May 13, 2025 • 44 mins
Branding in the building materials industry is the foundation of trust, growth, and legacy, not just logos and colors. Strong brands differentiate products in crowded markets, helping companies avoid competing solely on price while creating emotional connections that drive purchasing decisions.
• Psychology of branding explains how emotions drive 95% of purchasing decisions, even in B2B transactions
• Strong brands like Trex, James Hardie, and Kohler have invested decades building authority that contractors remain loyal to
• Branding takes time and consistent investment – it's a decades-long game, not a quick-win strategy
• Small companies with clear branding can effectively compete against larger players by highlighting nimbleness and personalized service
• Employer branding is crucial for attracting talent with 25% of the industry retiring in the next decade
• Companies with CEOs who have personal brands see 11% more profitability and attract better talent
• Consistency in messaging, visuals, and customer experience must align with what your brand claims to be about
• Successful branding involves sharing stories rather than simply claiming product superiority
If you want your company to stand out today and thrive tomorrow, branding is not optional – it's absolutely essential. For more tools, training and industry content, make sure to subscribe here and follow me on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. To find out more about how Grit Blueprint can help you grow your business, check us out at our website, gritblueprint.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stefanie Couch (00:00):
If you want your company to stand out today
and thrive tomorrow.
Branding is not optional.
It's absolutely essential, butbranding is really about trust
and differentiating yourself inan often very crowded market.
Branding communicates valuebehind your projects and your
products and your services.
That's what branding does sowell, and you also want your CEO
(00:21):
or your executive staff tobuild their personal brand,
because executives that have apersonal brand have over 11%
more profitability in theircompany and they also attract
more top talent.
The four key things that I wantyou to know is Welcome to the
Grit Blueprint Podcast, the showfor bold builders, brand
(00:44):
leaders and legacy makers in theconstruction and building
industry.
I'm your host, stephanie Couch,and I've been in this industry
my entire life.
Whether we're breaking downwhat's working in sales and
marketing, new advances in AIand automation, or interviewing
top industry leaders, you'regoing to get real-world
(01:06):
strategies to grow your business, build your brand and lead your
team.
Let's get to work.
Welcome to the Grit BlueprintPodcast.
I'm your host, Stefanie Couch,and today we're talking about
one of the most misunderstoodaspects of business.
It's branding.
This isn't about logos andtaglines only.
(01:27):
It's not just about the colorsthat you choose, even though
those things are important.
Branding is really thefoundation of trust, growth and
legacy in any business.
I personally believe that it'sthe most important thing in
building a business that canstand the test of generational
challenges and all of the thingsthat go through a business's
(01:49):
life cycle if you're going to bearound for a long time.
When it comes to the buildingmaterials industry, a strong
brand is no longer optional.
It's actually essential, andthat's being proven more every
single day.
I actually grew up in thebuilding industry and have been
in a small family lumberyard andalso worked for a large Fortune
500 company for 10 yearshelping them grow a new division
(02:13):
of their business the door andmillwork segment and I found out
really quickly how much brandreally mattered when we started
getting into something that wewere not known for.
You see, our brand thatcorporate business was known for
things like engineered wood andcommodity lumber and all of
those other things that they hadsold for years.
But when we told people, hey,we sell doors, they were like
(02:35):
really, I thought you guys justsold lumber and it was a brand
shift that we had to do.
And still they are working onthat to try to get that brand
out there and that is notsomething that a lot of
companies focus on, and I wantto talk a little bit more about
that today.
Branding is really critical inbuilding materials.
It's an industry where trust,reliability, service and being
(02:56):
different than your competitorsthey're the backbone of
long-term success.
If you're working withcontractors maybe designers,
architects or maybe you'reworking with distributors maybe
you're actually working withmanufacturers your brand is what
actually drives long term highvalue relationships, the type of
(03:17):
business that all of us wouldlove and would fight to have for
a long time.
Those are the customers thatyou want to keep and they're the
ones that you want tounderstand what your brand's
about.
So today, in this episode,we're really going to hit four
main topics.
We're going to talk about whatis branding, defining it and
explaining why it actuallymatters to you in your business.
(03:39):
Secondly, we're going toexplore how branding applies
specifically to B2B sales inbuilding materials.
I get asked this a lot.
Well, hey, branding is reallyonly important to consumer
brands.
We don't sell to consumers.
Well, that's where you're wrong, because branding really
matters in B2B.
Third, we're going to talkabout common objections and
(04:00):
misconceptions that I hear allthe time about branding.
You've probably thought orheard some of these things as
well if you've been in theindustry a while.
And then, last but not least,we're going to show how branding
really impacts everything fromattracting top talent in your
market which is a huge problemin our industry and will become
even more of a problem in thefuture to becoming that trusted
(04:23):
legacy business in the marketthat you want to build.
That will stand the test oftime for generations to come, if
you and your family choose tokeep the business, or it will be
a highly profitable, sellableasset for you and your family at
some point when you decide tosell.
There is so much consolidationin this industry so it's
important either way, no matterwhat side of the coin you fall
(04:45):
on.
First I'm going to break downbrand that word.
It's a big picture word.
It means a lot of things to alot of people.
Brand is not just your website,it's not just the color of your
trucks.
It's the perception of yourbusiness.
It's an emotional and practicalassociation that people have
(05:06):
with your company.
Think of it as a bridge betweenwho you are now and how your
customers actually feel aboutyou, and that bridge sometimes
is a lot shorter than we believe.
That it is because the thingsthat we do in that association
emotionally, even in B2Bbusiness, actually matters.
Our relationships matter.
(05:27):
We all know this is arelationship business.
I hear that all the time, butthat doesn't mean that branding
doesn't actually come into playhere.
So let's talk a little bitabout psychology Spoiler.
For you guys that don't know, Iactually majored in psychology
and social science in collegewhile I was working at my dad's
lumberyard full time, and I lovethis stuff.
(05:49):
So I'm going to nerd out on youjust a little bit, but follow
along with me because this isimportant.
Brands exist in the mind of ourconsumers.
So no matter who you're sellingwhether it's B2B or B2C or
maybe B2B2C, like most of us arethese brands actually evoke
trust.
They have a feeling of buildingconfidence in what you're
(06:09):
getting and sometimes theyreally can even evoke excitement
, which is really cool.
Harvard Business Reviewstatistics show that emotions
actually drive 95% of ourpurchasing decisions.
And before you say, oh yeah,but that's not in B2B, that
actually is even true in B2B.
That actually is even true inB2B sales and there are a lot of
examples of how this works.
(06:31):
But if you really think aboutthe decisions that we make, most
of them are actuallysubconscious.
Our brains do not have enoughtime to make every single little
decision that we make be a topof mind thing where we can think
through it and we really thinkabout what we're doing.
A lot of our decision making isactually autonomous, almost
like breathing.
(06:51):
We don't even realize that weare going towards something
because of the way it looks orthe way we feel about it.
I want you to think for a minuteabout something from your
childhood.
So I'll give you a good GeorgiaSouthern girl example.
Here I grew up eating boiledpeanuts and for those of you who
can't understand my Southerndialect, that is B-O-I-L-E-D
(07:16):
peanuts.
They're boiled in a pot ofwater with salt.
That's it.
It's peanuts.
They're green peanuts, by theway, and it's water and it's
salt.
Super simple.
And I grew up coming up toNortheast Georgia, where I live
now.
Before I moved here, mygranddad had a cabin.
We would come up and everysingle time we would stop at
Fred's Boiled Peanut Stand, andthat place was my childhood in a
(07:42):
little shack.
Basically, I loved going there.
It evokes memories of joy, offamily, of all these things that
I care about, and when I eatpeanuts now, which are one of my
favorite treats.
I think I would rather have itthan a five Michelin star
restaurant and I absolutely lovethem and I think a lot of that
is because of the emotion that'stied to me eating those with my
(08:04):
family when I was growing up,all those things.
I know you have a story.
A lot of that is because of theemotion that's tied to me
eating those with my family whenI was growing up, all those
things.
I know you have a story, a lotof stories that make you feel
that same exact way where youthink of something, a brand or a
product, and you feel somethinginside.
Maybe you can feel excitement,maybe you get mad.
Think about a brand that maybereally ticked you off.
(08:24):
The customer service wasterrible.
A restaurant you ate at thatyou got sick at.
Oh man, like nothing stings,like a stomach bug or food
poisoning after you eatsomewhere and it is really hard
to mentally want to go back tothat place.
So I want to talk a little bitabout that in the context of
someone who has actually done abrand.
(08:46):
Revitalization has changed theminds of someone.
In branding it is a consumerbrand, but I'm going to use this
as an example because I thinkeveryone will know what I'm
talking about.
New Balance is a shoe company.
You probably might have thoughtright when I said that of the
chunky white sneakers that olderwhite men like to wear.
(09:07):
This is something that NewBalance was struggling with for
around 15 years.
Their sales had been declining,stagnant or declining for over
15 years.
So the CEO finally said, hey,we got to do something.
He hires a new CMO and that newCMO says look, I really want to
shake things up here, I reallywant to go for the gold.
(09:27):
Can I do something wild andcrazy?
And so he started to rebrandand he put 70% of his marketing
spend into rebranding, which youmay think sounds insane.
That's a lot of money and thesecompanies obviously their
marketing budgets are a lotdifferent than the building
industries.
They are very substantial.
So to flip that from 80-20 inthe way of branding only getting
(09:50):
20% to 70% branding, that is atough sell.
And the first 14 monthsactually, sales continued to
decline and I'm sure there arelots of naysayers that said,
like this guy doesn't know whathe's doing and now we're wasting
all this money.
But after month 19 it actuallyexponentially went the other way
and started to hockey stickgrow in the favor of branding
(10:14):
the way that he was trying tobrand.
And now Gen Zers everywhere lovethese clunky, big white shoes
and they wear them with big,chunky socks that you've
probably seen and I think it'satrocious, but they love them.
They have experiencedrecord-breaking growth.
They went all in on brand andyou need to get this right for
this to work.
(10:34):
But the point of the story isthat it did work.
It took money and it took time.
So the biggest takeaway fromthis is that branding really is
about creating trust,reliability.
It differentiates you in acrowded market, it makes you
stand out and people associateemotionally with your brand if
(10:55):
you do it well.
But it will take time and itwill take effort and it will
take money.
So if you're not willing toinvest some time probably a good
bit of it, which we're going totalk about and some money, then
you are probably not ever goingto win at the branding game,
and that's okay.
There's no guarantee thatyou'll be able to build a legacy
business.
Most businesses that stand thetest of time have very strong
(11:17):
brands in any industry, butyou've got to decide how much
you're willing to go all in onthis branding thing.
This could be the year that youdecide to really go all in All
right.
Topic number two why doesbranding matter for building
industries?
Well, our lumber industry and alot of our other products are
seen as a commodity, and onething that we never want to do
(11:39):
is compete on price.
Yet here, most of us are inthis industry, competing on that
very thing.
If you don't want to be theperson who sells lumber,
insulation, drywall, some ofthese other products that really
are commodity driven, they'reseen as interchangeable.
The brand does not matter.
If you don't want to be thatperson, you need to focus on
(12:00):
building your brand, becausebranding really elevates your
product from just another thingthat's on the shelf or in the
store or on the yard to being apreferred choice, something that
contractors, architects,builders they ask for by name.
This is where you really startto see a company grow
exponentially and, moreimportantly, stand the test of
(12:22):
time, because eventually therewill be someone that figures out
how to sell it cheaper, orsomeone who comes out with a
brand that is more recognizable,and then you become the person
who can now only compete onprice, and that is really
something that you don't want todo.
The real world impact of this isthat if you brand yourself well
, you're communicating out toyour customers what makes your
(12:46):
product or your service unique.
It may be that it's superior inquality.
It may be that you deliverfaster, you have exceptional
service.
You have all of these thingsthat contractors, architects,
distributors all these peopleyou sell love.
It will build a stickiness inyour marketing, in your branding
, in your customer base, and noone doesn't want a sticky
(13:08):
product or service.
They want that thing to besomething that is like a fly
trap.
People keep coming back.
They can't get away from it.
They love it so much but it'ssticky because they are choosing
that.
It's not by force, it's notsomething that you have to have,
but it's something that they'rechoosing.
That is the best type of brandthat there can ever be Building
(13:29):
trust and loyalty with people,contractors and distributors.
They stick with brands thatthey know and trust.
How many of you know acontractor and he or she
absolutely will not change fromthe brand that they love.
We like to call this in thebusiness being able to veto and
make homeowners or people whoare building and using these
(13:51):
products.
They make them a choice to vetothe thing that that homeowner
has seen or thinks, or maybeeven the dealer or distributor
is trying to push on them.
They will say, for instance,I'm sorry, I don't want that
other brand, I want Trex.
Or I'm sorry, I don't want thatother brand, I want James Hardy
(14:12):
.
I use these two brands becauseZonda recently did a study and
Zonda's results showed thatthere are a few brands that have
worked for years, decades, tobuild the brand authority that
they now have.
Trex and James Hardy are two ofthose.
Kohler is another one.
Those brands now are so farahead of other brands in the
(14:34):
market that they almost don'tseem to be able to be caught,
according to this research fromZonda.
And contractors have a very bigloyalty to these brands.
In fact, when a homeowner comesto them and says, hey, I saw
this commercial or I saw thisthing, I saw this website when I
was doing some research on thisproduct, this decking or the
(14:55):
siding, those contractors are soloyal to those brands that the
homeowners are probably askingfor them and then the contractor
is vetoing any other ask to getback to that brand they're
loyal to.
Now, this is obviously not anendorsement for Trex, kohler or
James Hardy.
I love other products in thosecategories as well.
(15:15):
I'm just telling you what thedata says.
On Zonda's data, these brandsare standing apart and if you go
and do a deep dive into whythey're standing apart, it is
because they have spent yearsand millions of dollars getting
to that branding.
So now you're telling me well,steph, I'm hearing you, but I
don't have millions of dollarsto spend.
Well, that's okay, you need tospend something, you need to
(15:38):
focus on this somehow, and youcan use some guerrilla marketing
tactics, some guerrillabranding tactics, to build a
brand.
I'll give you an example ofsomeone.
I recently heard a podcastabout this.
There's a brand called GymLaunch, and Gym Launch did a lot
of in-person networking attrade shows and they found that
even though their ROI on thosetrade shows of actually going
(16:00):
in-person probably wasn't asgreat as could have been done
online with sales, this is aconsumer product that focuses on
fitness wear for people thatare fitness enthusiasts, but
even though they didn't actuallyget an ROI on that exact moment
, the later data showed that thecities that they had gone to in
person had exponentially moresales than the cities they had
(16:23):
not been to long term.
So think about where you'regoing and what you're spending
your time on and then whenyou're showing up at these trade
shows.
I know a lot of people spend aton of money on things like IBS
and NALA.
I just spoke at NALA and didthe keynote there.
World Millwork Alliance did thekeynote there, saw all these
amazing booths and differentthings.
And IBS is even bigger.
They do crazy stuff on theirbooths there.
(16:44):
I think Kohler spends $10million on their booth every
year.
But if you're thinking aboutyour ROI on that, think about it
long-term.
It's not just about that day,that weekend, that moment that
someone's in your booth.
It's about the long-term valuethat people associate with your
brand.
I want to tell you a childhoodstory.
I grew up in a lumberyard youalready know that and I remember
(17:06):
that Pink Panther was one of myfavorite things because it was
pink and, as you can see fromwhat you're seeing here with
pink hat, pink nails, pinkeverything I think the inside of
my soul is pink and I've alwaysloved it.
So the fact that Pink Pantherwas a known icon that had
actually been a long-termcartoon that a lot of people
(17:27):
born in you know.
Times before in the boomer age,they actually knew what Pink
Panther was.
So, owens Corning, theyactually decided that they were
going to make their insulationpink.
They were going to makeeverything pink logo all of it
on the insulation, and they weregoing to use the Pink Panther
to brand that as a campaign.
This worked very well becausepeople that didn't really care
(17:50):
or know anything aboutinsulation like Stephanie that
was a seven-year-old girl whenthat OC salesperson came in and
brought me my first little plush, pink Panther which I still
have to this day, by the way.
It's been a long time.
I won't date myself, but I havethat Pink Panther in a keepsake
box because it was cool andit's still cool, and that's been
(18:11):
years.
So insulation became somethingthat now was branded and it
associated something that youalready liked.
So if you knew okay, you knoweven the song that the Pink
Panther walks out to right.
So you connected that productwith innovation, dependability,
(18:33):
all the things that OwensCorning is known for.
And then you've also connectedit to something you know and
love the Pink Panther.
It's genius, it's like theChick-fil-A cows.
It works and they're stillusing that today.
So that's just a little examplefrom my childhood that I love
and you probably love too.
Maybe I don't know.
Maybe you sell insulationagainst this brand and you don't
(18:55):
love that story, but I bet youremember that that's who you're
competing against.
I want to go back to psychologyfor just a moment, an emotional
connection, because I think thisis so important.
I want you to think aboutrepeated exposure and you need
to see things over and over.
One time is usually not enoughfor people to associate things
in your brain.
(19:15):
Branding really is about theassociation of two things.
You have one thing and then youhave another thing and somehow
you connect those dots in thebrain of your consumer and by
doing that over and over you'recreating a familiarity.
You're building trust throughthose links that you are
continuing to go and use.
(19:37):
And if a contractor has seen thebrand of house wrap or maybe
it's the treated lumber you useMaybe they always see the yellow
wood commercials.
Jimmy Raines with GreatSouthern Wood is a genius at
this.
He's probably one of the firstpersonal brands that I've ever
known in the industry ofbuilding industry products that
(20:00):
have come in and say, hey, I'mgoing to brand myself and I'm
going to be the face of thebrand and then I'm going to use
that to leverage.
And he made everything yellow,obnoxious yellow.
And now when I see a truck oftreated lumber go down the
street or go down the road.
I know if that little tag onthe end is yellow, it's great
Southern wood and it's yellowwood.
They have branded pressuretreated commodity lumber.
(20:21):
That is quite a feat if youknow anything about our industry
.
So you really are creatingcognitive shortcuts.
You are creating a bridge rightfrom one thing to the other,
and a strong brand helps ussimplify decision making.
It reduces the amount of mentaleffort that we need to be able
to make that decision, to createand evaluate something that
(20:43):
gets us to an end decision point.
The more you can make thosebridges, those shortcuts, the
better off you're going to be.
I want to challenge you tothink about what that means for
your brand.
What does that mean in yourcompany?
What does that mean for you asa person If you have a personal
brand and people automaticallythink of something when they see
(21:03):
you, talk to you, hear yourname?
Because they definitely do ifthey know who you are at all.
Maybe they don't, and if theydon't know who you are, that
could be just as much of aproblem, because anonymity and
not being actually known at allcould be the worst possible
sentence for a brand or aproduct or a building company.
Number three how long is thisgoing to take?
(21:25):
Branding is a long-terminvestment.
If you are looking for a quickhit, an ROI, to drive revenue
tomorrow, it's probably notbranding.
There are a lot of otherrevenue generation tools in the
marketing toolbox, in the salestoolbox, that can help you get
to the hey, we need to make fivemore sales tomorrow.
We need to do this today, butmuch like buying a new piece of
(21:49):
equipment, the return oninvestment is seen over a long
period of time.
That's why when we buy newequipment, like a truck or a
door machine or any of thesethings, we actually have years
that we put them in the P&L overall this time.
We don't make that hit all atonce.
And branding is the same.
It is a decades game.
It is not a quick win.
(22:10):
It's really a commitment toyour future and your legacy as a
company.
It's a foundational effort thatis really building blocks for
your future.
And if you're not planning onbeing in business for five to 10
years, or even you know a shortterm, if you're doing something
in the short term, you're notgoing to reap the full rewards
of this.
So if you are three weeks outfrom retirement, you can just
(22:34):
stop this podcast now if you'renot interested any longer,
because this is not somethingthat you need to do for the next
three weeks.
This is a decades game.
This is a decade's game, but ifyou want to build a legacy
business, if you want yourbusiness to stand the test of
time, for your grandkids to betelling the story of how they're
running the same lumberyard orbuilding materials company that
their grandpa ran or theirgrandmother owned, like my
(22:57):
grandfather, then you need to dobranding efforts now.
Remember that this is also acompounding effort.
Warren Buffett says thatleverage and compounding
interests are the two thingsthat are the most valuable
things in business, and I tendto think that old Warren, uncle
Warren, is pretty smart.
Each touch point that we buildon brand it is built upon with
(23:19):
the next stepping stone to makepeople remember, trust and,
hopefully, love us and ourproducts.
Over time, we become a defaultchoice.
When I go to the ketchup aisle,I don't think about what I'm
going to buy, other than if theyhave a sale on Heinz ketchup
and I don't want to start itright here if you're a Heinz
(23:40):
person, but I'm sorry if you are, because it's a bad choice, but
I'm a Heinz girl.
My dad's a Heinz person, mygrandfather was a Heinz person,
my mom likes Heinz, everybody inour family.
It's a Heinz deal, right.
And so when I go to the aislefor ketchup, I default to my
hand going straight to the Heinz, and I'm just trying to figure
out which size I'm going to buy.
(24:00):
Do I want to buy the bigger one?
Is the smaller one?
Buy one, get one free at Publix.
That's how I make my decision.
It is a default choice for me.
So how do you make people becomea default to you, to you as a
product or service?
It is very possible, and thereare a lot of people that already
have this type of loyalty.
So you may be saying to me okay, steph, I hear you, you know, I
(24:25):
hear all the things you'resaying, but we have a huge
business and we're not hurting.
In fact, for the last fouryears we haven't really even
been able to take all the ordersthat people have wanted to give
us, and we all know what wasduring.
The pandemic was the craziesttime I've ever seen in my life,
and I've been around for over 30years in this business, but
that was an anomaly.
(24:45):
That was a blip on a smallradar of the legacy business
building efforts that you haveto make to really make things
good for a long time.
If you wanna win forever inthis game, you wanna be around
100 years from now.
You're gonna need to do thisbecause you will not always be
catching fish in a bucket.
That's what we were doing thelast few years.
(25:07):
Everybody knows it andeverybody understands it.
It's already gotten way tougher.
You've already had to startfighting and competing for
business again.
So really just think of it as afoundational need.
It's consistent, it's strategicand you're showing up building
that brand every single day tocontinue to grow where you can
stand the test of time.
Next I'm going to cover.
(25:28):
One of my favorite parts ofthis is the objections.
So I'm a salesperson by tradeand I have been handling
objections my whole life and nowthat I'm in the branding
business and the growth andstrategy world of building
materials, I'm handling somedifferent objections, right,
sometimes it's the same ones,like hey, that's too much money,
or hey, that takes too long.
That's the same type of thing,but I'm going to go into each
(25:50):
one.
So the number one brandingobjection that I hear of why I
wouldn't spend the time and themoney on branding is because,
steph, it doesn't deliverresults immediately.
I want to see my results.
Marketing is mystical andmagical and I don't even really
believe in it, but I certainlydon't want to do it if it's
going to take 10 years.
You're saying it's a decadesgame.
(26:11):
Well, here's the thing it's notabout instant results.
And if you think that it is, Iwould ask you to go do the
research on companies who crushit in the branding space,
whether they're in buildingmaterials or not, and see how
long they've been investingtheir time, their effort and
their money into brandingcampaigns and working on this
strategy work.
(26:31):
I guarantee you most companieshave done it for a long time if
they have built a brand that isreally known in the industry and
becomes a default choice.
Companies with really strongbrands, after they get to that
point, end up spending less time, less money and less effort on
customer acquisition andretention of clients.
So, yes, you're paying now, yes, it's going to take some time
(26:56):
and you will reap the harvestlater and in exponential ways
that cannot be purchased.
If you think about ad spend andall these other things that we
can do to lever?
We can hire more salespeople,we can do all those things.
That is all kind of aone-to-one ratio.
It can be a lever of sorts, butbranding well, it can be an
(27:16):
exponential leverage point andif you do it well and you do it
for long enough, it will becomethat and you can become a leader
in the industry that almostcannot be caught, like some of
those brands I mentioned earlier.
Objection number two we're asmall company and we don't have
time, money, to spend on this.
Branding is really just for thebig boys I've heard this a lot
(27:37):
Small companies that have clear,consistent branding, they can
often really effectively competeagainst the larger players in
the market.
As we know, this business is arelationship business and a lot
of people do not want to buyfrom the big boys or girls, as
we say.
And you can really level upyour playing field with branding
(27:57):
because people know who you areand then they see that you do
have a competitive advantage asa small person in the market
because you're quicker, you'remore nimble, you care more about
every single order, you canreally hone in on problems
because they're not so big thatyou can go straight to the
source and figure out why andhow to fix that thing.
That is why a competitiveadvantage is often in the small
(28:20):
company's favor.
It does work the same way withbranding, but you still got to
do something right, all right.
Objection number three here wego.
Our products speak forthemselves, steph.
I mean, we got a qualityproduct and you know it's
quality.
It's amazing.
It's the best product on themarket.
Well, number one thing I wouldsay to that is is that actually
(28:40):
true?
Because now, with technologyand all the things that we've
had advanced in our market,there are a lot of really great
products out there and some ofthese patents that really people
had that stood out where theyreally truly did have a
competitive advantage on thequality side.
A lot of those have run out.
I can think of a few right nowthat the patents run out and now
that person pretty much has theexact same recipe that you have
(29:04):
.
They have the same ingredients,the same recipe and they're
trying to do the same thing thatyou're doing.
It's just the colors on yourlogo are different and it's
coming from a different person.
So maybe that's true, maybe youtruly have a quality advantage.
But here's what I will ask you,if no one ever knows, does it
even matter?
Is that something that peopleare going to care about?
(29:24):
If they don't know who you arebecause your brand is not strong
, and oftentimes, if you thinkabout it, you may buy something
and you spend more money on it.
Let's talk about clothing.
You buy that shirt that has acertain logo on the chest.
It's a black tee that you couldbuy at Walmart for five dollars
, maybe ten dollars for a packof three, and you go spend 40 or
50 dollars on that T-shirt.
(29:44):
Maybe it's for your kid thatjust has to have that brand that
all their friends have.
Is that t-shirt really actuallya better t-shirt?
The truth is that sometimesthose t-shirts are white labeled
, so it might really be Hanesfrom Walmart and it's really
just that company has bought thesame shirt from the same
manufacturer and put a logo onit.
Branding communicates valuebehind your projects and your
(30:05):
products and your services.
That's what branding does sowell.
So to those people who say theproducts speak for themselves, I
surely hope they do.
But if your brand is strong,then it will allow the product
to speak for themselves, becausepeople will know about you and
will buy the product and thenthey can tell all their friends
and every single person theyknow that it's amazing and they
(30:26):
should buy it and it will reallybecome that exponential
leverage.
Last objection, number four ourcustomers only care about price.
Doesn't matter what we do.
Branding won't influence them.
And listen, I get it.
Price matters on commoditydriven items, like lumber where
it's trading in the markets.
Changing price definitelymatters, like lumber, where it's
(30:46):
trading, and the market'schanging price definitely
matters.
But customers will pay more fortrusted brands because it
reduces their risk and itensures their reliability.
How many times have you had acustomer that comes into your
lumberyard or goes and callsyour distributor partner and
just orders what they need?
They don't even price check you.
Well, I know that game becauseI used to have that happen all
the time at my dad's lumberyardwhen I was a little girl.
(31:09):
We had certain clients,especially builders, that did
cost plus.
They didn't want to get rippedoff.
They wanted to have a fairprice.
But as long as they knew thatyou were pricing them fair, it
didn't matter if you were alittle higher, because if they
loved your service and what youwere doing for them and your
brand was strong enough, theywere going to pay for it, and
that happens a lot with luxurybrands.
There are a lot of people whowill pay for a luxury brand and
(31:32):
they don't care what it costs.
Now, most people are somewherein the middle of that, but
almost everyone has favorites.
You want to be the favoritebrand, so how do you get to that
point?
You got to reduce the risk andensure that you are a reliable
partner for them and become thedefault choice.
All right, moving on to employerbranding, we talked so much
(31:54):
about customers and all thatoutward facing thing, but one of
the biggest problems in ourindustry right now it is a
gaping red sea parting, ahorrible thing that everyone
wants to solve.
We don't have enough people todo the jobs in this industry
that need to be done.
We don't know where we're goingto find them.
We don't know how we're goingto train them.
(32:14):
We have a huge shortage alreadyand over 25% of our industry is
standing to retire in the nextfive to 10 years.
The average person in theconstruction industry working is
42 years old.
Now, for some of you you'relike, well, that's really not
that old, that's average, but alot of these people are actually
way older than that that arerunning these businesses.
(32:36):
So we got to attract and keepand develop top talent.
So how do you do that?
Well, you do that by buildingan employer brand.
So how do you do that?
Well, you do that by buildingan employer brand.
You magnetize and attract thepeople that you want to work
here.
Then, once you get theminterested, you got to actually
keep them there with things liketraining and environment and
(32:58):
culture and all those amazingthings.
And it's not just about freepizza on Fridays and working
from home all the time.
There are other things thatpeople care about but a strong
employer brand is a way toreally help this critical need
in our building industry, wherewe have to have skilled workers
and we need them to be the nextgeneration.
Employers are actually amazingbrand ambassadors.
(33:20):
If you don't know what thatword means, a brand ambassador
is really just someone that youuse.
That is an outward facing signof what your company is and what
they represent.
You may know about celebritybrand ambassadorship.
So you've seen Joanna Gaineshas partnered with some of these
companies.
There's another designer namedShay McGee.
She partnered with Kohler.
(33:40):
You have seen people that areinfluencers, that are famous,
partner with big companies onthe non-building material side.
For instance, you see that theRock now has a tequila brand.
You see people like theKardashians partnering in
Instagram, posting about certainproducts that they love.
That is the same thing as abrand ambassador, but you're
(34:01):
doing that internally, for yourcompany, and one great way to do
that is actually helping youremployees build personal brands.
What is a personal brand?
It's very similar to a companybrand, which is what I've been
talking about, and it is whereyou're actually digitizing your
personal brand.
You are showing up online andcurating who you want to be seen
(34:21):
as and what you want to beknown for, and this can be done
with your employees.
It's actually relatively easy.
You just let them share theirstory, and as they share their
story and they talk to peopleabout what they're doing, it
naturally makes your companylook good, because if this
amazing person that people loveis on your team, there must be
something good in that company.
(34:43):
What are employees looking fortoday?
They want a mission to believein.
They want a purpose.
I hear that a lot with youngtalent.
We want a purpose, we want tobe able to grow and we want to
professionally develop.
Often, gen Z says that that'smore important to them than
salary up front in an early rolein their career, because they
know that what they can actuallylearn now, they will be able to
(35:03):
grow on back to thatfoundational level and then they
can grow exponentially again tobecome the person that they can
reach their potential, where,if they just get a great salary
right now and they're not beingdeveloped, they may stay
stagnant and never be able toactually grow from there.
So a company that reallyinvests in training programs,
they're not only building theirinternal expertise, but they're
(35:26):
enhancing their reputation inthe market.
One objection that I often hearwhen I'm talking about employer
branding and helping youremployees build personal brands
and even just really signing offon that, because a lot of
people get so nervous about itis what happens if all of my
good people leave because theystart showing up online and
they're posting and then thingshappen.
Well, the number one answerthat I have to that is if you
(35:49):
are a great company and you'redoing amazing things with your
employees, they're not going towant to leave.
And Richard Branson has a quoteabout that Be the company that
grows your people so much thateveryone wants them, but no one
wants to leave because it's sogreat.
That's a paraphrase of Richard.
It's not exactly how he said it, but it gets the point across
that you gotta be the one thateveryone wants to go work for
(36:12):
and you also want your CEO oryour executive staff to build
their personal brand, becauseexecutives that have a personal
brand, especially at the CEOlevel, have over 11% more
profitability in their companyand they also attract more top
talent.
They have a lot more visibilityand people are going to Google.
They're going to Google you,they're going to Google your
(36:32):
executive staff.
They're going to go on yourwebsite.
We haven't even really talkedabout websites, but it's a huge
thing when you land on someone'swebsite, when you Google them,
what do those people see?
What do you see when you lookat some of these websites in the
industry?
I do a lot of industry websitesas part of what my company does
is helping by branding andhelping you grow through
actually having a strong websitepresence, and it is really sad
(36:57):
when I Google some of thesecompanies that I know and love
and see what they're allowing torepresent themselves.
Your talent is also looking atthat.
If your website is the samewebsite from 2014 or, even worse
, 1999, you need to update it,unless you're Warren Buffett,
and then you can leave yourBerkshire Hathaway website the
(37:17):
same exact thing that when theinternet was made and if you
don't believe me, go look atberkshirehathawaycom and you'll
understand exactly what I mean.
It will give you a good laugh.
The main point of this is sharebehind the scenes culture and
content to showcase what youhave going on as a company, and
if you don't want to sharesomething about your company,
then you may want to do somemore work which is not my area
of expertise on how to reallymake that culture something that
(37:40):
people want to be a part of.
All right, wrapping this badboy up.
Today we have talked about lotsof things in branding.
I hope you've taken away somethings that have helped you.
Maybe you've spurred somethoughts in your mind.
I want you to think about yourdefault brands.
What do you buy withoutthinking about?
I bet you it's a lot morethings than you think of.
When you really start to writedown a list, what are the brands
(38:02):
that you would probably neverchange from?
Maybe it's at the grocery store, at the clothing store.
Maybe it's your online, yournews that you watch.
Maybe it's your favorite socialmedia platform.
Maybe it's the brand ofbuilding materials that you like
to buy from your manufacturerthat you are so really in love
with.
Maybe you love your rep, maybeyou love the product, maybe you
(38:22):
love the pricing.
Whatever it is, think aboutwhat it is and why.
The four key things that I wantyou to know is I want you to
commit to the long game ofbranding.
If you're in this, if you heardthis and you're like Steph, I'm
in it with you.
I know and understand this istruly a valuable thing.
I want to be here in 10 to 15years.
I want to be here in 100 years,or somebody to be here in 100
(38:43):
years in this legacy business.
Then start with your brandingefforts today, but start small.
You may have limited resources.
You may want to just start withsomething really little, but
you can really build a coolbrand with consistent steps and
they do add up.
It is compounding interest.
So start small, but don't delayany further.
You've already waited, probablytoo late.
(39:05):
There's nothing we can do aboutthat.
They say the best time to plantthat tree is 20 years ago, but
we didn't do that, so we'regoing to plant it right now,
today.
The second tip I have for you isfocus on consistency.
You got to make sure that yourbranding, messaging, your
visuals, the way you actuallylook physically, online or in
person at that show, and yourcustomer experience this is a
(39:28):
big one.
They have to actually alignwith what you say your brand is
about, because if you say, hey,this is what my brand is, this
is how it's supposed to look,and then no one else follows
that and there's mixed messaging, it actually could hurt you
more than it helps you.
Now, I don't want that to scareyou away.
It doesn't mean perfection.
It means that you've just gotto make a plan and stick with it
(39:52):
.
So if you have people usingyour logo in a crazy, weird way
and making insane colors all thetime, you want to think about
that.
What would you think ifCoca-Cola used the color blue as
a Santa?
That would be really weird,right, because Pepsi is blue.
Have you ever noticed thatCoca-Cola uses a red Santa?
But you'll never see Pepsi havea red Santa.
They're never going to haveSanta wearing red on Pepsi cans,
(40:14):
ever.
I don't even know if they putSantas on Pepsi cans I haven't
ever paid that much attentionbut I guarantee you it won't be
red if it's a Santa on a Pepsican.
All right, here we go, involveyour team.
You don't have to do this alone.
You don't have to hire athousand people to go do this.
Train your employees on how tobe the brand they want to embody
, what you have and what youshow, and how you show up in
(40:36):
your brand.
Every single customerinteraction matters.
How they are seen as one personis how you're seen as the brand
above and the company actuallylevels up, because each
individual person is reallydoing what they should be doing
to build the brand.
It also is a great way to allowyour employees to shine.
Leverage that employer brandingto show and highlight your
(40:58):
company culture, youropportunities and the growth for
top talent and, lastly,showcase your success stories.
Instead of saying my product'sthe best, share a story, because
we connect with stories deeply,much more than facts or figures
or technical information.
Nobody really cares about that.
I want you to share yourproducts and your services in
(41:19):
the guise of a real problem inthe world that you solved.
Tell me about that home or thatcontractor that you fixed that
issue with your product.
Tell me about the time that yougot someone out of a bind
because your service is soamazing.
Give me some stories that I canrelate to and see myself in.
Make that story something thatcould be me.
(41:39):
It could have been my house, itcould have been my job site, it
could have been my paycheckthat was at risk, but you helped
me with this, all right.
And in conclusion, reallybranding is not just about
visuals.
It's not just about colors andlogos All those things matter,
but branding is really abouttrust and differentiating
yourself in an often verycrowded market, and mostly it's
(42:01):
about building a legacy brandthat people love that will be
around for generations to come.
If you choose to have it, bethere.
Don't allow yourself to becomeKodak or Blockbuster or some of
these brands that used to be soamazing.
Everything has a cycle and ifyou don't choose to continue to
(42:21):
grow with the way that peoplefind you like it's happening
right now, where it's going froma word of mouth business to a
digital online buy, an onlinebusiness, you're gonna be left
behind and, unfortunately,you're gonna be sawdust.
In the building materialsindustry, trust is the currency
that we have, and so isrelationship buildings, and if
you build a brand, it can be thefoundation of your long-term
(42:43):
success If you want your companyto stand out today and thrive
tomorrow.
Branding is not optional.
It's absolutely essential.
The decisions that you make noware going to really define your
place in the market for yearsto come.
I'm challenging you today toevaluate where you are in the
market and how your brandactually shows up, and I want
(43:03):
you to be objective here.
This is a hard exercise.
Are you building something thatwill last, or are you building
something that is really greatright now that probably won't be
around in a few years if youdon't make a change?
If not, now is the time tostart.
I'm Stefanie Couch, and thankyou for joining me for this
episode of the Grit Blueprint.
That's it for this episode ofthe Grit Blueprint podcast.
(43:26):
For more tools, training andindustry content, make sure to
subscribe here and follow me onLinkedIn and other social media
platforms to find out more abouthow Grit Blueprint can help you
grow your business.
Check us out at our website,gritblueprint.
com.
If you want your company to stand out today
and thrive tomorrow.
Branding is not optional.
It's absolutely essential, butbranding is really about trust
and differentiating yourself inan often very crowded market.
Branding communicates valuebehind your projects and your
products and your services.
That's what branding does sowell, and you also want your CEO
(00:21):
or your executive staff tobuild their personal brand,
because executives that have apersonal brand have over 11%
more profitability in theircompany and they also attract
more top talent.
The four key things that I wantyou to know is Welcome to the
Grit Blueprint Podcast, the showfor bold builders, brand
(00:44):
leaders and legacy makers in theconstruction and building
industry.
I'm your host, stephanie Couch,and I've been in this industry
my entire life.
Whether we're breaking downwhat's working in sales and
marketing, new advances in AIand automation, or interviewing
top industry leaders, you'regoing to get real-world
(01:06):
strategies to grow your business, build your brand and lead your
team.
Let's get to work.
Welcome to the Grit BlueprintPodcast.
I'm your host, Stefanie Couch,and today we're talking about
one of the most misunderstoodaspects of business.
It's branding.
This isn't about logos andtaglines only.
(01:27):
It's not just about the colorsthat you choose, even though
those things are important.
Branding is really thefoundation of trust, growth and
legacy in any business.
I personally believe that it'sthe most important thing in
building a business that canstand the test of generational
challenges and all of the thingsthat go through a business's
(01:49):
life cycle if you're going to bearound for a long time.
When it comes to the buildingmaterials industry, a strong
brand is no longer optional.
It's actually essential, andthat's being proven more every
single day.
I actually grew up in thebuilding industry and have been
in a small family lumberyard andalso worked for a large Fortune
500 company for 10 yearshelping them grow a new division
(02:13):
of their business the door andmillwork segment and I found out
really quickly how much brandreally mattered when we started
getting into something that wewere not known for.
You see, our brand thatcorporate business was known for
things like engineered wood andcommodity lumber and all of
those other things that they hadsold for years.
But when we told people, hey,we sell doors, they were like
(02:35):
really, I thought you guys justsold lumber and it was a brand
shift that we had to do.
And still they are working onthat to try to get that brand
out there and that is notsomething that a lot of
companies focus on, and I wantto talk a little bit more about
that today.
Branding is really critical inbuilding materials.
It's an industry where trust,reliability, service and being
(02:56):
different than your competitorsthey're the backbone of
long-term success.
If you're working withcontractors maybe designers,
architects or maybe you'reworking with distributors maybe
you're actually working withmanufacturers your brand is what
actually drives long term highvalue relationships, the type of
(03:17):
business that all of us wouldlove and would fight to have for
a long time.
Those are the customers thatyou want to keep and they're the
ones that you want tounderstand what your brand's
about.
So today, in this episode,we're really going to hit four
main topics.
We're going to talk about whatis branding, defining it and
explaining why it actuallymatters to you in your business.
(03:39):
Secondly, we're going toexplore how branding applies
specifically to B2B sales inbuilding materials.
I get asked this a lot.
Well, hey, branding is reallyonly important to consumer
brands.
We don't sell to consumers.
Well, that's where you're wrong, because branding really
matters in B2B.
Third, we're going to talkabout common objections and
(04:00):
misconceptions that I hear allthe time about branding.
You've probably thought orheard some of these things as
well if you've been in theindustry a while.
And then, last but not least,we're going to show how branding
really impacts everything fromattracting top talent in your
market which is a huge problemin our industry and will become
even more of a problem in thefuture to becoming that trusted
(04:23):
legacy business in the marketthat you want to build.
That will stand the test oftime for generations to come, if
you and your family choose tokeep the business, or it will be
a highly profitable, sellableasset for you and your family at
some point when you decide tosell.
There is so much consolidationin this industry so it's
important either way, no matterwhat side of the coin you fall
(04:45):
on.
First I'm going to break downbrand that word.
It's a big picture word.
It means a lot of things to alot of people.
Brand is not just your website,it's not just the color of your
trucks.
It's the perception of yourbusiness.
It's an emotional and practicalassociation that people have
(05:06):
with your company.
Think of it as a bridge betweenwho you are now and how your
customers actually feel aboutyou, and that bridge sometimes
is a lot shorter than we believe.
That it is because the thingsthat we do in that association
emotionally, even in B2Bbusiness, actually matters.
Our relationships matter.
(05:27):
We all know this is arelationship business.
I hear that all the time, butthat doesn't mean that branding
doesn't actually come into playhere.
So let's talk a little bitabout psychology Spoiler.
For you guys that don't know, Iactually majored in psychology
and social science in collegewhile I was working at my dad's
lumberyard full time, and I lovethis stuff.
(05:49):
So I'm going to nerd out on youjust a little bit, but follow
along with me because this isimportant.
Brands exist in the mind of ourconsumers.
So no matter who you're sellingwhether it's B2B or B2C or
maybe B2B2C, like most of us arethese brands actually evoke
trust.
They have a feeling of buildingconfidence in what you're
(06:09):
getting and sometimes theyreally can even evoke excitement
, which is really cool.
Harvard Business Reviewstatistics show that emotions
actually drive 95% of ourpurchasing decisions.
And before you say, oh yeah,but that's not in B2B, that
actually is even true in B2B.
That actually is even true inB2B sales and there are a lot of
examples of how this works.
(06:31):
But if you really think aboutthe decisions that we make, most
of them are actuallysubconscious.
Our brains do not have enoughtime to make every single little
decision that we make be a topof mind thing where we can think
through it and we really thinkabout what we're doing.
A lot of our decision making isactually autonomous, almost
like breathing.
(06:51):
We don't even realize that weare going towards something
because of the way it looks orthe way we feel about it.
I want you to think for a minuteabout something from your
childhood.
So I'll give you a good GeorgiaSouthern girl example.
Here I grew up eating boiledpeanuts and for those of you who
can't understand my Southerndialect, that is B-O-I-L-E-D
(07:16):
peanuts.
They're boiled in a pot ofwater with salt.
That's it.
It's peanuts.
They're green peanuts, by theway, and it's water and it's
salt.
Super simple.
And I grew up coming up toNortheast Georgia, where I live
now.
Before I moved here, mygranddad had a cabin.
We would come up and everysingle time we would stop at
Fred's Boiled Peanut Stand, andthat place was my childhood in a
(07:42):
little shack.
Basically, I loved going there.
It evokes memories of joy, offamily, of all these things that
I care about, and when I eatpeanuts now, which are one of my
favorite treats.
I think I would rather have itthan a five Michelin star
restaurant and I absolutely lovethem and I think a lot of that
is because of the emotion that'stied to me eating those with my
(08:04):
family when I was growing up,all those things.
I know you have a story.
A lot of that is because of theemotion that's tied to me
eating those with my family whenI was growing up, all those
things.
I know you have a story, a lotof stories that make you feel
that same exact way where youthink of something, a brand or a
product, and you feel somethinginside.
Maybe you can feel excitement,maybe you get mad.
Think about a brand that maybereally ticked you off.
(08:24):
The customer service wasterrible.
A restaurant you ate at thatyou got sick at.
Oh man, like nothing stings,like a stomach bug or food
poisoning after you eatsomewhere and it is really hard
to mentally want to go back tothat place.
So I want to talk a little bitabout that in the context of
someone who has actually done abrand.
(08:46):
Revitalization has changed theminds of someone.
In branding it is a consumerbrand, but I'm going to use this
as an example because I thinkeveryone will know what I'm
talking about.
New Balance is a shoe company.
You probably might have thoughtright when I said that of the
chunky white sneakers that olderwhite men like to wear.
(09:07):
This is something that NewBalance was struggling with for
around 15 years.
Their sales had been declining,stagnant or declining for over
15 years.
So the CEO finally said, hey,we got to do something.
He hires a new CMO and that newCMO says look, I really want to
shake things up here, I reallywant to go for the gold.
(09:27):
Can I do something wild andcrazy?
And so he started to rebrandand he put 70% of his marketing
spend into rebranding, which youmay think sounds insane.
That's a lot of money and thesecompanies obviously their
marketing budgets are a lotdifferent than the building
industries.
They are very substantial.
So to flip that from 80-20 inthe way of branding only getting
(09:50):
20% to 70% branding, that is atough sell.
And the first 14 monthsactually, sales continued to
decline and I'm sure there arelots of naysayers that said,
like this guy doesn't know whathe's doing and now we're wasting
all this money.
But after month 19 it actuallyexponentially went the other way
and started to hockey stickgrow in the favor of branding
(10:14):
the way that he was trying tobrand.
And now Gen Zers everywhere lovethese clunky, big white shoes
and they wear them with big,chunky socks that you've
probably seen and I think it'satrocious, but they love them.
They have experiencedrecord-breaking growth.
They went all in on brand andyou need to get this right for
this to work.
(10:34):
But the point of the story isthat it did work.
It took money and it took time.
So the biggest takeaway fromthis is that branding really is
about creating trust,reliability.
It differentiates you in acrowded market, it makes you
stand out and people associateemotionally with your brand if
(10:55):
you do it well.
But it will take time and itwill take effort and it will
take money.
So if you're not willing toinvest some time probably a good
bit of it, which we're going totalk about and some money, then
you are probably not ever goingto win at the branding game,
and that's okay.
There's no guarantee thatyou'll be able to build a legacy
business.
Most businesses that stand thetest of time have very strong
(11:17):
brands in any industry, butyou've got to decide how much
you're willing to go all in onthis branding thing.
This could be the year that youdecide to really go all in All
right.
Topic number two why doesbranding matter for building
industries?
Well, our lumber industry and alot of our other products are
seen as a commodity, and onething that we never want to do
(11:39):
is compete on price.
Yet here, most of us are inthis industry, competing on that
very thing.
If you don't want to be theperson who sells lumber,
insulation, drywall, some ofthese other products that really
are commodity driven, they'reseen as interchangeable.
The brand does not matter.
If you don't want to be thatperson, you need to focus on
(12:00):
building your brand, becausebranding really elevates your
product from just another thingthat's on the shelf or in the
store or on the yard to being apreferred choice, something that
contractors, architects,builders they ask for by name.
This is where you really startto see a company grow
exponentially and, moreimportantly, stand the test of
(12:22):
time, because eventually therewill be someone that figures out
how to sell it cheaper, orsomeone who comes out with a
brand that is more recognizable,and then you become the person
who can now only compete onprice, and that is really
something that you don't want todo.
The real world impact of this isthat if you brand yourself well
, you're communicating out toyour customers what makes your
(12:46):
product or your service unique.
It may be that it's superior inquality.
It may be that you deliverfaster, you have exceptional
service.
You have all of these thingsthat contractors, architects,
distributors all these peopleyou sell love.
It will build a stickiness inyour marketing, in your branding
, in your customer base, and noone doesn't want a sticky
(13:08):
product or service.
They want that thing to besomething that is like a fly
trap.
People keep coming back.
They can't get away from it.
They love it so much but it'ssticky because they are choosing
that.
It's not by force, it's notsomething that you have to have,
but it's something that they'rechoosing.
That is the best type of brandthat there can ever be Building
(13:29):
trust and loyalty with people,contractors and distributors.
They stick with brands thatthey know and trust.
How many of you know acontractor and he or she
absolutely will not change fromthe brand that they love.
We like to call this in thebusiness being able to veto and
make homeowners or people whoare building and using these
(13:51):
products.
They make them a choice to vetothe thing that that homeowner
has seen or thinks, or maybeeven the dealer or distributor
is trying to push on them.
They will say, for instance,I'm sorry, I don't want that
other brand, I want Trex.
Or I'm sorry, I don't want thatother brand, I want James Hardy
(14:12):
.
I use these two brands becauseZonda recently did a study and
Zonda's results showed thatthere are a few brands that have
worked for years, decades, tobuild the brand authority that
they now have.
Trex and James Hardy are two ofthose.
Kohler is another one.
Those brands now are so farahead of other brands in the
(14:34):
market that they almost don'tseem to be able to be caught,
according to this research fromZonda.
And contractors have a very bigloyalty to these brands.
In fact, when a homeowner comesto them and says, hey, I saw
this commercial or I saw thisthing, I saw this website when I
was doing some research on thisproduct, this decking or the
(14:55):
siding, those contractors are soloyal to those brands that the
homeowners are probably askingfor them and then the contractor
is vetoing any other ask to getback to that brand they're
loyal to.
Now, this is obviously not anendorsement for Trex, kohler or
James Hardy.
I love other products in thosecategories as well.
(15:15):
I'm just telling you what thedata says.
On Zonda's data, these brandsare standing apart and if you go
and do a deep dive into whythey're standing apart, it is
because they have spent yearsand millions of dollars getting
to that branding.
So now you're telling me well,steph, I'm hearing you, but I
don't have millions of dollarsto spend.
Well, that's okay, you need tospend something, you need to
(15:38):
focus on this somehow, and youcan use some guerrilla marketing
tactics, some guerrillabranding tactics, to build a
brand.
I'll give you an example ofsomeone.
I recently heard a podcastabout this.
There's a brand called GymLaunch, and Gym Launch did a lot
of in-person networking attrade shows and they found that
even though their ROI on thosetrade shows of actually going
(16:00):
in-person probably wasn't asgreat as could have been done
online with sales, this is aconsumer product that focuses on
fitness wear for people thatare fitness enthusiasts, but
even though they didn't actuallyget an ROI on that exact moment
, the later data showed that thecities that they had gone to in
person had exponentially moresales than the cities they had
(16:23):
not been to long term.
So think about where you'regoing and what you're spending
your time on and then whenyou're showing up at these trade
shows.
I know a lot of people spend aton of money on things like IBS
and NALA.
I just spoke at NALA and didthe keynote there.
World Millwork Alliance did thekeynote there, saw all these
amazing booths and differentthings.
And IBS is even bigger.
They do crazy stuff on theirbooths there.
(16:44):
I think Kohler spends $10million on their booth every
year.
But if you're thinking aboutyour ROI on that, think about it
long-term.
It's not just about that day,that weekend, that moment that
someone's in your booth.
It's about the long-term valuethat people associate with your
brand.
I want to tell you a childhoodstory.
I grew up in a lumberyard youalready know that and I remember
(17:06):
that Pink Panther was one of myfavorite things because it was
pink and, as you can see fromwhat you're seeing here with
pink hat, pink nails, pinkeverything I think the inside of
my soul is pink and I've alwaysloved it.
So the fact that Pink Pantherwas a known icon that had
actually been a long-termcartoon that a lot of people
(17:27):
born in you know.
Times before in the boomer age,they actually knew what Pink
Panther was.
So, owens Corning, theyactually decided that they were
going to make their insulationpink.
They were going to makeeverything pink logo all of it
on the insulation, and they weregoing to use the Pink Panther
to brand that as a campaign.
This worked very well becausepeople that didn't really care
(17:50):
or know anything aboutinsulation like Stephanie that
was a seven-year-old girl whenthat OC salesperson came in and
brought me my first little plush, pink Panther which I still
have to this day, by the way.
It's been a long time.
I won't date myself, but I havethat Pink Panther in a keepsake
box because it was cool andit's still cool, and that's been
(18:11):
years.
So insulation became somethingthat now was branded and it
associated something that youalready liked.
So if you knew okay, you knoweven the song that the Pink
Panther walks out to right.
So you connected that productwith innovation, dependability,
(18:33):
all the things that OwensCorning is known for.
And then you've also connectedit to something you know and
love the Pink Panther.
It's genius, it's like theChick-fil-A cows.
It works and they're stillusing that today.
So that's just a little examplefrom my childhood that I love
and you probably love too.
Maybe I don't know.
Maybe you sell insulationagainst this brand and you don't
(18:55):
love that story, but I bet youremember that that's who you're
competing against.
I want to go back to psychologyfor just a moment, an emotional
connection, because I think thisis so important.
I want you to think aboutrepeated exposure and you need
to see things over and over.
One time is usually not enoughfor people to associate things
in your brain.
(19:15):
Branding really is about theassociation of two things.
You have one thing and then youhave another thing and somehow
you connect those dots in thebrain of your consumer and by
doing that over and over you'recreating a familiarity.
You're building trust throughthose links that you are
continuing to go and use.
(19:37):
And if a contractor has seen thebrand of house wrap or maybe
it's the treated lumber you useMaybe they always see the yellow
wood commercials.
Jimmy Raines with GreatSouthern Wood is a genius at
this.
He's probably one of the firstpersonal brands that I've ever
known in the industry ofbuilding industry products that
(20:00):
have come in and say, hey, I'mgoing to brand myself and I'm
going to be the face of thebrand and then I'm going to use
that to leverage.
And he made everything yellow,obnoxious yellow.
And now when I see a truck oftreated lumber go down the
street or go down the road.
I know if that little tag onthe end is yellow, it's great
Southern wood and it's yellowwood.
They have branded pressuretreated commodity lumber.
(20:21):
That is quite a feat if youknow anything about our industry
.
So you really are creatingcognitive shortcuts.
You are creating a bridge rightfrom one thing to the other,
and a strong brand helps ussimplify decision making.
It reduces the amount of mentaleffort that we need to be able
to make that decision, to createand evaluate something that
(20:43):
gets us to an end decision point.
The more you can make thosebridges, those shortcuts, the
better off you're going to be.
I want to challenge you tothink about what that means for
your brand.
What does that mean in yourcompany?
What does that mean for you asa person If you have a personal
brand and people automaticallythink of something when they see
(21:03):
you, talk to you, hear yourname?
Because they definitely do ifthey know who you are at all.
Maybe they don't, and if theydon't know who you are, that
could be just as much of aproblem, because anonymity and
not being actually known at allcould be the worst possible
sentence for a brand or aproduct or a building company.
Number three how long is thisgoing to take?
(21:25):
Branding is a long-terminvestment.
If you are looking for a quickhit, an ROI, to drive revenue
tomorrow, it's probably notbranding.
There are a lot of otherrevenue generation tools in the
marketing toolbox, in the salestoolbox, that can help you get
to the hey, we need to make fivemore sales tomorrow.
We need to do this today, butmuch like buying a new piece of
(21:49):
equipment, the return oninvestment is seen over a long
period of time.
That's why when we buy newequipment, like a truck or a
door machine or any of thesethings, we actually have years
that we put them in the P&L overall this time.
We don't make that hit all atonce.
And branding is the same.
It is a decades game.
It is not a quick win.
(22:10):
It's really a commitment toyour future and your legacy as a
company.
It's a foundational effort thatis really building blocks for
your future.
And if you're not planning onbeing in business for five to 10
years, or even you know a shortterm, if you're doing something
in the short term, you're notgoing to reap the full rewards
of this.
So if you are three weeks outfrom retirement, you can just
(22:34):
stop this podcast now if you'renot interested any longer,
because this is not somethingthat you need to do for the next
three weeks.
This is a decades game.
This is a decade's game, but ifyou want to build a legacy
business, if you want yourbusiness to stand the test of
time, for your grandkids to betelling the story of how they're
running the same lumberyard orbuilding materials company that
their grandpa ran or theirgrandmother owned, like my
(22:57):
grandfather, then you need to dobranding efforts now.
Remember that this is also acompounding effort.
Warren Buffett says thatleverage and compounding
interests are the two thingsthat are the most valuable
things in business, and I tendto think that old Warren, uncle
Warren, is pretty smart.
Each touch point that we buildon brand it is built upon with
(23:19):
the next stepping stone to makepeople remember, trust and,
hopefully, love us and ourproducts.
Over time, we become a defaultchoice.
When I go to the ketchup aisle,I don't think about what I'm
going to buy, other than if theyhave a sale on Heinz ketchup
and I don't want to start itright here if you're a Heinz
(23:40):
person, but I'm sorry if you are, because it's a bad choice, but
I'm a Heinz girl.
My dad's a Heinz person, mygrandfather was a Heinz person,
my mom likes Heinz, everybody inour family.
It's a Heinz deal, right.
And so when I go to the aislefor ketchup, I default to my
hand going straight to the Heinz, and I'm just trying to figure
out which size I'm going to buy.
(24:00):
Do I want to buy the bigger one?
Is the smaller one?
Buy one, get one free at Publix.
That's how I make my decision.
It is a default choice for me.
So how do you make people becomea default to you, to you as a
product or service?
It is very possible, and thereare a lot of people that already
have this type of loyalty.
So you may be saying to me okay, steph, I hear you, you know, I
(24:25):
hear all the things you'resaying, but we have a huge
business and we're not hurting.
In fact, for the last fouryears we haven't really even
been able to take all the ordersthat people have wanted to give
us, and we all know what wasduring.
The pandemic was the craziesttime I've ever seen in my life,
and I've been around for over 30years in this business, but
that was an anomaly.
(24:45):
That was a blip on a smallradar of the legacy business
building efforts that you haveto make to really make things
good for a long time.
If you wanna win forever inthis game, you wanna be around
100 years from now.
You're gonna need to do thisbecause you will not always be
catching fish in a bucket.
That's what we were doing thelast few years.
(25:07):
Everybody knows it andeverybody understands it.
It's already gotten way tougher.
You've already had to startfighting and competing for
business again.
So really just think of it as afoundational need.
It's consistent, it's strategicand you're showing up building
that brand every single day tocontinue to grow where you can
stand the test of time.
Next I'm going to cover.
(25:28):
One of my favorite parts ofthis is the objections.
So I'm a salesperson by tradeand I have been handling
objections my whole life and nowthat I'm in the branding
business and the growth andstrategy world of building
materials, I'm handling somedifferent objections, right,
sometimes it's the same ones,like hey, that's too much money,
or hey, that takes too long.
That's the same type of thing,but I'm going to go into each
(25:50):
one.
So the number one brandingobjection that I hear of why I
wouldn't spend the time and themoney on branding is because,
steph, it doesn't deliverresults immediately.
I want to see my results.
Marketing is mystical andmagical and I don't even really
believe in it, but I certainlydon't want to do it if it's
going to take 10 years.
You're saying it's a decadesgame.
(26:11):
Well, here's the thing it's notabout instant results.
And if you think that it is, Iwould ask you to go do the
research on companies who crushit in the branding space,
whether they're in buildingmaterials or not, and see how
long they've been investingtheir time, their effort and
their money into brandingcampaigns and working on this
strategy work.
(26:31):
I guarantee you most companieshave done it for a long time if
they have built a brand that isreally known in the industry and
becomes a default choice.
Companies with really strongbrands, after they get to that
point, end up spending less time, less money and less effort on
customer acquisition andretention of clients.
So, yes, you're paying now, yes, it's going to take some time
(26:56):
and you will reap the harvestlater and in exponential ways
that cannot be purchased.
If you think about ad spend andall these other things that we
can do to lever?
We can hire more salespeople,we can do all those things.
That is all kind of aone-to-one ratio.
It can be a lever of sorts, butbranding well, it can be an
(27:16):
exponential leverage point andif you do it well and you do it
for long enough, it will becomethat and you can become a leader
in the industry that almostcannot be caught, like some of
those brands I mentioned earlier.
Objection number two we're asmall company and we don't have
time, money, to spend on this.
Branding is really just for thebig boys I've heard this a lot
(27:37):
Small companies that have clear,consistent branding, they can
often really effectively competeagainst the larger players in
the market.
As we know, this business is arelationship business and a lot
of people do not want to buyfrom the big boys or girls, as
we say.
And you can really level upyour playing field with branding
(27:57):
because people know who you areand then they see that you do
have a competitive advantage asa small person in the market
because you're quicker, you'remore nimble, you care more about
every single order, you canreally hone in on problems
because they're not so big thatyou can go straight to the
source and figure out why andhow to fix that thing.
That is why a competitiveadvantage is often in the small
(28:20):
company's favor.
It does work the same way withbranding, but you still got to
do something right, all right.
Objection number three here wego.
Our products speak forthemselves, steph.
I mean, we got a qualityproduct and you know it's
quality.
It's amazing.
It's the best product on themarket.
Well, number one thing I wouldsay to that is is that actually
(28:40):
true?
Because now, with technologyand all the things that we've
had advanced in our market,there are a lot of really great
products out there and some ofthese patents that really people
had that stood out where theyreally truly did have a
competitive advantage on thequality side.
A lot of those have run out.
I can think of a few right nowthat the patents run out and now
that person pretty much has theexact same recipe that you have
(29:04):
.
They have the same ingredients,the same recipe and they're
trying to do the same thing thatyou're doing.
It's just the colors on yourlogo are different and it's
coming from a different person.
So maybe that's true, maybe youtruly have a quality advantage.
But here's what I will ask you,if no one ever knows, does it
even matter?
Is that something that peopleare going to care about?
(29:24):
If they don't know who you arebecause your brand is not strong
, and oftentimes, if you thinkabout it, you may buy something
and you spend more money on it.
Let's talk about clothing.
You buy that shirt that has acertain logo on the chest.
It's a black tee that you couldbuy at Walmart for five dollars
, maybe ten dollars for a packof three, and you go spend 40 or
50 dollars on that T-shirt.
(29:44):
Maybe it's for your kid thatjust has to have that brand that
all their friends have.
Is that t-shirt really actuallya better t-shirt?
The truth is that sometimesthose t-shirts are white labeled
, so it might really be Hanesfrom Walmart and it's really
just that company has bought thesame shirt from the same
manufacturer and put a logo onit.
Branding communicates valuebehind your projects and your
(30:05):
products and your services.
That's what branding does sowell.
So to those people who say theproducts speak for themselves, I
surely hope they do.
But if your brand is strong,then it will allow the product
to speak for themselves, becausepeople will know about you and
will buy the product and thenthey can tell all their friends
and every single person theyknow that it's amazing and they
(30:26):
should buy it and it will reallybecome that exponential
leverage.
Last objection, number four ourcustomers only care about price.
Doesn't matter what we do.
Branding won't influence them.
And listen, I get it.
Price matters on commoditydriven items, like lumber where
it's trading in the markets.
Changing price definitelymatters, like lumber, where it's
(30:46):
trading, and the market'schanging price definitely
matters.
But customers will pay more fortrusted brands because it
reduces their risk and itensures their reliability.
How many times have you had acustomer that comes into your
lumberyard or goes and callsyour distributor partner and
just orders what they need?
They don't even price check you.
Well, I know that game becauseI used to have that happen all
the time at my dad's lumberyardwhen I was a little girl.
(31:09):
We had certain clients,especially builders, that did
cost plus.
They didn't want to get rippedoff.
They wanted to have a fairprice.
But as long as they knew thatyou were pricing them fair, it
didn't matter if you were alittle higher, because if they
loved your service and what youwere doing for them and your
brand was strong enough, theywere going to pay for it, and
that happens a lot with luxurybrands.
There are a lot of people whowill pay for a luxury brand and
(31:32):
they don't care what it costs.
Now, most people are somewherein the middle of that, but
almost everyone has favorites.
You want to be the favoritebrand, so how do you get to that
point?
You got to reduce the risk andensure that you are a reliable
partner for them and become thedefault choice.
All right, moving on to employerbranding, we talked so much
(31:54):
about customers and all thatoutward facing thing, but one of
the biggest problems in ourindustry right now it is a
gaping red sea parting, ahorrible thing that everyone
wants to solve.
We don't have enough people todo the jobs in this industry
that need to be done.
We don't know where we're goingto find them.
We don't know how we're goingto train them.
(32:14):
We have a huge shortage alreadyand over 25% of our industry is
standing to retire in the nextfive to 10 years.
The average person in theconstruction industry working is
42 years old.
Now, for some of you you'relike, well, that's really not
that old, that's average, but alot of these people are actually
way older than that that arerunning these businesses.
(32:36):
So we got to attract and keepand develop top talent.
So how do you do that?
Well, you do that by buildingan employer brand.
So how do you do that?
Well, you do that by buildingan employer brand.
You magnetize and attract thepeople that you want to work
here.
Then, once you get theminterested, you got to actually
keep them there with things liketraining and environment and
(32:58):
culture and all those amazingthings.
And it's not just about freepizza on Fridays and working
from home all the time.
There are other things thatpeople care about but a strong
employer brand is a way toreally help this critical need
in our building industry, wherewe have to have skilled workers
and we need them to be the nextgeneration.
Employers are actually amazingbrand ambassadors.
(33:20):
If you don't know what thatword means, a brand ambassador
is really just someone that youuse.
That is an outward facing signof what your company is and what
they represent.
You may know about celebritybrand ambassadorship.
So you've seen Joanna Gaineshas partnered with some of these
companies.
There's another designer namedShay McGee.
She partnered with Kohler.
(33:40):
You have seen people that areinfluencers, that are famous,
partner with big companies onthe non-building material side.
For instance, you see that theRock now has a tequila brand.
You see people like theKardashians partnering in
Instagram, posting about certainproducts that they love.
That is the same thing as abrand ambassador, but you're
(34:01):
doing that internally, for yourcompany, and one great way to do
that is actually helping youremployees build personal brands.
What is a personal brand?
It's very similar to a companybrand, which is what I've been
talking about, and it is whereyou're actually digitizing your
personal brand.
You are showing up online andcurating who you want to be seen
(34:21):
as and what you want to beknown for, and this can be done
with your employees.
It's actually relatively easy.
You just let them share theirstory, and as they share their
story and they talk to peopleabout what they're doing, it
naturally makes your companylook good, because if this
amazing person that people loveis on your team, there must be
something good in that company.
(34:43):
What are employees looking fortoday?
They want a mission to believein.
They want a purpose.
I hear that a lot with youngtalent.
We want a purpose, we want tobe able to grow and we want to
professionally develop.
Often, gen Z says that that'smore important to them than
salary up front in an early rolein their career, because they
know that what they can actuallylearn now, they will be able to
(35:03):
grow on back to thatfoundational level and then they
can grow exponentially again tobecome the person that they can
reach their potential, where,if they just get a great salary
right now and they're not beingdeveloped, they may stay
stagnant and never be able toactually grow from there.
So a company that reallyinvests in training programs,
they're not only building theirinternal expertise, but they're
(35:26):
enhancing their reputation inthe market.
One objection that I often hearwhen I'm talking about employer
branding and helping youremployees build personal brands
and even just really signing offon that, because a lot of
people get so nervous about itis what happens if all of my
good people leave because theystart showing up online and
they're posting and then thingshappen.
Well, the number one answerthat I have to that is if you
(35:49):
are a great company and you'redoing amazing things with your
employees, they're not going towant to leave.
And Richard Branson has a quoteabout that Be the company that
grows your people so much thateveryone wants them, but no one
wants to leave because it's sogreat.
That's a paraphrase of Richard.
It's not exactly how he said it, but it gets the point across
that you gotta be the one thateveryone wants to go work for
(36:12):
and you also want your CEO oryour executive staff to build
their personal brand, becauseexecutives that have a personal
brand, especially at the CEOlevel, have over 11% more
profitability in their companyand they also attract more top
talent.
They have a lot more visibilityand people are going to Google.
They're going to Google you,they're going to Google your
(36:32):
executive staff.
They're going to go on yourwebsite.
We haven't even really talkedabout websites, but it's a huge
thing when you land on someone'swebsite, when you Google them,
what do those people see?
What do you see when you lookat some of these websites in the
industry?
I do a lot of industry websitesas part of what my company does
is helping by branding andhelping you grow through
actually having a strong websitepresence, and it is really sad
(36:57):
when I Google some of thesecompanies that I know and love
and see what they're allowing torepresent themselves.
Your talent is also looking atthat.
If your website is the samewebsite from 2014 or, even worse
, 1999, you need to update it,unless you're Warren Buffett,
and then you can leave yourBerkshire Hathaway website the
(37:17):
same exact thing that when theinternet was made and if you
don't believe me, go look atberkshirehathawaycom and you'll
understand exactly what I mean.
It will give you a good laugh.
The main point of this is sharebehind the scenes culture and
content to showcase what youhave going on as a company, and
if you don't want to sharesomething about your company,
then you may want to do somemore work which is not my area
of expertise on how to reallymake that culture something that
(37:40):
people want to be a part of.
All right, wrapping this badboy up.
Today we have talked about lotsof things in branding.
I hope you've taken away somethings that have helped you.
Maybe you've spurred somethoughts in your mind.
I want you to think about yourdefault brands.
What do you buy withoutthinking about?
I bet you it's a lot morethings than you think of.
When you really start to writedown a list, what are the brands
(38:02):
that you would probably neverchange from?
Maybe it's at the grocery store, at the clothing store.
Maybe it's your online, yournews that you watch.
Maybe it's your favorite socialmedia platform.
Maybe it's the brand ofbuilding materials that you like
to buy from your manufacturerthat you are so really in love
with.
Maybe you love your rep, maybeyou love the product, maybe you
(38:22):
love the pricing.
Whatever it is, think aboutwhat it is and why.
The four key things that I wantyou to know is I want you to
commit to the long game ofbranding.
If you're in this, if you heardthis and you're like Steph, I'm
in it with you.
I know and understand this istruly a valuable thing.
I want to be here in 10 to 15years.
I want to be here in 100 years,or somebody to be here in 100
(38:43):
years in this legacy business.
Then start with your brandingefforts today, but start small.
You may have limited resources.
You may want to just start withsomething really little, but
you can really build a coolbrand with consistent steps and
they do add up.
It is compounding interest.
So start small, but don't delayany further.
You've already waited, probablytoo late.
(39:05):
There's nothing we can do aboutthat.
They say the best time to plantthat tree is 20 years ago, but
we didn't do that, so we'regoing to plant it right now,
today.
The second tip I have for you isfocus on consistency.
You got to make sure that yourbranding, messaging, your
visuals, the way you actuallylook physically, online or in
person at that show, and yourcustomer experience this is a
(39:28):
big one.
They have to actually alignwith what you say your brand is
about, because if you say, hey,this is what my brand is, this
is how it's supposed to look,and then no one else follows
that and there's mixed messaging, it actually could hurt you
more than it helps you.
Now, I don't want that to scareyou away.
It doesn't mean perfection.
It means that you've just gotto make a plan and stick with it
(39:52):
.
So if you have people usingyour logo in a crazy, weird way
and making insane colors all thetime, you want to think about
that.
What would you think ifCoca-Cola used the color blue as
a Santa?
That would be really weird,right, because Pepsi is blue.
Have you ever noticed thatCoca-Cola uses a red Santa?
But you'll never see Pepsi havea red Santa.
They're never going to haveSanta wearing red on Pepsi cans,
(40:14):
ever.
I don't even know if they putSantas on Pepsi cans I haven't
ever paid that much attentionbut I guarantee you it won't be
red if it's a Santa on a Pepsican.
All right, here we go, involveyour team.
You don't have to do this alone.
You don't have to hire athousand people to go do this.
Train your employees on how tobe the brand they want to embody
, what you have and what youshow, and how you show up in
(40:36):
your brand.
Every single customerinteraction matters.
How they are seen as one personis how you're seen as the brand
above and the company actuallylevels up, because each
individual person is reallydoing what they should be doing
to build the brand.
It also is a great way to allowyour employees to shine.
Leverage that employer brandingto show and highlight your
(40:58):
company culture, youropportunities and the growth for
top talent and, lastly,showcase your success stories.
Instead of saying my product'sthe best, share a story, because
we connect with stories deeply,much more than facts or figures
or technical information.
Nobody really cares about that.
I want you to share yourproducts and your services in
(41:19):
the guise of a real problem inthe world that you solved.
Tell me about that home or thatcontractor that you fixed that
issue with your product.
Tell me about the time that yougot someone out of a bind
because your service is soamazing.
Give me some stories that I canrelate to and see myself in.
Make that story something thatcould be me.
(41:39):
It could have been my house, itcould have been my job site, it
could have been my paycheckthat was at risk, but you helped
me with this, all right.
And in conclusion, reallybranding is not just about
visuals.
It's not just about colors andlogos All those things matter,
but branding is really abouttrust and differentiating
yourself in an often verycrowded market, and mostly it's
(42:01):
about building a legacy brandthat people love that will be
around for generations to come.
If you choose to have it, bethere.
Don't allow yourself to becomeKodak or Blockbuster or some of
these brands that used to be soamazing.
Everything has a cycle and ifyou don't choose to continue to
(42:21):
grow with the way that peoplefind you like it's happening
right now, where it's going froma word of mouth business to a
digital online buy, an onlinebusiness, you're gonna be left
behind and, unfortunately,you're gonna be sawdust.
In the building materialsindustry, trust is the currency
that we have, and so isrelationship buildings, and if
you build a brand, it can be thefoundation of your long-term
(42:43):
success If you want your companyto stand out today and thrive
tomorrow.
Branding is not optional.
It's absolutely essential.
The decisions that you make noware going to really define your
place in the market for yearsto come.
I'm challenging you today toevaluate where you are in the
market and how your brandactually shows up, and I want
(43:03):
you to be objective here.
This is a hard exercise.
Are you building something thatwill last, or are you building
something that is really greatright now that probably won't be
around in a few years if youdon't make a change?
If not, now is the time tostart.
I'm Stefanie Couch, and thankyou for joining me for this
episode of the Grit Blueprint.
That's it for this episode ofthe Grit Blueprint podcast.
(43:26):
For more tools, training andindustry content, make sure to
subscribe here and follow me onLinkedIn and other social media
platforms to find out more abouthow Grit Blueprint can help you
grow your business.
Check us out at our website,gritblueprint.
com.
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