July 14, 2025 • 24 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Surviving Outside Sales Podcast, hosted by Mike
O'Kelley, presented by SalesBuilder Academy, the goal is to
survive and thrive all phases ofoutside sales, whether you're
getting in, dominating orgetting out.
Surviving Outside Sales.
Now on with the show.
Welcome to the SurvivingOutside Sales podcast.
(00:27):
I'm your host, mike O'Kelley.
Thank you so much for joiningtoday.
Really do appreciate it.
I'm going to start integratinglive coaching calls, or coaching
calls that I record to allowyou to hear what some of the
clients that I'm coaching aregoing through, and it also gives
(00:48):
you more examples as opposed tojust me talking.
You actually get to hear theprocess, the thought process of
what they're hearing and itmight resonate a little bit more
.
So today's topic is going to bebrand building, kind ofon-one.
So this is one of my most morerecent calls where, um I'm
helping.
I'm helping um someone build abrand from scratch and kind of
(01:13):
right now it's going fromconcept to.
We're going to be workingtowards getting that down on
paper and getting it live to therest of the world.
So, um, thank you for everybodywho's been listening to the
rest of the world.
So, thank you for everybodywho's been listening.
I really do appreciate it.
Again, I help salesprofessionals.
I also help entrepreneurs andbusiness people.
I help people launch what theylove.
(01:36):
I also help outside salesprofessionals build a sales
territory that'll scale in orderfor them to make more money and
live the life that they want.
So if you want to reach out tome, you can reach out to me on
LinkedIn.
Connect with me and reach outto me on LinkedIn, send a DM and
say I would love to sit downand have a call and see if I
might be able to help you orgive you some guidance to take
(01:56):
the next step.
If I can't help you, I don'twant to waste my time.
I don't want to waste your time.
Time is very valuable.
So I will put you to the right,put you in touch with the right
person to get you to where youwant to go.
So please use me as a resource.
You can reach out to me.
And, with further ado, here isthe call with Michael, a great
(02:18):
name.
So here's the call with Michael.
So enjoy, um, so enjoy, allright.
So when we get, we get started.
So you're talking about thebranding side, building the
brand, starting from scratch.
Now I know you've already gotideas, so I'm going to walk me
through.
There's really three phases tothink about.
(02:38):
First is going to be the vision.
So you've already thought ofthe vision, which is fantastic.
That is the that's usually thehardest part.
Somebody has a concept, theyhave an idea.
They don't know how toencapsulate it and kind of move
it forward.
The second is going to be themapping.
So that's going to be kind ofthe think of it as like the
skeleton.
You're building out yourframework of how it's going to
(03:00):
look, how it's going to operate.
You have to build a plan for abrand, even if you're doing
personal branding or you'redoing an actual brand, like
you're doing, but it also kindof goes together, like you want
to brand yourself.
And we'll talk about kind ofthe differences between an
actual brand and you as a brand,because they kind of go
(03:21):
together.
And if there's a disconnectbetween those two things, it's
very difficult for either of thebrands to kind of go together.
And if there's a disconnectbetween those two things, it's
very difficult for either of thebrands to kind of move forward.
And then the last one'sexecution.
So that's really the threesteps.
It's the vision.
You kind of think of it as likethe planning stage, and then the
second is the mapping, that'skind of building out the systems
, processes, et cetera.
And then the third is theexecution.
So the first vision, it's allthe questions, the who, the what
(03:45):
, the where, the why, how, the,when it is, you know, separate.
So you're going to have one andthen your brand is going to be
another.
So at the beginning we'll talkabout, um, if you've even
thought of your brand, and sobefore you kind of do that, I
(04:07):
wanted to kind of show you.
Let me pull up, let me do thisreal quick.
I had this up a second ago.
I got too many, too manyscreens and too many things
going up.
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Okay, I got too many screens and too many things
going up.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Let's see I'm going back to the Zoom.
I hate the dead air, but allright.
So I'm going to show you realquick.
Here we go All right, screenthree, all right, screen three,
all right.
So for you personally and I wantto make this, I want to make
this distinction because a lotof people you may know this
(04:54):
already, but I just wanted tobring this up is the difference
between an image and brand.
So the brand is what you buildprivately.
It's the core, it's the essenceof what you are, it is what you
believe, what you stand for,your non-negotiables.
So, for instance, one of mynon-negotiables is I will never
(05:14):
work with somebody or sellsomething to somebody that I
cannot help.
That does not make me feel good.
It's really a time suck.
So I actually turn away clientsbecause I can't help them and
it's not going to help.
It's going to, it's going tolead to frustration, it's going
to lead to angst, and that'sjust something that I will not
do.
I just.
There are people that come tome and they want help and I
(05:36):
can't help them.
I can't see a path where I canmake their, their job better.
So it's your core self.
The same thing is with thebrand itself.
What is the core self, and it'scalled the Shepherd's Way.
Is that right?
Yeah, so your core brand, thatis what you're building in
(05:59):
private.
You're building in private.
The image is how people receivethat.
So you know you could, youcould be very well-dressed, you
could have, you could talkreally well, but if what you're
saying doesn't land with peopleor it comes across as kind of
inauthentic, that is how the,that's how the market's going to
(06:21):
see you.
You put out, you build yourbrand and then you walk out and
then the market will tell youwhile they're receiving it.
And so you always see thesebrands, you always see these
companies.
They come out very flashy andit falls flat.
I don't know if you remember,but there was a.
You remember the streamingservice that came out like 2021
(06:43):
and it was supposed to be likeseven to 12 minute movies and
the the founder, I think was awas a big time founder.
They they raised hundreds ofmillions of dollars and it was a
complete flop because theybuilt something really fast in
like fine closed doors.
They built it that nobodyreally wanted and then they
(07:03):
threw it out in the market andthe image was yeah, nobody liked
it.
So it doesn't matter how muchmoney you have behind it, it
really doesn't matter who'sinvolved.
Big names You've seen it before.
Brands have big names behind it, but it doesn't go anywhere
Because, at the core, the coreis what the market doesn't want.
The market's not resonating.
(07:23):
And so the first step ofbuilding the brand is making
sure that you kind of think ofeverything, even though it's
kind of the catch-22.
You don't know what you don'tknow in the beginning, but you
think of everything.
Okay, what do we stand for?
What's the goal?
If this does scale, where do wewant this to go?
(07:44):
We don't want this to be arunaway train, and I also have a
lot of people that they askwell, are we moving too quickly?
Like, I don't think this isgoing to be a multimillion
dollar brand, but sometimes youhave to prepare for a hundred
thousand dollar brand.
Like, let's say that, let's sayyou know you want to do apparel
(08:04):
and let's say that the apparelall of a sudden takes off.
Okay, are you prepared to scale?
Who's going to fulfill it'slittle things like that.
So you kind of have to wrapyour head around Okay, how big
do I want this to get and whatdo we want to stand for.
So I'm going to push pause realquick and see if you have any
(08:25):
questions, any kind of feedbacket cetera, real quick.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
No, that's good.
Is that mostly time, Mike, oris that mostly like effort or
energy?
How does that work exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Great question.
So it's kind of both.
So it's just it's.
You can't craft your image inpublic.
It's, it's the, it's the workbehind the scenes.
So this is kind of the workingon your craft understanding.
Like, for instance, if I cameto you and I started peppering
(08:57):
you with questions, like I'mvery curious, so if you said,
hey, I've just started this newum, this new community, it's
called the.
You know the shepherd's way andI start asking you a bunch of
questions and you don't have ananswer, then you haven't spent
enough time on your brand.
Like understanding.
Like you can ask me for brandsthat I have different companies
(09:21):
involved with.
Like surviving outside sales.
What is surviving outside sales?
Surviving outside sales is apath, no matter where you are in
the outside sales world,whether you're getting in,
whether in the industry you wantto dominate or you want to get
out, planning for your nextphase.
I help people through allphases of sales, live the best
life that they want that'spretty much it.
(09:45):
So at the beginning I didn't dothat.
At the beginning it was likewhat's thriving on sales?
Oh, it's kind of cool.
Like you know, sos, like youknow, save us People need help
in the, in the outside salesworld, and it really drilled
down to the essence of what doyou want it to represent and who
do.
I'm going to spend four hoursand then one hour.
(10:06):
It's basically.
It's kind of just.
It's a framework ofunderstanding that a majority of
what you do before you go live,like before you go on stage,
you know, as an athlete, you hadto be in the pool hours
hundreds of hours just to beable to swim for a couple
minutes.
You can't just hop up on thestarting block and then you hop
(10:28):
into the pool and you're goingto be great.
It's the countless amount ofthings you're doing in private
that's going to make yousuccessful in public.
So walk me through.
Let's talk a couple minutes.
Where are we as far as a brand?
Have you thought about itanymore?
(10:51):
Have you moved forward sincethe last time we talked?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
A little bit.
The biggest thing I think Itook away from our conversation
is, I think trying toconceptualize it into a book
would be good, and I've beentrying to think about what the
book could be and trying to towrite down kind of key, key
memories or key stories thatwould be like like monumental,
of like how I became like in apastor's role, um, like thinking
(11:16):
back through like my whole lifeI think I can probably narrow
it down to like five like reallykey moments in my life that
kind of like just help decidelike where I am today.
And so I I'm trying to likekind of if I think the book
would be the first step and thenif I can kind of conceptualize
how to put that together, Ithink I'm just gonna start
writing, you know, 20, 30minutes a day and see if I can
(11:38):
put together some type of umflow with that.
Okay, no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You're going to see, you want to start with the book.
Start with the book, which Ithink is, I think, is great.
You know, books definitelybuild 40?
Um.
It's also something thatobviously your family is
passionate about.
So have you even thought of?
Have you do you have?
Have you mapped out the whatthe book is going to look like,
(12:07):
the structure?
Is it going to be a one-waybook like, in other words, this
is just everything, or is itgoing to be f?
F your thoughts and then thejournal?
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
that's a good question.
I I haven't decided on that.
I'm curious.
I don't think it should be along book.
I think like 100, 110 pages.
Maybe.
I was kind of a sweet spot forkind of a.
I don't even know if I call ita memoir or if it more be more
of like a.
You know, I don't know.
I'm trying to decide how muchI'll make it like kind of more
(12:40):
um, what's the word?
I don't know.
I'm trying to see if I'm gonnago more inward or more outward
with what I've learned, if thatmakes sense.
So like sharing stories and letpeople kind of grab the stuff
for themselves.
Or like more like life lessonsI learned and how I learned them
.
I kind of am torn between thosetwo ways.
I'll probably go more towardthe second one of like.
(13:01):
Here's an experience, here'swhat it learned and here's how
it kind of shaped.
You know, if it's a way kind oflike, here's the path and try
to like for like teens or youngadults or whoever kind of show
them like.
Here's a similar way.
You can go down this and evenlike my message yesterday, just
talking about like, and there'smoments where you can kind of
choose which way you go and prayfor wisdom on which way would
(13:22):
be the shepherd's way and whichway would be like the world's
way, and kind of have like adichotomy between those so what?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
what is your so?
What is your ideal like?
Who are you going after?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
yeah, I think anybody .
I think it's it's the believer,or the or the, the new, the new
believer or the believer who'sbeen for a long time.
I think the major proponent ofit would be probably like young,
early 20s, maybe early 30s kindof people who are just starting
out like kind of down this path.
I would focus on that, maybelate high school as well.
(13:54):
I think that's a kind of a keytone the.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
the big mistake that everybody has made like I've
made this in the past is you tryto the word anybody.
Well, anybody can use this.
It's really dialing down toyour specific audience.
And then if you pick up otherpeople, that's bonus, but if
you're trying to be everythingto everybody, it's going to fail
(14:18):
.
Clarity is really key inwriting.
So when you write it, you wantto have an avatar, you want to
have your ideal client profile.
It's called an ICP in thebusiness world.
I'm not sure if you've heard ofthat before, but you want to
write down who am I targeting?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Because that's the lens that you want to have.
The entire time You'rebrainstorming, you're processing
, and it is very enticing to tryto be everything to everybody,
but it's just, it's going tofall flat.
Big brands like a Walmart thatsell everything.
They're few and far between.
Now you can expand it LikeStarbucks started with coffee.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And now they sell breakfast sandwiches, et cetera.
Dunkin' started as donuts.
Guess what happened?
The market shifted and theyneeded coffee in order to stay
in business.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So you know if you're going to go down a certain path
.
You also want to make sure thatyou map everything out, and I
know our time is limited, sonumber two is mapping.
So the three things withmapping is you want to have a
timeline, you want to have abudget and you really want to
have a purpose.
You really want to be veryintentional with everything.
(15:37):
The third is I'll just mentionthis and then we'll go back.
The third is execution.
You want to build and then act.
So you've gone through thebuilding process and then you
just take massive action.
You want to build your universe.
I call it the backstop.
I was a catcher in baseball, soyou want to have the backstop
kind of everything that's behindyou.
That's good.
So that's like your website,all your links If you're sending
(15:59):
people to a place to buy thebook or if it's on Amazon, kind
of knowing where everything isin the universe so that you can,
if people are searching forwhat you want, they know exactly
how to get there.
They're not just aimlesslysearching.
And then it's being consistent.
It's having either youmentioned before possibly a
podcast.
It's being very consistent withoutreach and being very
(16:22):
consistent with your message,but it's also keeping things
very simple, not trying to dotoo much.
At the beginning we kind oftalked about you know, if you
wanted to do a clothing line, Iwould focus on one right now
either get the book and then,after the book is ready, then
create either a hoodie and onet-shirt.
I think that's totallyacceptable.
(16:42):
If you try to take on too much,unless you have a big budget,
unless you've got thousands ofdollars that you can allocate to
doing both at the same timewhat's going to happen is you'll
be a jack of all trades, masterof none.
Yeah, that's good, and I'vemade that mistake before.
I used to sell coffee and Iused to sell merch and I used to
(17:05):
.
You sold coffee, yeah, like mywife, and I sell, you know,
coffee, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Like my wife, and I sell coffee.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
We have a clean coffee brand called scout and
seller.
Yeah, not no mold, no toxins.
A small batch from uh no, it'sa, it's a like.
We didn't create it.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Uh, it's a, you know, for lack of better terms, like
an MLM.
Yeah, you know, but we drink it.
It's amazing, it's the bestcoffee we've ever had before,
and so but I thought, you knowwhat Coffee?
Let's see if it's well withsales, coffee for closers, and
it just was one of those thingswhere people are like wait a
minute, are you selling coffee?
Or well, I was like no.
(17:42):
But again, being great at onething.
It doesn't mean, if you startwith a book, you have to be an
author, but what it does is itdoes give you the authority,
because and I've actually beentrying to write a book for a
while, it's just I haven't had alot of time, but it definitely
does add a little bit ofauthority to the brand and it is
(18:04):
a great kickstart.
And if that's something you'vealready thought about, you've
kind of envisioned, um, justkind of map out, and the one
thing that I heard, which isgreat advice, is don't
necessarily think about thelength of the book, because what
will happen is it'll be aself-fulfilling prophecy.
You will just fill 110 pages,um, if you, if you are giving it
(18:26):
for young teens, which I thinkkind of fits what you're doing
right now is, you know you canwrite a book for adults later,
but right now, for young teens,how many young teens really are
going to sit down and read 110page book?
You know that's the difficultpart, but kind of, with the
vision, think about who am Igoing after?
(18:49):
What are they going to like?
You don't try to craft somethingjust for an audience.
You, you figure out your DNA.
What is my brand going torepresent?
What do I want to bring to theworld, what do I want to create?
And then you mirror that andI'll show you this real quick
before we head out.
This is another little subtledifference.
(19:17):
but when you're building themarket, brand, product, market
fit number one.
So are you building somethingthat people want?
You know, I mean, if you have,uh, you know, ketchup popsicles,
you know, it's the old phraseyou know you can sell a lady and
ketchup, white gloves, ketchuppopsicle well great.
Do people really want ketchuppopsicles?
Right?
(19:38):
The answer is no, so that's notgoing to go anywhere, you know.
Does your market, uh, need yourproduct or service?
Yes, move on to the next step.
The answer is no, so that's notgoing to go anywhere.
Does your market need yourproduct or service?
Yes, move on to the next step.
If the answer is no, it's timeto adjust your product or
service.
For right now, I think 100% themarket needs what you're going
to give them.
They do.
Kids need it, kids needguidance, they're looking for it
, and sometimes parents don'thave all the answers.
Number two is your go-to-marketstrategy.
(20:00):
How do you present your productto the market?
Does the market respond to yourproduct?
If the answer is yes, you keepgoing.
If the answer is no, it's timeto adjust.
So the go-to-market strategygoes along with the vision.
As far as how do you want tobring this out and there's a lot
of different ways and I'm surethat Paul will talk about we can
(20:22):
talk about that but you'regoing to market strategy.
Once you've already figured outphase one, which is, what does
the brand represent, where am Igoing and how do I see it
getting there?
Think of this right now is,you're starting to build a
sculpture and right now there'sjust a mound of mud, there's a
mound of clay, and so whatyou're doing is like, all right,
(20:44):
what am I going to build?
Am I going to build a pot?
Am I going to build a statue?
Am I going to build a vase orvase?
What am I going to build?
That's the first thing.
And then you start okay, whatdo I need to do?
How much time do I need toallocate?
How much materials do I need?
What is this really going totake?
And you start mapping it outand, for the sake of time, right
now, let's go through the lasttwo and then we can push pause
(21:07):
until next time.
Messaging and branding you know,does your messaging match the
branding?
Yes, keep going, bring in theright people.
And then, at some point, you'llhave to build a team.
You'll need a confidant.
That could be your wife, thatcould be somebody else that
could be a business partner.
That could be your wife, thatcould be somebody else that
could be a business partner,that could be somebody at the
church.
You need somebody to kind ofbounce, bounce ideas off of, but
also somebody that might beable to help deliver the product
(21:29):
to the market.
If you don't have that, youkeep looking for that person.
But that's basically in anutshell.
Um, it's simple.
It doesn't necessarily meanit's easy, but, um, I hope this
has been it's been helpful.
Mean it's easy but hope thishas been it's been helpful.
Any questions before we?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
we kind of we kind of wrap up this session.
No, that's super good.
Yeah, I'm going to startthinking about that.
I'm going to start also justkind of structuring the book a
little bit and see kind of whatare the key points?
Cause I think that we can kindof mirror that into also like
what, how, who and how.
I want to do this Because Ithink you're right Late teens,
early young adults Ideally it'sjust something I can just pass
(22:07):
out to.
That's where I'm like like NineMarks I don't know if you know
what Nine Marks is.
They have a great discipleshipstudy and it's like two bucks
and like they send it out likeeverywhere.
So I'm trying to decide if Iwant it to be something kind of
really short and easy.
It's just like like somethingthat I kind of just push out you
know what I mean and then writemy longer book later I'll let
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So I'm going to be brainstorming on that and then
we can when we get together.
One thing I'll tell you issometimes you want you can do
something for free like a leadmagnet just to kind of get
somebody into your universe.
The lead magnet is very short.
What it sounds like you'retrying to do is something a
little larger.
I mean you can do a very cheapbook.
I would recommend not giving itout for free.
(22:48):
The reason why I have so manybooks on my shelf right now that
were free, that people gave meand they didn't immediately kind
of fit a need that I need, thatI wanted.
So they're just collecting dust.
But almost every book that I'veever spent a dollar because I
had to work to earn that I haveread, I've cracked it, I've read
it.
So those are just kind ofthings to think about and then
(23:15):
we can discuss at a future timethat sound good.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Sounds good, thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
All right.
So you just heard the livecoaching conversation that I had
with Michael and talking aboutbrands and kind of flushing out
the brand idea.
So let me know if you likehaving these as part of the
podcast.
I see a lot of other podcastersor people in the sales coaching
world or the business worldhave the live calls as opposed
to having a podcast style,whereas I have lots of these
(23:55):
coaching calls that I havevideos that I could just upload
just to give you all betterexamples of what people are
really going through the thoughtprocess that might be able to
help you out there.
Because, regardless, if you everreach out to me, the reason why
I do this podcast is to teachand teach the things that I have
learned, teach the experiences,the failures that I've had in
the business and sales world sothat hopefully, you don't have
(24:17):
to go through that, you don'thave to experience the same type
of pain that I did along mycareer trying to figure it out
on my own.
And if it makes sense and youwant to reach out to me, you can
do so.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn,you can DM me or you can email
me, mike, at surviving outsidesales.
Whichever you want to do.
So thank you so much forlistening.
Hope you have a great day.
We'll see you next time onsurviving outside sales Cheers.
The Surviving Outside Sales Podcast, hosted by Mike
O'Kelley, presented by SalesBuilder Academy, the goal is to
survive and thrive all phases ofoutside sales, whether you're
getting in, dominating orgetting out.
Surviving Outside Sales.
Now on with the show.
Welcome to the SurvivingOutside Sales podcast.
(00:27):
I'm your host, mike O'Kelley.
Thank you so much for joiningtoday.
Really do appreciate it.
I'm going to start integratinglive coaching calls, or coaching
calls that I record to allowyou to hear what some of the
clients that I'm coaching aregoing through, and it also gives
(00:48):
you more examples as opposed tojust me talking.
You actually get to hear theprocess, the thought process of
what they're hearing and itmight resonate a little bit more
.
So today's topic is going to bebrand building, kind ofon-one.
So this is one of my most morerecent calls where, um I'm
helping.
I'm helping um someone build abrand from scratch and kind of
(01:13):
right now it's going fromconcept to.
We're going to be workingtowards getting that down on
paper and getting it live to therest of the world.
So, um, thank you for everybodywho's been listening to the
rest of the world.
So, thank you for everybodywho's been listening.
I really do appreciate it.
Again, I help salesprofessionals.
I also help entrepreneurs andbusiness people.
I help people launch what theylove.
(01:36):
I also help outside salesprofessionals build a sales
territory that'll scale in orderfor them to make more money and
live the life that they want.
So if you want to reach out tome, you can reach out to me on
LinkedIn.
Connect with me and reach outto me on LinkedIn, send a DM and
say I would love to sit downand have a call and see if I
might be able to help you orgive you some guidance to take
(01:56):
the next step.
If I can't help you, I don'twant to waste my time.
I don't want to waste your time.
Time is very valuable.
So I will put you to the right,put you in touch with the right
person to get you to where youwant to go.
So please use me as a resource.
You can reach out to me.
And, with further ado, here isthe call with Michael, a great
(02:18):
name.
So here's the call with Michael.
So enjoy, um, so enjoy, allright.
So when we get, we get started.
So you're talking about thebranding side, building the
brand, starting from scratch.
Now I know you've already gotideas, so I'm going to walk me
through.
There's really three phases tothink about.
(02:38):
First is going to be the vision.
So you've already thought ofthe vision, which is fantastic.
That is the that's usually thehardest part.
Somebody has a concept, theyhave an idea.
They don't know how toencapsulate it and kind of move
it forward.
The second is going to be themapping.
So that's going to be kind ofthe think of it as like the
skeleton.
You're building out yourframework of how it's going to
(03:00):
look, how it's going to operate.
You have to build a plan for abrand, even if you're doing
personal branding or you'redoing an actual brand, like
you're doing, but it also kindof goes together, like you want
to brand yourself.
And we'll talk about kind ofthe differences between an
actual brand and you as a brand,because they kind of go
(03:21):
together.
And if there's a disconnectbetween those two things, it's
very difficult for either of thebrands to kind of go together.
And if there's a disconnectbetween those two things, it's
very difficult for either of thebrands to kind of move forward.
And then the last one'sexecution.
So that's really the threesteps.
It's the vision.
You kind of think of it as likethe planning stage, and then the
second is the mapping, that'skind of building out the systems
, processes, et cetera.
And then the third is theexecution.
So the first vision, it's allthe questions, the who, the what
(03:45):
, the where, the why, how, the,when it is, you know, separate.
So you're going to have one andthen your brand is going to be
another.
So at the beginning we'll talkabout, um, if you've even
thought of your brand, and sobefore you kind of do that, I
(04:07):
wanted to kind of show you.
Let me pull up, let me do thisreal quick.
I had this up a second ago.
I got too many, too manyscreens and too many things
going up.
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Okay, I got too many screens and too many things
going up.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Let's see I'm going back to the Zoom.
I hate the dead air, but allright.
So I'm going to show you realquick.
Here we go All right, screenthree, all right, screen three,
all right.
So for you personally and I wantto make this, I want to make
this distinction because a lotof people you may know this
(04:54):
already, but I just wanted tobring this up is the difference
between an image and brand.
So the brand is what you buildprivately.
It's the core, it's the essenceof what you are, it is what you
believe, what you stand for,your non-negotiables.
So, for instance, one of mynon-negotiables is I will never
(05:14):
work with somebody or sellsomething to somebody that I
cannot help.
That does not make me feel good.
It's really a time suck.
So I actually turn away clientsbecause I can't help them and
it's not going to help.
It's going to, it's going tolead to frustration, it's going
to lead to angst, and that'sjust something that I will not
do.
I just.
There are people that come tome and they want help and I
(05:36):
can't help them.
I can't see a path where I canmake their, their job better.
So it's your core self.
The same thing is with thebrand itself.
What is the core self, and it'scalled the Shepherd's Way.
Is that right?
Yeah, so your core brand, thatis what you're building in
(05:59):
private.
You're building in private.
The image is how people receivethat.
So you know you could, youcould be very well-dressed, you
could have, you could talkreally well, but if what you're
saying doesn't land with peopleor it comes across as kind of
inauthentic, that is how the,that's how the market's going to
(06:21):
see you.
You put out, you build yourbrand and then you walk out and
then the market will tell youwhile they're receiving it.
And so you always see thesebrands, you always see these
companies.
They come out very flashy andit falls flat.
I don't know if you remember,but there was a.
You remember the streamingservice that came out like 2021
(06:43):
and it was supposed to be likeseven to 12 minute movies and
the the founder, I think was awas a big time founder.
They they raised hundreds ofmillions of dollars and it was a
complete flop because theybuilt something really fast in
like fine closed doors.
They built it that nobodyreally wanted and then they
(07:03):
threw it out in the market andthe image was yeah, nobody liked
it.
So it doesn't matter how muchmoney you have behind it, it
really doesn't matter who'sinvolved.
Big names You've seen it before.
Brands have big names behind it, but it doesn't go anywhere
Because, at the core, the coreis what the market doesn't want.
The market's not resonating.
(07:23):
And so the first step ofbuilding the brand is making
sure that you kind of think ofeverything, even though it's
kind of the catch-22.
You don't know what you don'tknow in the beginning, but you
think of everything.
Okay, what do we stand for?
What's the goal?
If this does scale, where do wewant this to go?
(07:44):
We don't want this to be arunaway train, and I also have a
lot of people that they askwell, are we moving too quickly?
Like, I don't think this isgoing to be a multimillion
dollar brand, but sometimes youhave to prepare for a hundred
thousand dollar brand.
Like, let's say that, let's sayyou know you want to do apparel
(08:04):
and let's say that the apparelall of a sudden takes off.
Okay, are you prepared to scale?
Who's going to fulfill it'slittle things like that.
So you kind of have to wrapyour head around Okay, how big
do I want this to get and whatdo we want to stand for.
So I'm going to push pause realquick and see if you have any
(08:25):
questions, any kind of feedbacket cetera, real quick.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
No, that's good.
Is that mostly time, Mike, oris that mostly like effort or
energy?
How does that work exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Great question.
So it's kind of both.
So it's just it's.
You can't craft your image inpublic.
It's, it's the, it's the workbehind the scenes.
So this is kind of the workingon your craft understanding.
Like, for instance, if I cameto you and I started peppering
(08:57):
you with questions, like I'mvery curious, so if you said,
hey, I've just started this newum, this new community, it's
called the.
You know the shepherd's way andI start asking you a bunch of
questions and you don't have ananswer, then you haven't spent
enough time on your brand.
Like understanding.
Like you can ask me for brandsthat I have different companies
(09:21):
involved with.
Like surviving outside sales.
What is surviving outside sales?
Surviving outside sales is apath, no matter where you are in
the outside sales world,whether you're getting in,
whether in the industry you wantto dominate or you want to get
out, planning for your nextphase.
I help people through allphases of sales, live the best
life that they want that'spretty much it.
(09:45):
So at the beginning I didn't dothat.
At the beginning it was likewhat's thriving on sales?
Oh, it's kind of cool.
Like you know, sos, like youknow, save us People need help
in the, in the outside salesworld, and it really drilled
down to the essence of what doyou want it to represent and who
do.
I'm going to spend four hoursand then one hour.
(10:06):
It's basically.
It's kind of just.
It's a framework ofunderstanding that a majority of
what you do before you go live,like before you go on stage,
you know, as an athlete, you hadto be in the pool hours
hundreds of hours just to beable to swim for a couple
minutes.
You can't just hop up on thestarting block and then you hop
(10:28):
into the pool and you're goingto be great.
It's the countless amount ofthings you're doing in private
that's going to make yousuccessful in public.
So walk me through.
Let's talk a couple minutes.
Where are we as far as a brand?
Have you thought about itanymore?
(10:51):
Have you moved forward sincethe last time we talked?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
A little bit.
The biggest thing I think Itook away from our conversation
is, I think trying toconceptualize it into a book
would be good, and I've beentrying to think about what the
book could be and trying to towrite down kind of key, key
memories or key stories thatwould be like like monumental,
of like how I became like in apastor's role, um, like thinking
(11:16):
back through like my whole lifeI think I can probably narrow
it down to like five like reallykey moments in my life that
kind of like just help decidelike where I am today.
And so I I'm trying to likekind of if I think the book
would be the first step and thenif I can kind of conceptualize
how to put that together, Ithink I'm just gonna start
writing, you know, 20, 30minutes a day and see if I can
(11:38):
put together some type of umflow with that.
Okay, no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You're going to see, you want to start with the book.
Start with the book, which Ithink is, I think, is great.
You know, books definitelybuild 40?
Um.
It's also something thatobviously your family is
passionate about.
So have you even thought of?
Have you do you have?
Have you mapped out the whatthe book is going to look like,
(12:07):
the structure?
Is it going to be a one-waybook like, in other words, this
is just everything, or is itgoing to be f?
F your thoughts and then thejournal?
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
that's a good question.
I I haven't decided on that.
I'm curious.
I don't think it should be along book.
I think like 100, 110 pages.
Maybe.
I was kind of a sweet spot forkind of a.
I don't even know if I call ita memoir or if it more be more
of like a.
You know, I don't know.
I'm trying to decide how muchI'll make it like kind of more
(12:40):
um, what's the word?
I don't know.
I'm trying to see if I'm gonnago more inward or more outward
with what I've learned, if thatmakes sense.
So like sharing stories and letpeople kind of grab the stuff
for themselves.
Or like more like life lessonsI learned and how I learned them
.
I kind of am torn between thosetwo ways.
I'll probably go more towardthe second one of like.
(13:01):
Here's an experience, here'swhat it learned and here's how
it kind of shaped.
You know, if it's a way kind oflike, here's the path and try
to like for like teens or youngadults or whoever kind of show
them like.
Here's a similar way.
You can go down this and evenlike my message yesterday, just
talking about like, and there'smoments where you can kind of
choose which way you go and prayfor wisdom on which way would
(13:22):
be the shepherd's way and whichway would be like the world's
way, and kind of have like adichotomy between those so what?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
what is your so?
What is your ideal like?
Who are you going after?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
yeah, I think anybody .
I think it's it's the believer,or the or the, the new, the new
believer or the believer who'sbeen for a long time.
I think the major proponent ofit would be probably like young,
early 20s, maybe early 30s kindof people who are just starting
out like kind of down this path.
I would focus on that, maybelate high school as well.
(13:54):
I think that's a kind of a keytone the.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
the big mistake that everybody has made like I've
made this in the past is you tryto the word anybody.
Well, anybody can use this.
It's really dialing down toyour specific audience.
And then if you pick up otherpeople, that's bonus, but if
you're trying to be everythingto everybody, it's going to fail
(14:18):
.
Clarity is really key inwriting.
So when you write it, you wantto have an avatar, you want to
have your ideal client profile.
It's called an ICP in thebusiness world.
I'm not sure if you've heard ofthat before, but you want to
write down who am I targeting?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Because that's the lens that you want to have.
The entire time You'rebrainstorming, you're processing
, and it is very enticing to tryto be everything to everybody,
but it's just, it's going tofall flat.
Big brands like a Walmart thatsell everything.
They're few and far between.
Now you can expand it LikeStarbucks started with coffee.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And now they sell breakfast sandwiches, et cetera.
Dunkin' started as donuts.
Guess what happened?
The market shifted and theyneeded coffee in order to stay
in business.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So you know if you're going to go down a certain path
.
You also want to make sure thatyou map everything out, and I
know our time is limited, sonumber two is mapping.
So the three things withmapping is you want to have a
timeline, you want to have abudget and you really want to
have a purpose.
You really want to be veryintentional with everything.
(15:37):
The third is I'll just mentionthis and then we'll go back.
The third is execution.
You want to build and then act.
So you've gone through thebuilding process and then you
just take massive action.
You want to build your universe.
I call it the backstop.
I was a catcher in baseball, soyou want to have the backstop
kind of everything that's behindyou.
That's good.
So that's like your website,all your links If you're sending
(15:59):
people to a place to buy thebook or if it's on Amazon, kind
of knowing where everything isin the universe so that you can,
if people are searching forwhat you want, they know exactly
how to get there.
They're not just aimlesslysearching.
And then it's being consistent.
It's having either youmentioned before possibly a
podcast.
It's being very consistent withoutreach and being very
(16:22):
consistent with your message,but it's also keeping things
very simple, not trying to dotoo much.
At the beginning we kind oftalked about you know, if you
wanted to do a clothing line, Iwould focus on one right now
either get the book and then,after the book is ready, then
create either a hoodie and onet-shirt.
I think that's totallyacceptable.
(16:42):
If you try to take on too much,unless you have a big budget,
unless you've got thousands ofdollars that you can allocate to
doing both at the same timewhat's going to happen is you'll
be a jack of all trades, masterof none.
Yeah, that's good, and I'vemade that mistake before.
I used to sell coffee and Iused to sell merch and I used to
(17:05):
.
You sold coffee, yeah, like mywife, and I sell, you know,
coffee, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Like my wife, and I sell coffee.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
We have a clean coffee brand called scout and
seller.
Yeah, not no mold, no toxins.
A small batch from uh no, it'sa, it's a like.
We didn't create it.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Uh, it's a, you know, for lack of better terms, like
an MLM.
Yeah, you know, but we drink it.
It's amazing, it's the bestcoffee we've ever had before,
and so but I thought, you knowwhat Coffee?
Let's see if it's well withsales, coffee for closers, and
it just was one of those thingswhere people are like wait a
minute, are you selling coffee?
Or well, I was like no.
(17:42):
But again, being great at onething.
It doesn't mean, if you startwith a book, you have to be an
author, but what it does is itdoes give you the authority,
because and I've actually beentrying to write a book for a
while, it's just I haven't had alot of time, but it definitely
does add a little bit ofauthority to the brand and it is
(18:04):
a great kickstart.
And if that's something you'vealready thought about, you've
kind of envisioned, um, justkind of map out, and the one
thing that I heard, which isgreat advice, is don't
necessarily think about thelength of the book, because what
will happen is it'll be aself-fulfilling prophecy.
You will just fill 110 pages,um, if you, if you are giving it
(18:26):
for young teens, which I thinkkind of fits what you're doing
right now is, you know you canwrite a book for adults later,
but right now, for young teens,how many young teens really are
going to sit down and read 110page book?
You know that's the difficultpart, but kind of, with the
vision, think about who am Igoing after?
(18:49):
What are they going to like?
You don't try to craft somethingjust for an audience.
You, you figure out your DNA.
What is my brand going torepresent?
What do I want to bring to theworld, what do I want to create?
And then you mirror that andI'll show you this real quick
before we head out.
This is another little subtledifference.
(19:17):
but when you're building themarket, brand, product, market
fit number one.
So are you building somethingthat people want?
You know, I mean, if you have,uh, you know, ketchup popsicles,
you know, it's the old phraseyou know you can sell a lady and
ketchup, white gloves, ketchuppopsicle well great.
Do people really want ketchuppopsicles?
Right?
(19:38):
The answer is no, so that's notgoing to go anywhere, you know.
Does your market, uh, need yourproduct or service?
Yes, move on to the next step.
The answer is no, so that's notgoing to go anywhere.
Does your market need yourproduct or service?
Yes, move on to the next step.
If the answer is no, it's timeto adjust your product or
service.
For right now, I think 100% themarket needs what you're going
to give them.
They do.
Kids need it, kids needguidance, they're looking for it
, and sometimes parents don'thave all the answers.
Number two is your go-to-marketstrategy.
(20:00):
How do you present your productto the market?
Does the market respond to yourproduct?
If the answer is yes, you keepgoing.
If the answer is no, it's timeto adjust.
So the go-to-market strategygoes along with the vision.
As far as how do you want tobring this out and there's a lot
of different ways and I'm surethat Paul will talk about we can
(20:22):
talk about that but you'regoing to market strategy.
Once you've already figured outphase one, which is, what does
the brand represent, where am Igoing and how do I see it
getting there?
Think of this right now is,you're starting to build a
sculpture and right now there'sjust a mound of mud, there's a
mound of clay, and so whatyou're doing is like, all right,
(20:44):
what am I going to build?
Am I going to build a pot?
Am I going to build a statue?
Am I going to build a vase orvase?
What am I going to build?
That's the first thing.
And then you start okay, whatdo I need to do?
How much time do I need toallocate?
How much materials do I need?
What is this really going totake?
And you start mapping it outand, for the sake of time, right
now, let's go through the lasttwo and then we can push pause
(21:07):
until next time.
Messaging and branding you know,does your messaging match the
branding?
Yes, keep going, bring in theright people.
And then, at some point, you'llhave to build a team.
You'll need a confidant.
That could be your wife, thatcould be somebody else that
could be a business partner.
That could be your wife, thatcould be somebody else that
could be a business partner,that could be somebody at the
church.
You need somebody to kind ofbounce, bounce ideas off of, but
also somebody that might beable to help deliver the product
(21:29):
to the market.
If you don't have that, youkeep looking for that person.
But that's basically in anutshell.
Um, it's simple.
It doesn't necessarily meanit's easy, but, um, I hope this
has been it's been helpful.
Mean it's easy but hope thishas been it's been helpful.
Any questions before we?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
we kind of we kind of wrap up this session.
No, that's super good.
Yeah, I'm going to startthinking about that.
I'm going to start also justkind of structuring the book a
little bit and see kind of whatare the key points?
Cause I think that we can kindof mirror that into also like
what, how, who and how.
I want to do this Because Ithink you're right Late teens,
early young adults Ideally it'sjust something I can just pass
(22:07):
out to.
That's where I'm like like NineMarks I don't know if you know
what Nine Marks is.
They have a great discipleshipstudy and it's like two bucks
and like they send it out likeeverywhere.
So I'm trying to decide if Iwant it to be something kind of
really short and easy.
It's just like like somethingthat I kind of just push out you
know what I mean and then writemy longer book later I'll let
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So I'm going to be brainstorming on that and then
we can when we get together.
One thing I'll tell you issometimes you want you can do
something for free like a leadmagnet just to kind of get
somebody into your universe.
The lead magnet is very short.
What it sounds like you'retrying to do is something a
little larger.
I mean you can do a very cheapbook.
I would recommend not giving itout for free.
(22:48):
The reason why I have so manybooks on my shelf right now that
were free, that people gave meand they didn't immediately kind
of fit a need that I need, thatI wanted.
So they're just collecting dust.
But almost every book that I'veever spent a dollar because I
had to work to earn that I haveread, I've cracked it, I've read
it.
So those are just kind ofthings to think about and then
(23:15):
we can discuss at a future timethat sound good.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Sounds good, thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
All right.
So you just heard the livecoaching conversation that I had
with Michael and talking aboutbrands and kind of flushing out
the brand idea.
So let me know if you likehaving these as part of the
podcast.
I see a lot of other podcastersor people in the sales coaching
world or the business worldhave the live calls as opposed
to having a podcast style,whereas I have lots of these
(23:55):
coaching calls that I havevideos that I could just upload
just to give you all betterexamples of what people are
really going through the thoughtprocess that might be able to
help you out there.
Because, regardless, if you everreach out to me, the reason why
I do this podcast is to teachand teach the things that I have
learned, teach the experiences,the failures that I've had in
the business and sales world sothat hopefully, you don't have
(24:17):
to go through that, you don'thave to experience the same type
of pain that I did along mycareer trying to figure it out
on my own.
And if it makes sense and youwant to reach out to me, you can
do so.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn,you can DM me or you can email
me, mike, at surviving outsidesales.
Whichever you want to do.
So thank you so much forlistening.
Hope you have a great day.
We'll see you next time onsurviving outside sales Cheers.
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