna follow up with you is
I'm actually going back to thatas well.
We've gone from full agency tojust we focus on LinkedIn to
even I'm saying, how about Ijust focus on marketing agencies
helping them with the businessgrowth path because they really
struggle with their own growth.
They know how to do their onething good, everything else
shit.
(40:50):
So you and I will take thatoffline.
That is the most solid advice.
Uh you know, I've said this inother shows.
The the best answer ever, by theway, was the guy just kind of
looked at his cup of coffee andsaid, Well, I wish I would have
gotten a latte instead of blackcoffee.
And he's like, But I'm gonna fixthat right after the show.
And I was like, Wow, that's aguy, that's a 20-year-old in the
moment.
(41:11):
Anyway, uh that's a greatanswer.
I'm like, man, I that's I'mgonna use that answer uh in the
future.
Uh because you can use it everyday.
You're like, tomorrow I'm gonnafix that.
Anyway, all right.
The last question I have for youis uh, you know, if there was a
question I should have asked youthough, and we've had a
fantastic conversation aroundall this.
So I've I've gained a lot, thankyou.
(41:33):
Um what is that question and howhow do you answer it?
SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
That's that's a good one.
I think so.
We talked a lot about brand,brand strategy, what what is it,
blah, blah, blah.
I think the the question thatmight have helped your your
audience a little uh more islike, how do you get started
building that brand, likefiguring out you those ideal
(42:01):
customers, how you skip.
Um, and really the the answer Ihave for that, um, so we we have
a framework that we take clientsthrough.
Um, and some of this maybedoesn't work when you try to do
it yourself because you reallydo need in a lot of cases what
I've seen with every businessthat I've worked with is they
don't see in their own businesswhat makes them different.
(42:25):
Because your differentiatorreally should be something that
you do 99.99% of the time, youdo it well, it becomes so much a
part of the business that itdoesn't feel special unless
you're an outsider looking inand being like, I've never seen
another company do that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:45):
So all the one of the challenges with that relates
to scale because often you arethe difference, like you were
and you become a bottleneck ofyour own company.
And so I know my own thinkingand how I solve consultative
problems and pieces like that isa differentiator because I do it
with the so I focus ontechnology, or that a lot can't.
How that's a hard one, though,because now, like, God, I can't
(43:06):
scale past my own time, and Ilike to my counter too.
SPEAKER_00 (43:10):
And I I think that right there, that answer right
there is the bottleneck.
Your differentiator is not you,and that's so radical.
You get on LinkedIn andeveryone's like, You just be
more of yourself, that's whatmakes you different.
No, because if you were to leavethe company, you're telling me
that company does nothingdifferent.
(43:32):
So then it's not a company, it'syou, and that is a whole you.
So so I tell clients this allthe time: your differentiator is
not you, it's not yourpersonality, it's not your team,
it's not the fact that you caremore than others.
And I don't care if you think noone else in the industry
actually cares about theirclients.
(43:52):
They do.
Um, they might show itdifferently than you do, and
maybe they suck at it, but everycompany is gonna say, we
actually care about our clients.
So it's not a differentiator.
Really, what you need to lookfor is something that you guys
do that's exceptionallydifferent.
It's a process, it's a it's aproduct, it's it's the
deliverable, it's the repeatedresult that you get.
(44:14):
It's something that can't bereplicated that is not you.
Now, it could be a mindset, itcould be a framework that you
take people through, um, whichmight feel like you because hey,
this is my expertise, I developthat, but that IP is what
actually makes you different,not you.
And and when you when you havethose outside eyes on it, and
(44:39):
you can have someone say, look,this thing that you have here,
like I'm I'm working with aclient right now.
We just did um their offerworkshop.
So, like, I don't know whattheir differentiator is yet.
We haven't gotten to that point,but he walked me through the
process that they use.
It's a recruitment agency.
He walked me through the processthat they use, and I've worked
(45:00):
with like five or six otherrecruitment agencies.
So I've done research onprobably a hundred recruitment
agencies to understand their uhprocess and their
differentiators and stuffbecause we do a lot of
competitive analysis.
You need to do competitiveanalysis to understand your
differentiator.
Um, but like he started walkingthrough a process that I'm like,
(45:23):
in the hundred agencies, the thefive that I've worked with and
the others that I've researchedfor those five, no one is doing
that thing.
That is what we need tohighlight in your brand.
That is what we need to buildeverything around.
And so when it comes to, I'mgonna maybe revise my question,
when it comes to thatdifferentiator, what you want to
(45:46):
look for is what you doexceptionally well, what your
ideal customers want or need,and what your competitors can't
or won't do.
If you can find the intersectionof those three things, you have
something that you can build anentire brand and marketing and
sales and operational strategyaround that will make people,
(46:10):
when they look at your company,when they're on your website,
when they're looking at yourcontent, all of your competitors
will be positioned over here,trying to be better, trying to
be like, oh, we're the best inthe industry, which is
positioning-wise saying, hey,everyone else you know in the
industry, we're aligned justwith them.
Maybe we're just a little bithigher.
Your business over will be overhere, and people will look at
(46:32):
you and be like, I can't getthat thing anywhere else.
I can only get it from you.
And when that is the case, youcan charge whatever the hell you
want, and people will paybecause it's like there's no one
else I can go to to get this.
It is the legal version of amonopoly.
(46:53):
You are the only one to offer itbecause your competitors can't
along to it.
So, like, I love to use thisexample when we talk
differentiation.
I could show up to all of myworkshops dressed as a clown.
I guarantee you, I would be theonly brand strategist that does
that 100%.
I could build an entire brandaround I am the clown and I will
(47:17):
show up with a red nose.
Like, I could do that.
Is that something my idealcustomers would buy?
No.
Does it matter to them that Iwear a red nose and a clown wig?
No.
So while that might make medifferent, it's not really it my
main differentiator.
It's not the unique value Ibring to the market because
(47:40):
ideal customers don't care.
So it's what do you do well?
What do your ideal customersactually care about?
And what can your competitorscan't or won't do?
That is what you build yourbrand strategy around.
That is what you buildeverything, your sales, your
marketing, your operations, yourhow who you hire, all of that
(48:00):
should sta, even your design,all of that should stem from
what is this differentiator,this unique thing we're bringing
to the market?
Because ultimately, and I heardanother brand strategist said
this, and they said it in a waythat I better than I've ever
said it.
If the bit if the thing thatyou're bringing to the market
(48:20):
isn't unique, if you're notdoing something different, you
don't really have a business.
Because a business is in thebusiness of bringing something
unique to the market.
And if you don't have somethingunique that people can't get
anywhere else, you will foreverstruggle with sales, with
(48:43):
marketing, with hiring.
You will forever struggle withthat of like, how do we position
ourselves?
What what verbiage should we puton the website?
You understand thatdifferentiator?
Literally, like the clients Iwork with typically don't have a
marketer on staff, and they arefounders that don't get
marketing at all.
(49:04):
We will uncover theirdifferentiation and no joke,
they will have figured outpieces of their marketing
without me.
We'll say, Hey, this is whatmakes you different.
And they're like, Well,shouldn't our design like be
something like this then?
Yes.
Yes, it should.
Or like, hey, my LinkedIncontent, I should change it this
(49:25):
way then, huh?
Yes.
Before I can even say it, youshould, because now you look at
it.
Now you've got the the NorthStar that says this is what we
should do.
And it all starts to click inplace when you have that North
Star.
SPEAKER_01 (49:38):
It's like uh, it's not that they're in dark, if
there's just too many doors openand you shall the ones that
don't matter.
And so just walk through thatone and it should be clear.
Uh just Jason, thank you somuch.
Uh, how should somebody get ahold of you?
Who should get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_00 (49:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Biggest way would be LinkedIn.
Um, I post content there Mondaythrough Friday.
It's all about what we talkedabout today.
Um, I also have an emailnewsletter I send out every
Monday that takes my LinkedIncontent and goes deeper.
So if you want the worksheets,if you want that practical help,
that is on the website.
Um, you can subscribe to that orjust email me or or DM me on
(50:14):
LinkedIn.
I'm more than happy to haveconversations um around brand
strategy and how to make yourbusiness and make your product
easier to sell.
SPEAKER_01 (50:25):
You rock, thank you so much for coming on today.
It's in this has been incrediblyinsightful for me.
I I love the audience, but it'sbeen helpful to me.
So that's all that reallymatters.
Awesome.
Uh listen, if you're still herein the show, uh thanks for
getting to this point.
Jason is full of knowledge, andyou know, if this helps you kind
of cut a tie to to figure outwhat you should do next, by all
means, you know, get get hold ofJason at shift.agency or through
(50:47):
LinkedIn and it's uh Jason V A NA.
Just Google it.
You'll find it pretty easily.
He's got a few followers, to sayit that way.
Um Thank you.
Once again, get out there.
Go cut a tie to somethingholding your back.
But first, you have to definewhat that success looks like for
you.
Otherwise, you will not becutting the right ties to chase
it.
Welcome to the Cut the Tide Podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, ThomasHelfrick, and I'm on a mission
to help you cut the tide.
Whatever it is holding you backfrom your own success.
Define your own success, though,because if you let someone else
define it, a parent, co-worker,society, you are chasing someone
else's dream and you're notgoing to be very happy in the
end.
So we're going to be uh talkingabout brandy today with Mr.
(00:20):
Jason Vanna.
Vanna?
Vanna like Vanna White or Vanna?
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Van Vanna like Vanna White.
I actually met Vanna White'sbrother.
I just want you to.
Yeah, you won't you won't see mein a sequence dress like her,
but you know, it's just like.
SPEAKER_01 (00:33):
You know what?
The show would have been a lot,a lot higher rated if you had a
sequence dress on, right?
Probably.
Jason, take it to a moment,introduce yourself, you know,
where you're from, what it isyou do.
SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
Yeah, yeah.
So my name is Jason Vana.
I live in the Chicago suburbs.
Um, and I am the founder and CEOof Shift Agency.
We are a brand positioningagency that focuses on working
with B2B companies, specificallyservice companies, to really
help them uncover and own thisunique value that they bring to
the market, and then turn thatinto a brand strategy, marketing
(01:07):
strategy, content strategy,operation strategy, sales
strategy, basically everythingthat you need for your business.
And so this is really um kind ofmy the world that I live in.
I am a big branding nerd, I'm abig Superman, as you can
probably see in the backgroundthere, big, big low uh Lego
nerd, um, all of that.
So that's kind of a little bitabout who I am.
SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
You know, before we dive into kind of why you guys
are different, are you a Legoguy that builds something and
keeps it on the shelf?
Or are you the giant ADHD bucketof just pick whatever you can
and build the spaceship of yourchoice kind of guy?
SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
So I am more of the buy the set and do this for now.
I still have all of my old Legosets from when I was a kid, and
it's all one big tub with allthe loose Legos.
And so uh trying to create aspace to be able to do the I'm
gonna build whatever I want.
I just don't have the spaceright now.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know if you guys anyoneknows this out there that Legos
are equivalently gold in price.
So if you get a Lego, find it onthe street, keep it.
No matter what's pizza, it's uhfor a long time I was buying on
eBay.
I'd see like these deals forlike a dollar a pound.
I'm like, oh, we gotta get it.
And I'd buy like you know,Legos.
Seriously, and they'd show upand I'd have an entire
Millennium Falcon in it.
I'm like, oh, that's great.
(02:26):
Anyway, so um side note.
Uh hey, that's what nerds dowhen they see what they like,
right?
You know, I'm not super mad asmuch.
There's been too many of thecharacters, though I think the
guy that played the Witcher,that guy was the best, best.
Oh, like 100%.
Yeah, but then they got rid ofhim the Witcher anyway.
Tell me though, in the brandingworld, uh it is highly
competitive, and and you'recompeting against you know
(02:48):
outsourcing and in AI andeverything in between.
Uh you know, dive into why firmsreally should pick you and why
they do pick you.
SPEAKER_00 (02:56):
Yeah, so I I think this comes down to defining what
brand really is.
Now, most companies, mostfounders, entrepreneurs, when
you say the word brand, theythink logos, fonts, colors,
design, a website, maybe they goas far as like, oh, it's a
feeling or an experience.
It's what I it's what I I uhexperience when I work with your
(03:18):
business.
And and all of that is kind oftrue.
It's all a component ofbranding.
But really, when we talk brand,what we're talking about is the
gut feeling that people haveabout your business based on
every interaction with yourbusiness.
So this is more than just a nicedesign and maybe some like a
(03:38):
carousel that you use onLinkedIn or Instagram.
This really is the uh I've heardit described this way, and I
love this definition.
Your brand really is thecustomer-facing side of your
business strategy.
So, whatever strategy you havebuilding your business, the the
model that you're using, howyou're gonna make money, what
(03:59):
you're bringing to the offer,um, or the offer that you bring
into the market, your brandreally is the customer-facing
side of that.
So it's it's a deepunderstanding of those ideal
customers.
Now, without getting into toomuch detail, because I could
talk about this for three hours.
Um, when you're when you'retalking about customers, I use
(04:22):
the term ideal customer becausethere's this target market of
anyone that could buy whatyou're trying to sell.
And then there's the subset ofthese are the ones that I
actually want to work withbecause they pay more, they
trust us more, they will umthey're they like jive with us
better.
Um, you're so a brand and andspecifically a brand strategy is
(04:47):
understanding those idealcustomers and creating an offer,
creating an experience, creatingum like marketing and sales and
operational processes thatattract and convert delight and
keep those ideal customers.
When we talk design, logos,fonts, colors, all of that,
(05:09):
that's like if you look at brandlike a an iceberg, the the
design side is just the tip thatyou see above the water, but
your brand really is everythingunderneath.
So how the how your foundercreates content on LinkedIn, how
your customer service teamanswers the phone, how your
(05:31):
receptionist answers the phone,if you've got a receptionist,
how your sales team sendsemails, how your marketing team,
like the messaging that they useon your website, the type of
content they they create, it allcreates a brand.
Um, and if you don't know thoseideal customers you're going
after, if you don't know theposition or that differentiation
(05:53):
that you want to hold in themarket, you're not gonna create
the right brand.
And if you don't have the rightbrand, you don't attract and
convert the right people.
And so, yeah, all that to say,getting back to your question of
like what makes us different, orlike why us as opposed to AI,
one AI doesn't understand thataspect of branding.
(06:17):
Now you can I've used AI promptsof like, here's my business,
create me a positioningstrategy.
And what it gave me was whatevery other branding agency says
out there.
Like, we'll make you stand out,we'll make you unique, we'll
make it feel like you.
Like every brand agency kind oftends to focus on that design
(06:40):
side because that's where Ithink what happens is a lot of
business owners because they seebrand as design, that's what
they want.
When they think brand, it's likeI just need a company that can
make me a logo.
Um, and so that's what theyfocus on.
And and AI, when I put it intoChat GPT, and and just to give
(07:03):
you some clarity, like I have aprompt that helps me write
better prompts, so I didn't justgo in and be like, create me a
positioning strategy, like I hada page-long prompt to and and it
and like I had it ask mequalifying questions or
understandable questions to likeget more out of me.
(07:23):
And it still generated this verybasic very average.
And so, I mean, if you're ifyou're budget strapped and you
don't care about blending in oryou don't need revenue for a
while, AI will get you a brandstrategy that you'll eventually
have to pay someone like me tofix in about a year or two when
you realize it doesn't work.
(07:44):
Um yeah, that's kind of whatwhat makes it different, and
like I know a lot of companiesdo branding.
Like, there's I I know somemarketing agencies that also do
branding, or there's I know somewebsite companies that even say
we do branding, and so I thinkwhat's happened is we've we've
diluted what a brand is, andpeople don't truly understand
(08:08):
it, and so they don't get thepower of a brand.
When when brand is uh is onething of many, you don't really
understand, and you're reallynot getting the solid brand
strategy.
Um like let me let me use liquiddeath as an example, and and I
(08:30):
usually like to use smallerbusinesses as examples because
liquid death is one that likemaybe most of your founders
aren't a liquid death type ofcompany, but it's just in the
back because people know yeah,it's just yeah, it's just water.
It's really what they said.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
You know, yeah, it's crazy because you're like, who's
gonna drink liquid death?
Like somebody's somebody at somepoint said no, they're gonna
love it, and they're right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
Well, and and that like the reason I like to use
liquid death is because peopleimmediately go to well, look at
the branding.
And when they say branding, theymean look at the cans, look at
the name.
Like it's this very weird, andand that's not the branding,
that's the design, that's thename.
Really, what liquid death did,if you if you know the story
behind it, they saw a problemfor a very specific group of
(09:17):
people.
The the guys that started LiquidDeath, they went to a lot of um,
like a lot of uh band likeconcerts and stuff like that.
And so they would be in thesebars and see these performers
performing, and they weren'tallowed to drink alcohol on
stage while they wereperforming, so they had bottles
of water in a bar that was likea Dasani or an ice mountain or
(09:42):
any of those bottles of waterthat like everyone else had a
can of beer and they have thisvery uncool looking bottle of
water.
So Liquid Death's brand strategyis not the name, it's not the
logo, it's not how they how theyposition themselves.
It really is their strategy wewant to make water look cool.
(10:04):
That was their brand strategy.
Now, when you understand that,everything else they do makes
sense, like because they weregoing for a very specific group
of people solving a veryspecific problem.
We have all these musicians orthese people that are trying to
do cool things drinking water,but water doesn't look cool.
(10:25):
So, how do we make it cool?
That was their brand strategy,which then drove what is the
design of Liquid Death.
Well, it's based on musicians atbars.
If you look at the can of water,it looks like a can of beer.
That was intentional because ofwho they were going after,
(10:46):
solving what problem.
That's what a brand and a brandstrategy really does.
You get that in place, and itmakes sense for them to have a
skull on the camp.
Like most people look at it andlike, oh, this why would I drink
liquid death?
You're not the target market,they don't care.
Like the drive.
SPEAKER_01 (11:06):
That's what a brand of Stanley's with I'll interstit
me because it's I I did a fakead for Stanley and I looked at
the camera.
I'm like, does water tastebetter in Stanley?
And I'm like, fuck yeah, itdoes.
And like that was my that's whatI did for him.
Um anyway.
Uh so I love the in-depth I andI I really wanted you to take
some time on that.
Um, and I am definitely with theI'm gonna keep all that in the
show because I think it's soimportant for businesses to
(11:29):
understand that it's I actually,if you're just starting, do the
do the AI, give me a basicapproach.
It is it is a smart way tostart.
You don't need to go drop a fewthousand into branding before
you've proved any of the otherpieces.
Um the piece that I think ismost important to that, and when
and and I this resonates with meis because in our own growth
system, the first thing we solveis problem.
(11:49):
What is the unique problem yousolve?
And you know, for my owncompany, it's like, man, I
really need to take this anotherlevel, right?
I need to say we help B2Bmarketing agencies grow because
we're really good at doing that.
But then we have all these like,you know, we have a
billion-dollar architecturalfirm and we have a hundred
million dollar software companythat we do.
So it's kind of like it's kindof hard to pass those up.
So it's you have to really getfocused because then your brand
(12:10):
goes all around those things.
So I think that's superimportant.
Um, so thank you for sharingthat.
Uh let's come back to kind ofthe flow of this.
Uh we're or simply, how do youdefine success?
SPEAKER_00 (12:23):
For me, it's it's changed over the years.
Um, but the the definition ofsuccess for me is like having
the freedom to do what I want orneed to do without the
constraint of I have to besitting in this chair from a
certain point of day to acertain point of day.
(12:43):
Like that's success for me.
As long as I can pay my bills,live like the life that I want
to live, um, I can help peoplesolve their business problems,
and I can set my own schedule.
That that is success.
I don't have like a, I want tobe a$10 million agency.
Like, I don't have those type ofgoals.
It's more, do I have theautonomy to say, you know what?
(13:06):
Like, and and I did this lastweek, like it's Friday, I don't
feel like working.
I'm done for the day.
Like, that's the freedom to methat feels successful.
SPEAKER_01 (13:17):
Captain of your calendar is a is a is an often
pick for that.
And and and I think uh, youknow, along your way of your
journey, uh talk about yourjourney a little bit, just
because you said you've beendoing this for a lot of
companies.
This you've lived this, this isyour whole uh life, which means
you have a high passion for,otherwise, you would have you
know become a basket weaver orsomething else.
But uh nothing wrong with basketweaving, just a course.
(13:38):
Um, there used to be a marketfor it, and probably it's just
it's not pit anyway.
Yeah.
Tell me about your journey.
And and so you could achievethat success you just defined.
What's been the biggest, youknow, kind of metaphoric tie you
had to cut to get there?
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
So the so I I've been in the marketing and
branding world for about 20years.
Really, since I graduatedcollege, every job that I've had
has been some form of brandingmarketing.
It's all kind of built up to melaunching Shift, which ended up
happening by accident.
Um, I was really just trying to,I was the head of marketing for
(14:15):
a B2B company.
Um, took them from like 14million to by the time I left,
it was about 60 million.
Um, yeah, it was a big, it was abig jump.
Um, and it was in a rural partof the state.
I was like, man, I just I'mlooking for a new job, like uh I
want to move to a differentarea.
Um, so I got on LinkedIn and wasstarting to apply.
(14:38):
And at that point, LinkedIn hadjust kind of started doing the
you can create content on ourplatform now.
So I was like, hey, I'm amarketer, I know how to do this,
so I'm gonna start creatingcontent showing people I know
marketing and branding, andmaybe that will help me stand
out as I apply for these otherbusinesses.
And what ended up happening wasI'd have all these founders
(15:00):
hitting me up in the DMs, like,hey, I can't afford to hire a
marketer right now, but could Ipay your company, your agency to
do XYZ?
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
And I'm like, Yes, the agency.
Now you got to be a attorneysolicitor, like, hey, I know you
get hit.
SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
But but like it was I was like, yeah, I was like,
Yes, the agency I totally havewith the packages I totally
already have put together, I cantotally help you.
So it the business actually didstart by accident.
I was not intending to start acompany, and after I started
getting enough of those, I waslike, there's a there's a
(15:39):
business here, like I need to Ineed to like get serious about
this.
So the problem was, um, youknow, I know this this podcast
has cut the tie, and like,what's the tie that like you
gotta cut to damn it?
Tell me the tie, Jason.
Get to it.
Yes, yes, I know.
So when I when I started thecompany, it was on the side of
(15:59):
my full-time job.
So I was working nights,weekends, kind of doing smart.
That's a great way to start thebusiness.
Is have it.
It really is.
Yeah, it really is because I canhave to worry about how am I
gonna pay my own bills.
So I could be, I was very pickywith who I took on as clients.
SPEAKER_01 (16:15):
And what I love about that, to interrupt you, I
think people should understandthat the best part is there's
something about making a fewthousand bucks on the side, it
feels so much richer, like thatfirst$300 you got, whatever it
was, feels so much moreempowering than the maybe
bigger, much bigger paycheckyou're getting on the other
side.
And you're just like, why do Ilove this$2K?
I remember my first one was like$299.
(16:36):
And I was like, I love this$299so much more than that$20,000.
Right.
It's a it's it's a great feelingthat is that is the little
addictive hook that that getsyour brain going, how can I do
this myself?
Because it feels so much better.
So I don't interrupt, man.
SPEAKER_00 (16:53):
Yeah, no, no, no.
So so when I was starting thecompany, there was a few other
people on LinkedIn that I hadbeen following that were kind of
in the same stage that I was,um, starting a company on the
side of their full-time job.
And it, you know, it was eitheryou know, like website
developer, ad company, like allthis kind of stuff.
Um, and I was watching some ofthese other companies like
(17:16):
really, really take off.
Um, and shift was kind of justtrudging along.
Um, some of it is because we dobrand, and most people don't
understand what brand really is.
Um, there was a lot moreeducation that needed to be done
than hey, if you need a website,I can build you a website.
Very different model of businesstangible style.
(17:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's it's you don't need alot of education to understand I
need a website.
Um, so what was happening wasthey they were growing and I and
my business wasn't.
And so I was like picking theirbrain, so to speak, of like how
do I crow shift?
And one of the biggest pieces ofadvice I heard from multiple
(17:58):
business owners was you need toget a business partner who who
like can help you build this.
And so for years I had it in mymind, this can only be
successful if I have a businesspartner.
Like I need someone who can comealongside and do some stuff to
(18:19):
free me up so I can do uh otheraspects of the business.
And that mindset kind of held usback for probably the good first
what, like three years, two,three years of the company.
Um, now I did end up finding aguy that I uh didn't come in as
(18:41):
a full partner for a while, butlike was hey, I will give you
profit share.
I will help you like you takeover this side of the business,
I'll handle this side, and likewe'll work together to build
this thing.
And um, nothing against him,great guy.
Um, but it was it was likehaving two heads to the company,
um, and two very differentvisions of where we wanted to
(19:05):
go.
And because brand strategy wassupposed to be his side of the
company, even though I had donebrand strategy more, like it was
I found the wrong type of per.
SPEAKER_01 (19:18):
Like well, you copied yourself as opposed to
some of the I did, yeah, yeah.
And that's a bad plot.
You don't want to, I don't knowabout you, but I can't stand
people like me.
SPEAKER_00 (19:26):
So, yeah, well, and personality-wise, yeah,
personality-wise, verydifferent, but like I can do
brand strategy, and in in a lotof cases, I was doing brand
strategy far better than he was.
You need some brand strategy,yeah, yeah.
And and really what I needed wasmore of the operational person
(19:47):
to come in and be like, I say,hey, I want to be able to do
this, and they build out thesystem to make that happen.
That's really what I should havebeen looking for.
Um, but that that feeling, thatneed of like, I need a business
partner to make this work, kindof, and and again, it was the
wrong decision of of what typeof business partner I needed.
(20:09):
Um, but that that like mindsetreally held us back.
And it wasn't until I bought himout of the company that the
company actually took off.
Um, and we started generatingmore revenue, we started landing
larger clients, we startedgetting better results.
Um, and so it was this idea ofthis limitation of I can't do
(20:33):
it, I don't have what it takesto make this thing work, and I
need someone else to help memake it work, is really what
what hindered me.
Now, that doesn't mean I haven'thad business coaches and you
know, I'm not like I have allthe answers and I'm right.
That's not that's not themindset to have either.
But when you when you have thisfundamental idea that like it
(20:56):
can't just be me, I need someoneelse to do it.
That's gonna be the wrongmindset to come into your your
own business.
And it was one of those caseswhere I had started the business
and allowed him to buy into it,um, which is something I would
tell most business owners, don'tdo like that's your tie you had
(21:16):
to cut, was that that belief.
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
And how many times we do this that we we we go on a
hypothesis based on a foundationthat's crack?
And and and that is like that isthe most dangerous, like is this
thing uh possible, and it's inevery aspect of it.
It goes on now.
We'll discuss that maybe towardsthe end.
But I think that principle isalways look at your assumptions
of it.
(21:39):
Just advice those obviously notyou, but like just kind of
talking to the audience,challenge the assumptions of
which you're operating on,because there's likely sometimes
when you get stuck, you don'trealize the glass box you put
around yourself by doing it andyou don't see it, no matter how
many times you run into it.
And uh the the example I say inmy own personal life, because I
I live this cut-the-tie idea, iswhich was with ADHD, is that's
(22:01):
just me.
But then you know, you have allthese challenges with focus and
relationships and all theseother things you do, and you're
like, you know, that's the timeI'm cutting this year.
I'm tired of all, and then whenyou break through it, you're
like, Holy shit, I'm so pissed Ididn't do this at 13 years old.
Yeah.
But so you get clarity, right?
You realize, you know, movingmaybe past that, you're like,
(22:22):
what is the actual gap I need tofill?
Right.
You know, and maybe take that.
Did you did you quickly identifythat as part of that, you know,
three-year experiment and thenbe like, oh no, what I actually
need is this, this, and this.
I just need an employee.
I don't need to pay anybody forthat.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (22:35):
And and that's kind of where it came down to was
we've got employees now insteadof a business partner to do to
fill in those gaps that I justcan't do, that it's not my
strength, it's not somethingthat I'm gonna like.
I think growing up, and andmaybe it was just my generation,
I don't know, uh like youngergeneration, how uh kind of like
(22:56):
what they were they were told orwhatever, but like we were kind
of taught like focus on yourweaknesses and try to make them
better.
Um, and this is something thatI've kind of adjusted probably
in my 30s.
I'm in my 40s now, so it's about10 years ago, where I kind of
had this.
I I forget if it was a uh coachI was working with or a book I
(23:18):
read, I don't remember wherethis came from, but like um this
idea of trying to improve yourweaknesses, taking something I'm
not good at, like realistically,you might become marginally
better at it, but it's not gonnabe the type of life-changing
thing that if you took yourstrength and built your strength
(23:39):
up, how that can change yourlife.
And so if it's a weakness thatis hindering your life, if it's
a weakness that's going to breakor or destroy what you're
building, like if you'recheating on your wife, if you're
out there consuming pornographyevery single day, if you're like
if if it's a weakness that couldreally destroy you, yes, work on
(23:59):
it because that like you'reyou're gonna have an implode
moment if you don't.
SPEAKER_01 (24:05):
Yeah, it was a it was a weakness as much as uh
that's a like a care characterissue.
Well, it's a negative, right?
It's like it's not likesomething I'm not good at, it's
something that's actuallyhurting you.
Right.
So, like you have a drugproblem, we just stop that,
right?
There's a difference betweenlike I don't do content well
versus I can't stop drugs.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
Completely different, and and everyone else
can't go do those drugs for you.
Right, right.
And I think a lot of times wekind of group the weakness into
the problem and say, I have towork on this because I'm not
good at it.
When really, I mean, for me,operational-wise, I'm not the
greatest.
Like I can create automations, Ican do it, I'm I'm like this
(24:44):
bare minimum kind of I can getby with it, but I'm never gonna
create or have the ideas thatsomeone who is an operational
person um will have.
And so I can focus time tryingto get marginally better at it,
or I can take the strength thatI have and try to get even
better at that.
Which one's gonna make thebiggest impact?
(25:06):
And so that's that's kind of thethe mindset I have now is like I
could try to learn this and doit myself, or I can hire
someone, or I could just talk toa consultant that like could
just be like Jason, do boom,boom, boom, and your team will
be fine.
Like that's that's more themindset that I go into with now
(25:29):
is I don't have to have all theanswers.
I don't have to be able to doeverything.
I focus on what I do well, and Ieither outsource or hire what I
don't.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
And you're describing a book called, you
know, who not how, right?
Uh you don't figure out how todo it, figure out who should go
do it, and then you can actuallybuild a business.
Now there's revenues and thingslike that that come behind it.
Um and it's impressive.
Like, you know, as an agencyowner, I use offshore teams and
we use a bunch of technology,but we're in a different space
than yours.
Uh so I avoid W-2s just becausethey're expensive.
And uh a lot of the gaps I Ipersonally find offshore to be
(26:01):
just as effective and you know,a hundredth of the cost.
Um and they're totally fine withweek-to-week PayPals.
Like it's no, there's noadditional eight and a half
percent you give to thegovernment, right?
You know, so uh I I think thoughwhat you're describing from uh
from a tie-to-cut, let me justto kind of bring it forth is you
know, challenge those initialassumptions, and yours was I
(26:21):
needed this specific type ofpartner to go.
And you're like, no, actually, Idon't want to need to do this,
build gaps that are weaknessesof what I couldn't do myself.
But but the biggest piece was torealize I think you didn't need
to do it yourself.
unknown (26:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
And I think that was a that's actually you had the
right step initially.
Uh, so I wouldn't beat yourselfup too bad because I still
struggle five years in now withletting it go to other people,
like though I want them to.
I oh yeah, I'm like, no, I don'tknow.
It's finding the right person.
So uh, but I I want to moveforward a little bit on this.
Uh-huh.
You know, since you've made thatchange, maybe describe the
(26:56):
impact that's had, not so muchfor you, because I'm I I think
it's pretty obvious that'shelped you kind of free your
mind, Captain Calendar, butwhat's the impact been to your
customer?
SPEAKER_00 (27:04):
I think to our customer, like the the biggest
impact is that we're gettingbetter results for them right
now.
Um, because there isn't this umdual layer of what you should be
like what the client should bedoing.
It's all kind of like I'm theone that builds the brand
strategies, and then I've gotteam members that kind of build
the marketing, do the design,like do all the rest of that.
(27:27):
Um and so they have seen betterresults since then, like since
we cut that tie.
Um, because they're like I'vegot more experience doing this
and and more of a uh let meexplain it this way like every
(27:49):
company that I've worked for asan employee, when it came to
marketing, and and I'm the moreI talked to marketers, the more
I realized that this is veryrare.
Um, they weren't concerned onlike MQLs and SQLs and like how
many leads did you actually getin and what are the impressions.
The companies that I worked forum were smaller companies, but
(28:11):
their biggest thing was we'rebringing you in to do marketing
and we better see revenuechange.
That's all we care about.
Whatever you need, if we'reseeing revenue go up, we will
give you what you need, um, orlike what you ask for type
thing.
Because if if you're generatingmore revenue for us, you're
giving me a tip to an idea,right?
SPEAKER_01 (28:29):
Yeah, to cap easy math.
It's a capital machine to mostpeople.
Exactly, exactly.
And so that I'll tell you what,but in your world of B2B
services, that's difficultbecause oftentimes the sales
cycles are long and marketing isa component of a wedge, not if
your product sucks, yourservices are hard.
Like it it's hard to do the ROIattribution to that, and and
(28:50):
that's a big challenge,specifically in branding,
because then you're like, how doI approve ROI with something
that's you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:58):
So well piece, yeah.
And I I think I think that'swhere really what makes shift
different is we look at brand asthe full piece, not the small
piece.
So when we come in and we dobrand strategy, we are fixing
your offer.
SPEAKER_01 (29:15):
If you've got a shit off, see where you guys do a
more consultative approach.
So you you and I have a verysimilar alignment on our agency,
which is you want brand, youneed these things.
Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (29:27):
So this ties really you really get destroyed with
yeah.
Well, really, the the mindsetthat we have is this is brand,
it owns everything in yourcompany.
So if it's not like sorry, lookat Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_01 (29:46):
My pleasure, my you know, like their brand is first.
Everything inside of it isaround what that brand mission
statement is, and they are areally good example of that.
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
And and that's how brand should operate is I create
like.
Like, and this is this is wheremost people build backwards.
They build they build a productor a service.
This is what I'm gonna bring tothe market.
And then they're like, who needsit?
And that's that's backward.
And then then they start workingdown to well, now I need a
(30:16):
design, I need a website.
And then maybe they get down to,well, crap, what what makes us
different?
What's unique about us?
What we do is we come in and wesay, we need to figure out
what's unique about what youwant to bring to the market.
It's like the liquid death.
They didn't come in and say, wewant to create canned water.
They came in and said, we wantto make water look cool.
(30:38):
That's the unique value we'regonna bring to the market.
Now, how do we do that?
We do that by not improvingwater.
In fact, for me, I don't thinkliquid death tastes better than
the generic stuff I get atWalmart.
Like, I actually like thegeneric stuff more than I love
the tap water.
SPEAKER_01 (30:55):
I'll be honest with you.
I like good old fashioned tapwater.
Actually, my favorite is after ahose hose water.
SPEAKER_00 (31:04):
Yes.
So so they didn't revolutionizethe product.
They came in and said, We'regonna create this unique value,
and now we're gonna figure outhow do we do that.
Most companies come in and say,Here's what I want to do.
Now, how do I make thisdifferent?
It's a very different mindset.
And so when we come in, we'relooking at that, in fact, when
(31:26):
we work with a client, the veryfirst workshop we do is we're
gonna go through your offer,we're gonna pull it apart, and
we're gonna say what sucks aboutit, what doesn't work about it.
One of the questions I ask everycompany I work with is five
years from now, of everythingthat you sell, what do you not
want to be selling anymore?
(31:46):
And when they are like, Well, wedon't really like doing this, or
this doesn't really this isreally difficult and it doesn't
make us more money.
Great, you're gonna stop doingthat, and we're not gonna build
a brand around that.
Like, so we start with what isthis offer?
Let's pull it apart, let's findlike we had a client.
Um, this might explain it alittle better, give some
(32:08):
tangibility to it.
We had a client, I think you'vedone a great, great job
explaining it.
SPEAKER_01 (32:13):
So no confusion what you're doing right now.
Like, uh, I'm zoned in.
I'm just listening honestly,this is just a free consulting
session.
I'm not even sure this podcastwill air.
I'm just gonna take it.
SPEAKER_00 (32:21):
That's that's what I hear every time I'm on a
podcast.
But um, anyways, like we havethis client that sells website
development, MVP development,and like any of the tech stack
you need around it.
So, like if you if you want tobe able to send an email
newsletter to people that signup on your website, let's say
this company will go in, theywill figure out what platform
(32:44):
that email newsletter needs tobe on to work with your website,
to work with every like your CRMand everything.
They will go in, they will testit to make sure that it works,
and they will determine like,hey, if it's active campaign
that you need, you need theirgrowth level in order for all
this to work.
And here's what that monthlycost is going to be on top of
our development costs for yourwebsite and your MVP, all this
(33:06):
kind of stuff.
So they they had a greatproduct, like their offer, they
they had great clients, bigclients.
They were trying to break intothe US market, they were having
a real big, big trouble doingthat.
Um, and they were spending likea month building these custom
proposals, like multiple callswith the team to figure out what
is it that you actually want tobuild, what do you need built,
(33:29):
blah, blah, blah.
And then creating theseproposals that would get ignored
or turned out.
And they were like, We we don'tknow what's going on, we need
help.
So the very first thing we didwas like, let's dive into your
process, understand your offer.
And out of that workshop came anidea for what I call a paid
(33:49):
discovery offer, where insteadof doing that one month of
discovery for free, what if webundled that up into its own
offer and you sell that for likeI think they're selling it for
like the smaller version is athousand and the larger version
is 1900.
(34:10):
Really, what this offer is, ifyou peel back the layer and
actually look at it, it is allthe questions and the
information they needed toprepare a proposal.
They're charging for it.
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
And what they're doing isn't there's 20 years
consulting for KPMG as and thePWC's extensions of the world.
You win the assessment, you winthe work.
It that is a that is that is it.
So you you you but you have towin a vested assessment, which
means they have to give you somemoney, and all you got to know
is what their signing authorityis, and you smash underneath it
to pick out time travel and alittle bit of yours because
(34:42):
you're just basically doinginformation discovery to give
them the roadmap they need to gosell it.
And I I I agree with you ahundred percent.
Um, and when you have a leadmagnet that does like that
initial 45 minutes top of levelstuff, we do this, and it says,
here's your this is what I woulddo next to win that assessment,
the full you're you are spot on.
And and just conscious of time,I I want to make sure you know
(35:02):
you guys have got to get all theJason here.
Uh, just because you know, I'mgonna follow up with you too,
because some of the thingsyou're describing are very, very
close to where I am, and and I'mI am definitely um capabilities
are here.
unknown (35:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:15):
I'm gonna go I salty side, not this other part.
So I'll be following you.
Tell me something today, though.
What to so just kind of fastforward and and we can we could
probably well, I'm sure we'll gofollow up episode because you
know there's actually anotherpodcast, and I invite you to do
this in much.
Um I really love this, Jason.
I mean it.
Uh I'd I'm glad the personbehind you cancels.
So we can go on and it's likesure, it's like divine
(35:38):
intervention.
No one ever cancels.
This guy did.
I'm like, oh I can all right.
So you're a long podcast today.
All right, long enough of that.
Uh what is the top biggest tieyou you are struggling to cut
today?
Ooh.
This, by the way, this is mybusiness development question.
I hope you answer it in acertain way so I can help you.
I figured.
(35:59):
My good question, because likethen here you are today, why
aren't you cutting it?
So what is what is the tie?
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
Yeah, yeah.
I would I honestly that onewasn't off the list.
Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't, so I didn't thinkabout this in advance.
Um I I think the biggest thebiggest tie, which is still a
little bit back to to what Imentioned before, is I still
(36:26):
have this mindset of I'll justdo it to get it done rather than
I will hire someone to do it forme.
Um, and some of this, like andand you kind of ask like, why
haven't you taught you cut thattie?
Some of this is out ofpracticality.
(36:49):
Um, I most uh I've shared thison LinkedIn, but most people, if
if they're not part of myaudience, they don't know this.
Like um, I have I am the primarycaregiver for an aging parent.
Um, and so there are somelimitations of what I can do for
the business, even financially,because like we uh we're very
(37:13):
limited on what we can do rightnow because of doctor's
appointments and all the allthis kind of stuff.
So um some of that tie is veryum, there just isn't the
finances to do everything, liketo hire more people.
SPEAKER_01 (37:30):
And that's actually a valid piece, but you're like
at some point when that 10k amonth that I'm spending on my
parent comes out, you're gonnabe like, I'm hiring somebody.
SPEAKER_00 (37:38):
Yes, yes.
And so so there's there's kindof that that balance for us
right now.
It's a very weird, like I've hadpeople ask me, like, what's the
what's the biggest problem?
And I'm like, I don't have thetime to take on more clients
right now.
SPEAKER_01 (37:55):
Here's the uh very space, very little.
You you could answer thatquestion since you uh euthanasia
is not legal for a parent yet.
Um I have to spend all thismoney.
Okay.
But you laughed at that, whichtells me you're a dark humor
guy.
100%.
He's not laughing at dad jokes,people.
(38:16):
He's taking care of a parentthat's aging, dark jokes, dark
humor right in the zone.
So if you call him, send him adark joke or dark humor joke,
but it might have soundedanywhere.
Uh let me uh let me just kind ofgo with this.
Uh, there's two questions I'llhave left outside of the
shameless plug question, ofcourse.
Uh what uh where in yourtimeline, if you could go back,
(38:38):
would you go and what would youdo differently?
SPEAKER_00 (38:42):
Honestly, I think I would go back to the start of
the company.
Um biggest thing I would do isfocus on, and this is advice
that I give to every client now.
I would focus on one offer forone client, um, and just do that
until I was seen as the experton that thing.
(39:05):
Yeah.
So instead of bringing in like,hey, I need a business partner
so that we can kind of becausereally what happened is we were
starting to do this dual, like,we do brand strategy and we do
LinkedIn content.
And it became very hard forpeople to understand what Shift
did.
And when I finally was like,Nope, we're only gonna do brand
strategy, I'm gonna do it, we'regonna get the results that I
(39:28):
want.
That's when the company tookoff.
So, like, I've actually done aLinkedIn post and a video on
this.
Like, if I started the companyover, what would I do
differently?
It would be that screweverything else.
We're doing brand strategy,that's all we're doing.
I'm leaning into that hardcore.
We kind of took us a while toget to that point of like ditch
everything else.
SPEAKER_01 (39:49):
This is what this is what we yeah, and sometimes
though there's a there's alearning that happens to
discover what that is.
Uh I'd actually even argue ityou might as just do that now
because where you are, how youdescribed it, uh, and what I
find is on a lot of agencies,specifically solopreneurs would
say with an extended offshoreteam, they can only handle at
best 20 clients a month.
(40:09):
Uh there's just not enough timebecause the intimacy of because
you've you've bought yourself ajob or you've created your own
job, basically, is what happenson most services, marketing
services companies.
And that's okay.
Because that means you just gotto find 20 that pay you a you
know a good amount of money, athousand to three thousand a
month, and you've got an awesomelifestyle business, an awesome
one.
And if you've known for onething, you'll be able to do that
(40:30):
for a very long time.
Uh and and quite honestly, whatI'm gonna follow up with you is
I'm actually going back to thatas well.
We've gone from full agency tojust we focus on LinkedIn to
even I'm saying, how about Ijust focus on marketing agencies
helping them with the businessgrowth path because they really
struggle with their own growth.
They know how to do their onething good, everything else
shit.
(40:50):
So you and I will take thatoffline.
That is the most solid advice.
Uh you know, I've said this inother shows.
The the best answer ever, by theway, was the guy just kind of
looked at his cup of coffee andsaid, Well, I wish I would have
gotten a latte instead of blackcoffee.
And he's like, But I'm gonna fixthat right after the show.
And I was like, Wow, that's aguy, that's a 20-year-old in the
moment.
(41:11):
Anyway, uh that's a greatanswer.
I'm like, man, I that's I'mgonna use that answer uh in the
future.
Uh because you can use it everyday.
You're like, tomorrow I'm gonnafix that.
Anyway, all right.
The last question I have for youis uh, you know, if there was a
question I should have asked youthough, and we've had a
fantastic conversation aroundall this.
So I've I've gained a lot, thankyou.
(41:33):
Um what is that question and howhow do you answer it?
SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
That's that's a good one.
I think so.
We talked a lot about brand,brand strategy, what what is it,
blah, blah, blah.
I think the the question thatmight have helped your your
audience a little uh more islike, how do you get started
building that brand, likefiguring out you those ideal
(42:01):
customers, how you skip.
Um, and really the the answer Ihave for that, um, so we we have
a framework that we take clientsthrough.
Um, and some of this maybedoesn't work when you try to do
it yourself because you reallydo need in a lot of cases what
I've seen with every businessthat I've worked with is they
don't see in their own businesswhat makes them different.
(42:25):
Because your differentiatorreally should be something that
you do 99.99% of the time, youdo it well, it becomes so much a
part of the business that itdoesn't feel special unless
you're an outsider looking inand being like, I've never seen
another company do that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:45):
So all the one of the challenges with that relates
to scale because often you arethe difference, like you were
and you become a bottleneck ofyour own company.
And so I know my own thinkingand how I solve consultative
problems and pieces like that isa differentiator because I do it
with the so I focus ontechnology, or that a lot can't.
How that's a hard one, though,because now, like, God, I can't
(43:06):
scale past my own time, and Ilike to my counter too.
SPEAKER_00 (43:10):
And I I think that right there, that answer right
there is the bottleneck.
Your differentiator is not you,and that's so radical.
You get on LinkedIn andeveryone's like, You just be
more of yourself, that's whatmakes you different.
No, because if you were to leavethe company, you're telling me
that company does nothingdifferent.
(43:32):
So then it's not a company, it'syou, and that is a whole you.
So so I tell clients this allthe time: your differentiator is
not you, it's not yourpersonality, it's not your team,
it's not the fact that you caremore than others.
And I don't care if you think noone else in the industry
actually cares about theirclients.
(43:52):
They do.
Um, they might show itdifferently than you do, and
maybe they suck at it, but everycompany is gonna say, we
actually care about our clients.
So it's not a differentiator.
Really, what you need to lookfor is something that you guys
do that's exceptionallydifferent.
It's a process, it's a it's aproduct, it's it's the
deliverable, it's the repeatedresult that you get.
(44:14):
It's something that can't bereplicated that is not you.
Now, it could be a mindset, itcould be a framework that you
take people through, um, whichmight feel like you because hey,
this is my expertise, I developthat, but that IP is what
actually makes you different,not you.
And and when you when you havethose outside eyes on it, and
(44:39):
you can have someone say, look,this thing that you have here,
like I'm I'm working with aclient right now.
We just did um their offerworkshop.
So, like, I don't know whattheir differentiator is yet.
We haven't gotten to that point,but he walked me through the
process that they use.
It's a recruitment agency.
He walked me through the processthat they use, and I've worked
(45:00):
with like five or six otherrecruitment agencies.
So I've done research onprobably a hundred recruitment
agencies to understand their uhprocess and their
differentiators and stuffbecause we do a lot of
competitive analysis.
You need to do competitiveanalysis to understand your
differentiator.
Um, but like he started walkingthrough a process that I'm like,
(45:23):
in the hundred agencies, the thefive that I've worked with and
the others that I've researchedfor those five, no one is doing
that thing.
That is what we need tohighlight in your brand.
That is what we need to buildeverything around.
And so when it comes to, I'mgonna maybe revise my question,
when it comes to thatdifferentiator, what you want to
(45:46):
look for is what you doexceptionally well, what your
ideal customers want or need,and what your competitors can't
or won't do.
If you can find the intersectionof those three things, you have
something that you can build anentire brand and marketing and
sales and operational strategyaround that will make people,
(46:10):
when they look at your company,when they're on your website,
when they're looking at yourcontent, all of your competitors
will be positioned over here,trying to be better, trying to
be like, oh, we're the best inthe industry, which is
positioning-wise saying, hey,everyone else you know in the
industry, we're aligned justwith them.
Maybe we're just a little bithigher.
Your business over will be overhere, and people will look at
(46:32):
you and be like, I can't getthat thing anywhere else.
I can only get it from you.
And when that is the case, youcan charge whatever the hell you
want, and people will paybecause it's like there's no one
else I can go to to get this.
It is the legal version of amonopoly.
(46:53):
You are the only one to offer itbecause your competitors can't
along to it.
So, like, I love to use thisexample when we talk
differentiation.
I could show up to all of myworkshops dressed as a clown.
I guarantee you, I would be theonly brand strategist that does
that 100%.
I could build an entire brandaround I am the clown and I will
(47:17):
show up with a red nose.
Like, I could do that.
Is that something my idealcustomers would buy?
No.
Does it matter to them that Iwear a red nose and a clown wig?
No.
So while that might make medifferent, it's not really it my
main differentiator.
It's not the unique value Ibring to the market because
(47:40):
ideal customers don't care.
So it's what do you do well?
What do your ideal customersactually care about?
And what can your competitorscan't or won't do?
That is what you build yourbrand strategy around.
That is what you buildeverything, your sales, your
marketing, your operations, yourhow who you hire, all of that
(48:00):
should sta, even your design,all of that should stem from
what is this differentiator,this unique thing we're bringing
to the market?
Because ultimately, and I heardanother brand strategist said
this, and they said it in a waythat I better than I've ever
said it.
If the bit if the thing thatyou're bringing to the market
(48:20):
isn't unique, if you're notdoing something different, you
don't really have a business.
Because a business is in thebusiness of bringing something
unique to the market.
And if you don't have somethingunique that people can't get
anywhere else, you will foreverstruggle with sales, with
(48:43):
marketing, with hiring.
You will forever struggle withthat of like, how do we position
ourselves?
What what verbiage should we puton the website?
You understand thatdifferentiator?
Literally, like the clients Iwork with typically don't have a
marketer on staff, and they arefounders that don't get
marketing at all.
(49:04):
We will uncover theirdifferentiation and no joke,
they will have figured outpieces of their marketing
without me.
We'll say, Hey, this is whatmakes you different.
And they're like, Well,shouldn't our design like be
something like this then?
Yes.
Yes, it should.
Or like, hey, my LinkedIncontent, I should change it this
(49:25):
way then, huh?
Yes.
Before I can even say it, youshould, because now you look at
it.
Now you've got the the NorthStar that says this is what we
should do.
And it all starts to click inplace when you have that North
Star.
SPEAKER_01 (49:38):
It's like uh, it's not that they're in dark, if
there's just too many doors openand you shall the ones that
don't matter.
And so just walk through thatone and it should be clear.
Uh just Jason, thank you somuch.
Uh, how should somebody get ahold of you?
Who should get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_00 (49:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Biggest way would be LinkedIn.
Um, I post content there Mondaythrough Friday.
It's all about what we talkedabout today.
Um, I also have an emailnewsletter I send out every
Monday that takes my LinkedIncontent and goes deeper.
So if you want the worksheets,if you want that practical help,
that is on the website.
Um, you can subscribe to that orjust email me or or DM me on
(50:14):
LinkedIn.
I'm more than happy to haveconversations um around brand
strategy and how to make yourbusiness and make your product
easier to sell.
SPEAKER_01 (50:25):
You rock, thank you so much for coming on today.
It's in this has been incrediblyinsightful for me.
I I love the audience, but it'sbeen helpful to me.
So that's all that reallymatters.
Awesome.
Uh listen, if you're still herein the show, uh thanks for
getting to this point.
Jason is full of knowledge, andyou know, if this helps you kind
of cut a tie to to figure outwhat you should do next, by all
means, you know, get get hold ofJason at shift.agency or through
(50:47):
LinkedIn and it's uh Jason V A NA.
Just Google it.
You'll find it pretty easily.
He's got a few followers, to sayit that way.
Um Thank you.
Once again, get out there.
Go cut a tie to somethingholding your back.
But first, you have to definewhat that success looks like for
you.
Otherwise, you will not becutting the right ties to chase
it.
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