The Factory Floor is hosted by the three co-founders of Conversion Factory, the marketing agency at the forefront of SaaS growth, marketing, and tech trends. Episodes are released on Twitter one day early, @coreyhainesco.
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Nick Loudon (00:00)
Okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the factory floor We are happy to have you here We're gonna be talking about something very near and dear to at least one of our hearts So that'll be fun But yeah, I am Nick we have Zach here and Corey as well And so we're just gonna dive right in because what else is there to do? We're here to talk. So let's do it today we are talking about symptoms of bad branding and
Corey Haines (00:12)
you
Nick Loudon (00:31)
This may surprise you, but our own designer, Zach Stevens, has a lot of thoughts about branding. So I'm actually going to let him kind of kick us off and give us a little bit of an intro. And then we'll just kind of rattle through some of the symptoms and go through some of the notes and cool things that we are going to talk about. So Zach, what's up, dude? What's going on?
Zach Stevens (00:53)
Well, this is one of the things that I don't think a lot of founders talk about or it gets put their way. feel like most founders now have some semblance that they need to enhance their marketing. They need to work on their positioning that marketing seems to be at the forefront. However, they tend to overlook the counterpart of that, which is building a brand. And the point of building a brand is to build trust and it's trust that your
user base can count on you not only to solve their problems, but they can count on you to act a certain way to show up and be a consistent personality in their life. Whether that's through the founder or through the way that the team delivers emails through the look and feel of your product, they are counting on you to be consistent. And when you have that kind of consistency, it forges trust and an emotional connection that is really hard to deter. It's this kind of emotional connection that overpowers your...
pre frontal cortex, which is where you process all your logical information. And it's what leads to a command and price premiums. It leads to higher LTV and lower customer acquisition cost. There's a lot of trickle down benefits from nailing your brand, but it's a very hard thing to, ⁓ to actually define and create. But I think that, and, even know if you need to work on it. So
Nick Loudon (01:57)
you
you
Zach Stevens (02:18)
The reason that I wanted to talk about symptoms is because it's a lot easier to spot the symptoms than the cause, which is what we're going to go through. think a really good, a good quote to kind of just put the nail on this is that in creating that trust, you, you build a good bridge and there's this quote from April Dunford, which is trust is the bridge between your value proposition and actual sales. So without it, even if you position your product perfectly, it's going to fall flat.
Nick Loudon (02:45)
Yeah, it's funny you brought up something that I was gonna like kind of ask which was like for your average person who's doesn't think about branding or positioning even that often I feel like When something has bad branding it might you might notice it's gonna stick out and you're kind of gonna like maybe catch those things But when it's really good and that's not really on the forefront of your mind. It's like
Everything like you don't even notice that it's good It just is good if that makes sense like branding kind of feels like one of those things. Is that the case?
Zach Stevens (03:22)
totally. There's a, I think it's Dieter Rams who wrote, I think it's the design of everyday things. Either way, he has this quote that is good design is invisible, where you don't notice it because it just works and it feels good. And I think that you could say the same thing about not only from a technical perspective that it works, everything feels like it's in place. But when you have the brand nailed, it just feels genuine. Like there's not.
an aura of like pandering to the latest tech trend or, trying to be something that it's not trying to bolster an image that isn't true to the founding team and what the product stands for, but that it's actually cohesive all the way through that there's a through line that is noticeable or not noticeable because it just is, you know, it doesn't veer off in any awkward direction.
Nick Loudon (04:17)
Right. Cool. Yeah. I was like, I think that's true, but I didn't like know it until you started talking, but, ⁓ well, let's talk about some of the symptoms. ⁓ we kind of have some different buckets that these symptoms fall into. have like aesthetic or like visual symptoms. ⁓ we have some like customer acquisition or like sales related symptoms and how they impact that. And then some that are a little bit more like core founder story type symptoms. so we'll just start at the top, which is like the aesthetic ones and we'll kind of go through.
Zach Stevens (04:21)
It's true.
Mm-hmm.
Nick Loudon (04:46)
and just talk about some of those. The first one here in the notes is starting to redesign your product without a matching marketing site, which, you know, we've had a client or two in this position or say like, yeah, we've like started a whole like product rebrand and we're like, okay, all right. So we got to like figure out how to make sure we mold in what's going on with the marketing site. So it's like, I guess my question is like, why, why do people do this?
that makes sense? Like, why is that something that people even do from the start?
Zach Stevens (05:21)
You kind of cut a little choppy there, Nick. So I'm hoping that I heard what you said. But I think what you said was why did they even start there and why is this a symptom? So I feel like the product is a lot easier to spot when things don't look as nice, or it's the one that people care about more because it's what people are, the product is what people are buying.
Nick Loudon (05:24)
sorry. Just give it a shot.
Yeah.
Zach Stevens (05:48)
You know, and that's what they want to use. And they're looking at it, especially if you've gotten somebody to buy into your product more of a times, they just completely bypass your marketing site and they're going straight into your app rather than having to look at your storytelling. they might, they might've been customers for years. And they're now seeing a new suite of other tools that look a lot nicer that, you know, bring them more delight than frustration. And so naturally a founder is going to react and say, I got to revamp my product.
But dang, like I have a lot to do. Like, you know, this, this probably was just like a bootstrap template that I, ⁓ I bought many years ago that, ⁓ doesn't have a whole lot of styling to it. And so they begin going down the stylistic route, but they don't have any idea of where to begin. And then you run into this problem where your product looks really nice, but then your marketing efforts are completely disjointed. And because you've spent so much time on your product to launch it.
Now you feel beholden to the product to set the tone for everything else. But that's not a good place to start because products are far more stripped down as far as their expression and storytelling. There are a lot more utilitarian. So it's actually way better to go in reverse. You think of all your marketing efforts, which can be applied across multiple mediums and you get a way better feel of, okay, if we're, if we're operating on this kind of platform within this form factor.
we need to strip away these things, but it's still gonna maintain the core essence of the brand. So it's just a bad place to start because you end up having to then retrofit everything else to something that wasn't as fully fleshed out as it could be from a design standpoint.
Nick Loudon (07:26)
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I was thinking like about how sometimes we just get into like a web project and it's like the explanation for why things look the way they do is like, yeah, we just basically like band-aid after band-aid after band-aid after band-aid for visuals. Like, we kind of like patch this on the product and then we kind of patch this up over on the marketing site. And it's just like...
Corey Haines (07:28)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Loudon (07:52)
We basically did a bunch of mini refreshes over and over and over and now everything's a mess. So we need to like go back to square one. It's always hard to jump into those, those kinds of projects.
Zach Stevens (07:58)
Yeah.
But they didn't even do it using the same color band-aid. was like, here's my Dora the Explorer one, my X-Men band-aid, and my one from Welly. It's not even like a cast that's one color.
Nick Loudon (08:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and then I put some ankle tape on it like yeah, it's like whoa, this is so different Yeah
Yeah,
yeah, it can be tough. Cool. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I actually the next one is the one I was most interested when I was reading through the notes. And it's constantly chasing design trends rather than developing a unique identity. Well, can I ask like, what are the ones that you're like?
you now as the designer roll your eyes at or like, ⁓ everybody tries to do this and it's just like, ⁓ again, we got another brand doing the same thing or you don't have to answer that question because I've put you on the spot, but.
Zach Stevens (08:53)
No, I,
I, I dispose of all of them. No, there is no such, all of them, the, particularly when it comes to visuals, there is no such thing as a designed trend to set the tone for your aesthetic. It doesn't exist. They're all fads. Every single one of them. The only things that become trends are macro evolutions. Things like mobile responsive design, accessibility or
Nick Loudon (08:57)
All
Zach Stevens (09:22)
Progressive web apps, know and having to account for these larger trends that don't really even apply to the aesthetic It's more about functionality Because every single like a true trend will stay in the test of time everything else is just a fad so when you see things like brutalist or you know hyper minimalism or Like all the gradients and or like these super humanist like chunky weird typefaces that have the inkwells inside of them
Nick Loudon (09:35)
you
Zach Stevens (09:51)
Those are all fads. And the reason I try and stay away from them and just ignore them completely is because they aren't helpful in helping somebody figure out what they want to say and how they want to sound and how they can be different within the market. So I completely dispense all trends, but if you find yourself, ⁓ you know, constantly scouring dribble or awards or be hands, you're like, wow, this all looks really nice. And I want to look like that. It's probably time to.
Nick Loudon (09:57)
you
you
Zach Stevens (10:21)
It does mean that you have a bad, or that you're not stoked on your branding. That's just a bad place to start looking for it.
Nick Loudon (10:29)
Mm. Yeah, I totally get that. I'm always like, was this a trend? Yeah, because I when I look, I'm thinking like
this looks cool. I'm not even thinking like, is this a trend? Is this not a trend? Like, that's not like the first thing in my mind. I'm just thinking like, does this look good or no? But that's interesting. I my guess is that when I usually think to myself, all this looks really good, or this feels like right or good. It's probably not a trend. It's probably or it's probably not a fad. It's probably like, you know, something that can withstand a little bit more solidly.
Zach Stevens (11:03)
It might also just be the first iteration of it, which is quite genuine. like three that I think of, and I routinely go back to, ⁓ or maybe I should say four, ⁓ Gumroad, Gumroad's redesign felt very true to them. But then you had a bunch of other look likes that said, we want to look just like Gumroad and, you know, couldn't think of it on their own. Gumroad probably took it from something else that is completely outside of software and tech in general, and then infuse it with their product.
Nick Loudon (11:25)
you
you
Zach Stevens (11:33)
so that's why it feels good to them because it's actually something they like and that feels the way they want other people to feel. You could probably say the same thing with Mailchimp too. Stripe, when they came out with their new website, was like, everybody wanted to be Stripe. It's like, well, that only works for Stripe because they found something that inspired them to do that. It's probably like a lava lamp or, you I don't know where they got that inspiration from. Apple is another big one where everybody wanted to design like Apple, but the only reason it works is because it's for Apple.
and they have a genuine authentic connection to that aesthetic where other people don't. So I think that first movers tend to strike a chord with it because it's genuine to them. But if you find yourself chasing after trends or trying to say like, I can't get us to feel right or I'm still not happy with it, it's probably because you're not and you're never going to be because it's not made for you.
Nick Loudon (12:27)
Yeah, that makes sense. Cool. Very good. Thank you. Let's do it. I really want to talk about this one too. All these are so good. You guys are awesome. Okay, poor quality, inconsistent design assets created by non professionals, damaging brand perceptions that embarrass you. this is like, I'm interpreting this as there's no foundation. And because there's no foundation, we're having other people come in to try to like,
Corey Haines (12:37)
.
Nick Loudon (12:57)
work on something to like give us an outcome that we want without a foundation. It's you know, it's the build your house on the sand versus build your house on the rock. That's how I interpret it. Is that what this means?
Zach Stevens (13:10)
Some of it, think this is more of a symptom where if you're just consistently embarrassed by the output of the visuals for your company, it means that you need to address the foundational issue, which is you don't have a succinct, clarified brand guide to make the, so that somebody else can come in and take a look at it and say, I'm gonna use these typefaces, these colors. And even if I flex them a little bit,
it's still gonna feel like it's part of the family rather than something completely off base or just low caliber in general.
Nick Loudon (13:44)
Gotcha. Cool. That makes sense. Corey. Yeah, go ahead.
Corey Haines (13:47)
I can remember, uh,
just really quick on that one. I can remember as a marketer having working with designers in the past and not knowing what I know now, obviously, but, uh, they would be like, Oh, how do you want it to look? And why don't you just send over some of your brand guidelines? And I'd be like, okay, well, our brand guidelines are pretty much just like, here's our primary color and like, look at the typeface, the font that we use on our website. And then they would return something and I'd be like,
that's atrocious. And like, that doesn't look at all how I envisioned it would look. And I realized like, well, I think that was my fault because obviously, like the direction wasn't very clear. But also it kind of isn't my fault because that just means that we don't have a very defined brand. I remember in particular when I was working at a company and it was sort of like this V2 of the brand. There was a little bit of like a hodgepodge.
hack job kind of quickly put together and didn't really get like rolled out and approved by everyone in the company or where this is like now this is how we use this brand. So we didn't have a lot of like assets even to give us examples. So when I gave this designer that direction they didn't really know what to do. And I think that's maybe another, you know, another symptom of that symptom, which is like if people are making
a bunch of things that don't feel on brand according to your brand guidelines. Maybe it's because you don't have good brand guidelines or a brand definition.
Nick Loudon (15:21)
you
Zach Stevens (15:24)
Yeah. It's
Nick Loudon (15:25)
You
Zach Stevens (15:26)
the, it's the, everybody's an asshole, you're probably an asshole. Type of scenario. If everyone's a terrible designer, it probably means you're a terrible designer.
Corey Haines (15:30)
Yeah, right, right. Exactly.
Nick Loudon (15:33)
Yeah.
Corey Haines (15:36)
You
Nick Loudon (15:37)
Yeah. Okay. So I have a question then in a vacuum, like two identical products, but one looks better than the other. Will people almost always pick the one that looks better?
Zach Stevens (15:56)
I can't give definitive proof on this, but I will say this. Babies naturally look at people who are more attractive than people who are not as attractive where their faces are. Yes, it's a hundred percent true. They will pay more attention to people whose faces are symmetrical, evenly proportioned and in the golden ratio that we, we look for. So if we are doing that at a young age with no prompting, with no
Nick Loudon (15:57)
and why.
Is that true?
Zach Stevens (16:22)
Nurturing to guide that whatsoever. I think it's very safe to say that people will pick the The more aesthetically pleasing version over the ugly one You can also look at other parts of industry and business like Europe has flourishing tourism because it's beautiful and They have these ornate buildings that you can go in and people go there just to look or art, you know like people buy Art just because they want things to look nice, especially if you're
If it's the same price and someone has just put a little bit more thought into the presentation, it's like a well presented plate of food versus slop. You know, like if you get a plate of spaghetti that is perfectly like, you know, coiled and there's a garnish on it there's just the right amount of Parmesan cheese versus like, know, cafeteria food smack, you know, busts all over your plate or whatever, which one are you going to pick? You know, like there's no, there's no economic.
Nick Loudon (17:00)
you
Zach Stevens (17:21)
Incentive at all or rationale to being stupidly ugly
Corey Haines (17:25)
I agree.
Nick Loudon (17:25)
Sorry, I just cut out for a second. Sorry,
You're good, go ahead Corey.
Corey Haines (17:29)
Yeah, I have an interesting story about this because
when I was at bare metrics, I ran a survey one time that had an open ended question at the end that asks our customers, why did you choose bare metrics over our competitors? And I was expecting, you know, to get answers like, well, you know, I can get this type of analysis or graph and bare metrics that I can't get anywhere else. Or your guys' pricing is much better or yada, yada, yada. But actually the most consistent
Number one answer that we got was it's better designed and I like the design and I like to look at it because it was kind of a dashboard analytics tool is something that people look at all the time and they put a lot of value in how it's presented and the way that it's displayed and the aesthetics and design of that thing. And we even had competitors who were completely free and bare metrics was paid and they were willing to pay that money pretty much strictly for
the design and the aesthetic value of that. So we've had this discussion in the past of like, you know, all else equal, will software go the route of like fashion, for example, where maybe name brand becomes something that you can put a really, really big premium price tag on and charge 10 times more of your competitors for the exact same thing. I don't know if that's necessarily true or as true to the same extent as something like fashion, but
there's definitely a competitive edge to things that are well designed and have a very unique brand that people find affinity for.
Zach Stevens (19:08)
Yeah, so I think that pretty much puts a pin in the aesthetic category. General point being that
Everyone likes to say that we won't judge a book by its cover, but yes, we do
Nick Loudon (19:22)
but yeah, we love judging things.
Corey Haines (19:23)
Yeah, we do.
Nick Loudon (19:25)
That totally makes sense. Cool, yeah, let's put up in the aesthetic stuff. Let's move on to the next kind of category, which is sales slash customer acquisition, branding, bad branding symptoms. The first one is lack of trust signals and proof, social proof in brand communications. So maybe like,
because that was a little confused reading this one. So can you just like color it for me and maybe just clarify it a little bit.
Zach Stevens (19:55)
Yeah. Well, ⁓ think a big, a big trust signal and this could kind of go in between aesthetic and customer acquisition because that's why put it at the top on this. Because if you don't look trustworthy, if you look scammy, like, like there isn't a whole lot of thought behind your design or it just doesn't give the impression of a stable, cohesive, well-intentioned company, then people are going to like the hairs on the neck are going to stand up immediately when they see you.
But there's a deeper thing in here, which is social proof and trust signals. And my favorite quote, or one of the best quotes about branding is your brand is not what you say it is, it's what they say it is. So the brand that you, like you have no control over really what the brand is. You just have control over direction and the perception that you're able to make people have. So if you have enough people saying the same things about you and those things are good, then.
That's your brand. And that's what people are going to say about you. Like, know, Zappos being the kindest company or Chick-fil-A, you know, taking actions, like saying my pleasure at the end of every customer engagement. Even the names that get their products, you know, like this is not an Arnold Palmer. This is a Sunjoy. You know, all of those things contribute to them living up to their mission of being the most caring company in the world that just happens to sell chicken sandwiches.
Nick Loudon (21:07)
you
Zach Stevens (21:25)
So, but you get a lot of social proof with that because again, it's not what you say it is. It's what they say it is. So if you get things like, you know, your customer testimonials that talk about, ⁓ how you make people, how you make them feel, that's going to improve your customer acquisition efforts.
Nick Loudon (21:46)
Gotcha. Yeah, that totally makes sense.
Zach Stevens (21:47)
But if
you can, so well, guess, if you can define how you want people to feel, that's going to make it way easier for you to help hit that target with the actions you take.
Nick Loudon (21:56)
I see. okay. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Yeah, I'm trying to like, I'm passing all the things that you say through when we did the, our like brand blueprint for Conversion Factory. So that's awesome. The next one is lack of what? yeah, go ahead.
Corey Haines (22:11)
Right. Can I add one more thing to that? I
was going to say that that makes me think of like, I feel like the brand and the aesthetic on the customer acquisition side of things is it's if you literally thought of a in-person sales interaction of like, you have to go to someone's house or into someone's office and make a pitch, for example. ⁓ and even I'm thinking back, like I've even seen, I saw the founders of the first startup that I worked for pitch VCs before.
and you walk into a room and you go up to the 10th floor of your office and you know, they walk in, they have all these things, right? And like you wouldn't just walk up in there with flip flops and a graphic T, right? You want to put on your Sunday best. You want to look professional. You want to look on brand to whoever you are and your company and sort of the thing you're trying to represent. And I think that one way to think about this is like, you don't want to, you know, show up to the sales meeting in flip flops.
but not know that you're in flip-flops and everyone is looking at your flip-flops and judging them. Sort of like the equivalent of having bad branding is people are like, wait, what's going on here? And like, can I trust you? And like, are you who you say that you are? Because you don't look like you're trying to present yourself that way.
Nick Loudon (23:15)
Mmm... Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's like bad breath like or okay, I've had a stain on my shirt all day and just like no one has said anything and no one said pointed out like, hey, this just like doesn't I love your product but it just doesn't fit like no one said.
Zach Stevens (23:30)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Corey Haines (23:36)
Right.
Zach Stevens (23:39)
Yeah.
wearing,
wearing flip-flops without the intention of wearing flip-flops. It's just, out of place, you know, like, and again, the through line, that's the hard part. It's like, you can definitely do, like you can make billion dollar brands that are flip-flop-esque, you know, like that make you feel like you're at a beach and should be sipping on Mai Tai. It's conditional. So it's a, I guess it's what becomes so subjective about this and why it's tough to do.
Nick Loudon (23:46)
Yeah.
Yeah. Speaking
of the subjective nature, it kind of ties into what the next one is, which is like a lack of emotional connection with the user, like focusing solely on features rather than the benefits and the story. that's like, Hey, I want to focus in on like, what does this do and who do you become through this product essentially versus like all the bells and whistles that people like to pretend are the most important thing. Yeah, go ahead.
Zach Stevens (24:35)
Yeah, well, think the features, the features are good. Like, and again, this is why branding is the perfect counterpart to positioning and other sales oriented copy and sales oriented efforts. ⁓ because what the benefits do or speaking to them is it, it, it transforms the person, which is what you are going for. You want your brand to be something that helps transform people.
Nick Loudon (24:54)
you
Zach Stevens (25:04)
Helps them get from one part of their story to another and that's it ties into that feeling of well I want people to feel more calm. I want people to feel more energized. I want people to feel more organized. I want people to have some spontaneity there's always gonna be this dichotomy of taking somebody from something like a current predicament and then Totally turning it up on its head and that feeling helps you
develop the visuals that you want to evoke that feeling in a way that's pertinent to you. So, and when you can do that, when you have that emotional connection, again, you stop fighting on the prefrontal cortex with like other features and prices and start winning hearts, which is a lot harder to deviate from. Cause if you can, if you can win, if you can win the amygdala and win the reptile brain, the logic brain is gonna get or follow suit.
Nick Loudon (26:01)
It's just crazy that it's like a language. You have this whole thing that you have to tediously put together and all these perfect little strings to pull. And it trickles all the way down to this tiny little icon right before the footer in a benefits section or whatever. And it's like, that thing you did way over here.
Zach Stevens (26:22)
You
Nick Loudon (26:29)
goes all the way down to that and that little one icon and that one little blurb is supposed to like make the visitor or the customer feel a certain way. And it is like a true like amazing art slash science, which is such a like, those are opposites, but to see them come together is like so interesting. Sorry, just a tangent. I have what you're thinking.
Corey Haines (26:49)
Zack.
I think that we found the name for your book, your upcoming book, win the amygdala, I can't even say it, when the amygdala.
Zach Stevens (27:00)
Win the amygdala.
Victory, victory at the amygdala.
Corey Haines (27:07)
90 % joking, but.
Nick Loudon (27:08)
That's a great idea. The branding for that's gonna be beautiful.
Zach Stevens (27:10)
I know. I think the brand, I think the
brand, I think the brand heist still, still comes, but when victory at amygdala also sounds really cool.
Nick Loudon (27:16)
Went, yeah.
Corey Haines (27:17)
Yeah, yeah.
Nick Loudon (27:21)
Yeah.
Okay, I want to go through the next one, which is undifferentiated between competitors and customers will find you replaceable through that. I guess like, important is brand to, obviously brand is like what the visual differentiation, but like it kind of goes back to what we said about bare metrics, like the.
You could be the exact same product even, and then just the brand makes the difference. Is that kind of the same tie-in with this one?
Zach Stevens (27:55)
I think the visuals are important. ⁓ it's a key aspect of it. This, would say actually falls more on what you do and cool actions that you take and the way that you talk. I think that those, the visuals are important and they should all cohere. A good example that I think of is REI, you know, ⁓ a couple of years ago, I don't remember when the first one was, but everybody was so sick of Black Friday sales. And they're just like, dude, like,
Nick Loudon (28:23)
You
Zach Stevens (28:26)
We're getting like everybody and their mother was getting hammered over the head with Black Friday ads and all the stuff and then REI comes out and it's like We're closed on Black Friday go outside So turning down the number one sales day in the year to stand true to their values is Whoa, I can't believe that they just did that. So I it's hard for me to think of software examples for this but
Nick Loudon (28:36)
Awesome.
Zach Stevens (28:56)
You can do things like the way that you sign off on your email, the way that you talk about your product, the kind of events that you put on that really make things memorable. It's the, those are the kind of differentiations that I would push for and sticking to your values. Now we have a client less than only CRM that only has one pricing tier, just one, and they will never, ever, ever deviate from that.
Nick Loudon (29:16)
you
Zach Stevens (29:23)
And I have a lot of respect for it because I think that it's a huge contributor to the brand that they present.
Corey Haines (29:32)
I like this one a lot because, ⁓ from a marketer's perspective, I'm always trying to evaluate a website and in a product from the perspective of the positioning and if the brand seems to match the positioning. And so you take a bunch of products, for example, let's just take that CRM example. There are tons and tons and tons of CRMs out there. There are some CRMs.
Nick Loudon (29:32)
Super interesting. Go ahead, Corey.
Corey Haines (30:01)
that have a sort of very specific use case, like, the best CRM for follow-ups, for example. Would I be able to tell, sort of, without just looking at the words, but also looking at the look and the feel and the vibe of the website and the product, that this is based off of, like, one specific use case, for example. Or were the CRM for,
coffee shops or where the CRM for churches or where the CRM for fill in the blank kind of persona. Does the brand seem to match that persona or the way you want to connect with that, you know, buyer type, or maybe you have, ⁓ you know, where the CRM for everyone and we're the most complicated CRM. You can do anything with our CRM and it's just the most powerful, awesome feature for one. Does the brand match that type of value proposition?
And I feel like a lot of times I'll come across a website and what I'm seeing, what I'm reading just aren't matching. And it feels confusing as a buyer because I can't tell if this product is supposed to be easy to use and friendly and approachable, or if it's supposed to be like sophisticated and powerful. And, ⁓ you know, like there's a world of opportunity and, and those possibilities with what I can do with it.
Nick Loudon (31:20)
you
Corey Haines (31:27)
And I think that those are pretty important to match up, especially as people are shopping around comparing you to your competitors. Can they tell that there's something different about you? And especially to the story that your competitors are telling, does it look like you're telling a different type of story? Sort of the idea of like you pick up a couple of different books, you know, a fantasy book is going to look a lot different than a sci-fi book is going to look a lot different than a self-help book.
And if you read a self-help book with the cover that looks like a sci-fi book, it's going to look a little bit confusing, like what you're getting yourself into. And I feel like that's a lot of times what I see with a brand or a website of a SaaS product.
Zach Stevens (32:05)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's really tough because you want to create something that's that is truly different, but you run the risk of it being, ⁓ incongruent with how you want people to feel, you know, that's why it's, it's, I feel like chasing the trends is really a bad way to go about this because if you just pick something that's on trend, it's like, but
It doesn't match up with the emotional response you're trying to get. So that's where you run into those kinds of issues. It's super hard. Like, it's especially difficult because there is almost never a single right answer to how you differentiate yourself, especially visually. The hard part is that you have thousands of different ways that you can.
Differentiate yourself visually and in the way you act too But as long as you have that North Star of I know I want people to feel this way in every interaction that's a pretty good filter for You know how like even the pricing of your product because this is this is what's fascinating is that? Between branding and positioning like they play off of each other so much and it's a yin-yang
event where the positioning changes and then the branding has to change alongside it. Or maybe the branding shifts and leads and guides some of the initiatives that go alongside with the positioning efforts. So it's a, it's more philosophical than it is like data-driven decision, which is what makes it a lot harder.
Nick Loudon (33:45)
Agreed, much harder. I was going to ask, because the next one is like, I think something that we have maybe run into a time or two, or been on calls with people and kind of felt like maybe this was the case. But it is unable to command premium price despite having a higher quality product. So this is someone who's like, clearly awesome product.
it does an amazing thing. It's super power. But like you go to their site and you're like,
I'm sorry, but this like doesn't communicate that at all, or it's like not up to snuff with the quality. Maybe it has some of the brand like visuals that you need, but it's just not like pushed to the extreme. Or it's just like, these are just communicating completely different things. On your market website, you look like, you know, the affordable option, the Toyota Camry, but the actual power in what you want is to communicate that you're a Ferrari and it's not working.
So how, guess, like, do people go to like, do you go back to scratch? Like, what do do?
Zach Stevens (34:52)
Well, to fix it, I don't know. would depend on... Branding is always going to be like a case by case scenario as far as like the solution to your current problem at the moment. I think that that is the inability to command a price premium. I think that...
You could put that more on the aesthetic area. think that, but it does come into customer acquisition because it's like your product is like the engine that's inside it is out of this world. The shell of the car is a rusty piece of crap and you have a more powerful engine, but your packaging around it is not up to snuff. And that's why people aren't going to trust you. It's like Bumblebee, you know, in the first transformers movie where he's the
Nick Loudon (35:44)
Hmm.
Zach Stevens (35:44)
the old Camaro and then, you know, they're driving along.
Nick Loudon (35:46)
Yeah. It gets a new one.
Zach Stevens (35:48)
Yeah. Yeah. And he, he transforms himself into the, the new like 2007 Camaro. You know, really sweet. And it's like that, know, you under the hood, you've got a lot of horsepower. You just don't look at it. And that's a customer. It, it, leads to problems with customer acquisition.
Nick Loudon (35:54)
Yeah
you
Yeah, totally. Okay, so, Corey, you put this one because I and I'm going to put you on the spot to talk about it. But you put based on your name user expects you to do one thing, but you actually do another. I often forget that like how important naming is with branding, because a lot of times we're when we're working with someone, we're working with someone who isn't looking to change their name. They're like, I love the name. This is my name. This is what's happening. I just need a different like visual aesthetic or whatever they're looking for.
but the name can often be a problem. Did you have like an example in your head when you thought of this or just like a general like, yeah, sometimes the name just like doesn't make sense.
Corey Haines (36:49)
man, it's gonna come to me right after we finish recording this, but I can't think of a specific example in my mind, but I know that there's at least two that I've thought of in the past and why I wrote this down. But I've definitely seen people either one, their name sort of like is something that kind of exists already. And so they end up ranking for something that is software related.
Nick Loudon (36:54)
haha
It's okay.
Corey Haines (37:18)
but that isn't the thing that they do or people are looking essentially people are typing into Google for something. They find their website, which is like kind of the exact name of what they're looking for. But what they do is something completely different. So they have people sign up and then they're confused. And then they, you know, maybe accidentally convert from their trial or they, you know, type in angry support messages because they're like, your products, a piece of crap doesn't do it at all. What I want it to, and you're like, what do you, that's not at all what, who told you it was going to do this?
Nick Loudon (37:48)
You
Corey Haines (37:49)
I wish I could think of specific examples, but I think that actually happens quite often where people choose a name that's, you know, relatively close or it's kind of descriptive. ⁓ or it's something they think is ambiguous and just kind of like a brandable word or name, but actually means something else to someone, ⁓ means something completely different to someone else.
Zach Stevens (38:03)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Loudon (38:18)
Yeah, there I've I've experienced this personally, like I don't actually have I don't want to say one of them, but there's a couple where it's like, I forget if it's an IO or a dot com or a dot, you know, whatever. And so I just ended up like searching the business name and being like, this is just a regular word. Like this is also a regular word. And now I have to like search, search that word and business or that word and what I think the product does to.
and it kind of just like butts up. But also like there's these great words that mean something else that in the context of your product really seem cool and they fit really well. So I could see how it's not super cut and dry. Were you gonna say something Zach?
Zach Stevens (39:00)
This one's interesting because the, I mean, take on names is that it is supposed to be the title to a story. It's not supposed to detail the story itself, or you could think about them as far as names of people. Like if we were to, instead of referring to Corey as Corey, if we referred to him as six foot four white man, you know, that's like, sorry, sorry, six foot three.
Nick Loudon (39:19)
I do that sometimes.
No, he's not six three. You're like six two. Come on.
Corey Haines (39:25)
I appreciate the extra inches
though.
Nick Loudon (39:29)
I can't believe he said four. Yeah, it's crazy. yeah. Okay, go on.
Corey Haines (39:31)
Maybe with boots on.
Zach Stevens (39:31)
Sorry, maybe I wasn't talking about his height.
And yeah, before I say something more cancelable, ⁓ but if like, doesn't mean anything, you know, like six foot four white guy is a very descriptive term of who you are, but it's not who you are. It isn't like, but your name has more meaning attached to it. And this is why I think people are scared of more unique names because they are different. like if Nick's name was Wolf or like the number seven that stands out, you know, it's like.
Nick Loudon (40:07)
Sick.
Zach Stevens (40:09)
It's it, there's, there's more of a story that you could tell with something like that. Uh, so I think the thing with names is to, I feel like you want your name to be associated with what you do, not to tell what you do. Cause you end up just digging yourself a hole that you eventually can't get out of. Like you get pigeonholed into being this one thing and it completely limits you from, um, expanding. I mean, we see this all the time now with like AI brands.
where they're like the name like AI is woven into their product. It's like, that's not the point. Like you're basing your name off of a feature and that's not good.
Nick Loudon (40:50)
⁓ don't get me started on AI. Bad idea. Okay. Let's move on. Okay, so we went through aesthetic symptoms, some sales and customer acquisition ones. Let's go into founder story. Can you intro me to what a founder story symptom is? Can you maybe clarify that for me?
Zach Stevens (40:54)
Yeah, we won't.
Yeah, well, the...
It's not just about the...
Like the success of your product and how it does monetarily. I think that that's nice. More importantly, I think that you should be able to enjoy working on your product and love your product as a separate entity apart from yourself and get joy out of creating it and have it be a part of you, but not so contingent upon like the monetary aspects of it. I mean, that's important, but I feel like you should feel confident and
love your brand. And you should be cool, like you should want to show up and work on it and improve on it every day. So that's what these are for, is having, I feel like having a brand helps you keep your story true to yourself and make you not hate the product that you've created.
Nick Loudon (42:10)
Yeah, this is like the deep connection that you have like I I want if I could I would just wear a conversion factory shirt every day or like the stickers that came in the mail like we ordered stickers and I was like Brittany can I put this on your car? She was like don't put a sticker on my car like no stickers and I was like this is my Company like I love this like this looks so good So I definitely understand and get kind of where you're going. The first symptom that is here is there's no clear brand story
Corey Haines (42:20)
you
Yeah
Zach Stevens (42:30)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Loudon (42:38)
or creation narrative that connects to the users. I kind of had like a larger question to tie into this, which is if a brand is truly like the vision and has what you're explaining about the founder story, if it has that, it all like, do you think it always has a better chance of connecting with users? Like if the founder loves to work on it, this, yes.
Zach Stevens (43:04)
Yes.
I think that if you have, authenticity just comes through always. This is why like pop music is so boring and lame because it was, it was written by somebody sung by somebody else. But then when you hear a song like Bohemian Rhapsody or Stairway to Heaven or, or I'm sure, mean, I bet SZA writes, I bet the ones that cook, the ones that cook are.
Nick Loudon (43:31)
scissor yeah there we go
Corey Haines (43:33)
Bully bear.
Zach Stevens (43:38)
are all hers.
Nick Loudon (43:39)
bonivaria
Zach Stevens (43:41)
But you know, it's like you have, you have a feeling of this doesn't feel right or like bad movies. It's like, I don't have any soul attached to this. There's this quote from
Robert Souther, and it's this, it's no tears in the author, no tears in the reader. And I think that you could say the same thing about people who are building products. If your heart's not in this, if you don't have this driving force that you're putting into your product that you show up every day and you're like, this is what I'm going for, that's when you're not playing at your best. And that's when
Nick Loudon (43:57)
Robert.
Zach Stevens (44:23)
you are not creating what you could. And when you have that brand story and the driving force, like you can see the vision, you can see how things are gonna change, you can see how the world's gonna be better. If you have that in your back pocket, you're gonna be able to show up a lot better every day, not only for yourself, but for your team and especially for your users.
Nick Loudon (44:42)
Dang dude, put that on a poster, that whole thing. Clip that, Michael, come on. No, I'm just kidding. The next one is doing everything your user asks you to, even if it goes against your vision for the product and how it'll impact the world. This seems like an obvious, like, dude, you can't just like, you can't make everybody happy. Like you have a vision, you have a mission, you have a brand. Like you have to do the things that fit within the mission and the vision.
Zach Stevens (44:45)
Hahaha
Yeah. I think that having the, having that defined why allows you to filter out the garbage. And especially when it feels tough to say no, like what if somebody wants to buy your company and they're a horrible company? Like they're a horrible, they're a terrible holding company that you believe is leaving a net negative impact on the world. And you're going to sell to them? You sure? Like that.
Having this story allows you to do things, maintain your convictions. The main reason that I wrote this was because of something like audience capture, where you feel like the user base is dictating your every move. But if it runs counter to what you want this product to do and the changes you want to see, and you still believe it's viable. Obviously, I'm not saying you should not listen to your users. I'm saying that you should work a happy medium and be a true leader and
establish what you will and will not compromise on and your brand helps you do that. Or defining your brand helps you do that.
Nick Loudon (46:15)
this case.
Yeah. So good. It ties into the next one like pretty darn tightly. So I'll just fly right through it, which is scattered focus, essentially. So trying to be everything for everyone, extend instead of excelling in one area, area. This is kind of like an adjacent one, I think to the last one, which is like, you know,
everything the user asks you to do you're trying to do. And this one is basically saying like, hey, you're trying to do all of the things instead of like focusing in on the one thing that is tied to your mission, tied to your vision, tied to your branding. I feel like the first one, I don't know, I think this one actually, I think I see more than the one before it.
Zach Stevens (46:56)
I guess the, one of the things that I hear all the time is we want to be professional, but also playful. And, you know, it's like, I'm like, why don't, why don't you, I mean, pick one, you know, and more often than not, it's like, particularly the word professional people just don't have a good grasp of what it means. when they think professional, they think very, you know, stodgy and, know, in a suit.
Nick Loudon (47:04)
You
corporate.
Yeah.
Zach Stevens (47:25)
corporate.
But what they, what they really mean is like trustworthy and trustworthiness comes in a multitude of forms. But when you're trying to be all these different things, as far as your brand is concerned, like, want to be luxurious and I want to be affordable and I want to be, you know, really high end, but I also don't want to intimidate people. It's a, have, you have to just freaking pick a thing and be
present the most authentic version of yourself all the time. Otherwise you just like you end up trying to live lies and you can't do that. Eventually the lies folded on themselves. But if you have focus and you understand this is how we're supposed to make people feel.
It's like blinders where everything else stays out of your purview and you're not gonna be annoyed and you're gonna be the best at making people feel that way as opposed to trying to incorporate all these different feelings.
Corey Haines (48:26)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Loudon (48:26)
Yeah,
it feels like it kind of goes back to something that Corey said a while back, like about like the visuals and the positioning not matching up. It's kind of like the same idea, like, we have this very like kind of serious and trustworthy and clean visual, you know, aesthetic. But then we have like we asked the copywriter to like
throw a bunch of exclamation points and other like weird jargony things in the copywriting. It's like these things are not connecting and you can't be everything for everyone and this doesn't make sense. So just like pick a side. It's totally fine. It's totally fine to pick one of those and go with it. But yeah, I don't know. It's kind of funny.
Zach Stevens (48:50)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Corey Haines (49:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like
Zach Stevens (49:06)
It's tough.
Corey Haines (49:07)
what you
said about like, like, go ahead. I'm liking.
Zach Stevens (49:07)
feel like people, people do.
No, please.
Corey Haines (49:13)
I was going say, like, you say like just pick one? Because I think a lot of people want to do both because they're scared of excluding someone or the consequences of if they pick one, then maybe, you know, they lose something. But, ⁓ then you end up, that's when you really end up looking and sounding like everyone else is when you try to be too appealing and because you're playing it too safe.
Zach Stevens (49:38)
Yeah.
Corey Haines (49:42)
It takes guts. It takes cojones to be like, Nope, this is what we're doing. This is going to be a lot different. This is going to be very focused, very exclusionary in some senses. It's not going to appeal to everybody. It's not going to represent everything we want it to, but it's going to represent the most important things we want. And that's what really stands out.
Zach Stevens (49:45)
Yeah.
Nick Loudon (49:49)
you
Zach Stevens (50:04)
Yeah, I mean, and there's always spillover effect too. You know, everybody worries about the exclusionary aspects of it. My favorite example is Harley Davidson, which is, know, Harley Davidson. Does any part of that scream 40 year old IT consultant? Any part of Harley, like the way they talk about themselves, even their product. No, none of it. So why are there so many 40 year old IT consultants that buy Harley's?
Nick Loudon (50:24)
Hmm.
Harley's
are sick dude.
Zach Stevens (50:34)
because Harleys are freaking sick.
It's almost like you see the brand as, like, that person believes that and I can get behind that. That's genuine. I don't have to like it, but even if I don't buy it, I damn sure respect it. And I know that I can't get them to change. And that's something that I admire.
Nick Loudon (50:47)
Mm-hmm.
This is the same things that gravitate us towards human beings, which is like, you sometimes meet that guy and you're like, dude, he just, anybody, know, he's everyone to anybody. He kind of like, yeah.
Zach Stevens (50:59)
Mm-hmm.
You just meet that guy, he holds the door open for you. He gets
you the right bottle of wine. He opened, you know, he holds your hand.
Nick Loudon (51:11)
Or you
talk, okay, shut up. No, like, you know, like what he's saying to you. And he's like, dude, totally. Like he totally agrees with you. He might say the same thing to someone else who has a totally different view. But like, there's some people that it's like, I'm just getting like, you're just you, you're you right now. And then when I leave, you're still going to be you, you're not going to change. Like that is the brand. Like you want to be on that line. That's like, this is exactly what it is. But
Zach Stevens (51:37)
Yeah, what's that? There's
Corey Haines (51:37)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Stevens (51:38)
a there's a line from the office when they're at Chili's It's like one of my favorite things. I forget the actor's name, but he was on SNL He's the guy from the school board and they're talking about Jan Jan Levin's. Yeah, Tim Meadows. Thank you And he's like man you you showed you showed your skin. You showed your true colors. You said World, here's my blood. It's red. What else do you want?
Nick Loudon (51:50)
yeah, Tim Meadows.
Zach Stevens (52:05)
I think about that line all the time.
Corey Haines (52:05)
Yeah.
Nick Loudon (52:08)
So good, yeah. I'd also like to make sure it's recorded that Corey Haines' advice on branding is have cajones. Okay, I don't want to miss that. He did say that. So I want to make sure that's reiterated. Okay, there's good.
Corey Haines (52:21)
I stand by that. Yeah. I think there's, there's something to,
there's also something to, like an aspiration when you said like, how many 40 year old IT consultants do you know who are, ⁓ you know, do remind you of Harley Davidson? It's like none, but there are probably a lot of 40 year old IT consultants who like Harley Davidson and maybe even buy one because it makes them feel
aspirationally how they want to. Maybe they don't like their brand of being like, I'm a 40 year old IT consultant. They want to feel bad ass and young and rebellious again. And so they buy a Harley Davidson and kind of buy into that brand as a way to kind of, ⁓ you know, fashion on themselves, kind of
Nick Loudon (52:53)
Yeah.
Zach Stevens (52:55)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Loudon (53:00)
Yeah.
Yeah.
kill
their old self. Yeah, they're like trade in the Prius. I'm done with the Prius life. I'm moving on.
Corey Haines (53:14)
Yeah.
Right. They're rebranding
themselves in a way. I think the same thing happens though. Even with software happens with clothes. It happens with a lot of other purchases. If you're Mac or PC, so on and so forth where it's like, are you trying to become more of a power user? Cool. Like this is the tool for you. Now you're going to feel like, wow, there's so many tools at my disposal. Maybe not everyone wants to feel that way. Um, you can take that analogy to a bunch of other, you know, areas.
Zach Stevens (53:22)
Mmm.
Corey Haines (53:45)
but I think there's something cool about the aspirational. Like I'm going to buy this because this is the direction that I want to go.
Zach Stevens (53:53)
Kit did something like that quite recently. Their current headline is for creators who mean business. And that's a fantastic headline because it speaks volumes. It's like, we are a creative person who wants to use their creativity to make money. And that's way different than what everybody else is positioning themselves as. ⁓ so I think that that's, that's a good example of, of that narrowed focus that it's like, you're a creator.
Corey Haines (54:08)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Zach Stevens (54:22)
Create a person. You also want to make money.
Nick Loudon (54:25)
Yeah. Okay, we have one more. So let's close out with one more. This is a one word symptom. The symptom is confidence. This is like kind of like just thrown out. So I want to just like let you explain what do mean when you just put confidence in here.
Zach Stevens (54:26)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Maybe I should have put lack thereof.
Nick Loudon (54:43)
Yeah, I was like, this
is a, this is an opposite. No confidence. Yeah.
Zach Stevens (54:47)
Yeah,
I think hearkening a little bit back to the embarrassment that we talked about with aesthetics, I think that...
you're gonna work on this brand and this product for years. Shouldn't you feel good about it? Like in all aspects, especially the way that you look. When I talk about this and I have presentations, I give this side by side photo to my favorite photos of all time. And it's this charity group that did makeovers for homeless people who were seeking jobs.
and what they would do is they'd take them, they'd go give them a shower, they would give them a haircut, they would put them in a really nice suit. And so there's this picture of this really frazzled, looks kinda strung out guy with unkempt hair. He's got dirt on him and a jacket that doesn't fit, like a weatherproof jacket. And on the picture right next to him,
He's in a perfectly tailored suit with a color that matches his skin tone wonderfully. His beard's trimmed and his hair's combed and cut. And the best part is that he's smiling. And in the previous picture, he's not. He's not happy with who he is. But simply by getting a shower and getting a new set of clothes, it boosts your confidence. And if I can give founders that little bit of
extra help like, look man, you got this. Look at you. You look sharp. You know, let's go. That's, think the, you look sharp, you sound sharp. Everything's going to be okay. I think that that's the most important piece of nailing your brand is that you have confidence in yourself.
Nick Loudon (56:28)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Corey Haines (56:36)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Loudon (56:45)
So good. Preach it dude. Preach it.
Corey Haines (56:45)
Yeah. Yeah. I think for
a, for a startup student, mean, one of the biggest things you can do to boost team morale and performance is having a good brand because the opposite having a brand that no one really cares about, or is even frankly, a little bit embarrassed of. No one wants to show up in the company t-shirts. No one wants to hand out the swag. No one wants to go point and say, Oh, that's our booth over there. You should go talk to us. No one says, um,
you know, no one shows up confident and sort of like with swagger, right? ⁓ but when the whole team is on board and it's like, we look freaking dope and like where this is, you know what I mean? It comes a lot off a lot differently and, ⁓ totally changes the dynamic of a sales call showing up at a conference, ⁓ having team off sites and retreats, ⁓ hosting dinners.
Nick Loudon (57:27)
Yeah.
Corey Haines (57:44)
everything in person with your potential customers.
Nick Loudon (57:49)
Yeah, like even family like telling family friends what you do like, yeah, I work at XYZ and it's amazing. They're freaking sick
Zach Stevens (57:57)
Well, it's like the, the little business card leave- behinds that we had. ⁓ I feel like that's one of the most conversion factory things I've ever produced. That cause it, I mean, it had humor. It was minimal in its design and. ⁓ sure. Sorry. Should have done that. I think I might have one actually.
Nick Loudon (58:06)
Mm-hmm.
Corey Haines (58:14)
explain what it is.
Nick Loudon (58:23)
My box is up there. I can get it. It's arms reach if you want.
Zach Stevens (58:25)
you
Corey Haines (58:26)
I know, like, where's my box?
Zach Stevens (58:28)
Yeah, do
it, grab it. Because I mean, part of this will be on video so we can actually show people.
So for those who were just listening, what it is, is it's a our tried and true conversion factory blue. It's just our, no, it's actually facing normal for us. With our logo in the bottom right corner and our red accent that we always do. And on the back, it says, I think it's 64 times or 68.
Nick Loudon (58:40)
going to be backwards.
Okay, it's just me.
Do you want me to count?
Zach Stevens (59:01)
I'm pretty sure it's 64. And it just says really, really, really times 64 good marketing. But to say a statement like that, you can't be wishy washy on who you are. You know, I could have said we will increase revenue by, you know, 400 % or you will get this and you will have, you know, ⁓ look at all of our customer satisfaction. This is what we have.
Corey Haines (59:02)
So, I'm a little bit further, Nick.
Nick Loudon (59:04)
further.
Zach Stevens (59:30)
Instead of just showing up and being ourselves and it's people pick it up. They laugh at it and it leads to calls. there's everything about that from a personality standpoint and a branding standpoint is genuine and worthwhile. The cool part is as well is that it didn't take a lot of effort. Like I was just dicking around one day in, in Figma and decided I'm just going to type out really 64 times.
And it's going to be hilarious. And it's going to be our business card. Oh, is it 68? Okay.
Nick Loudon (1:00:01)
68 I counted it's what
60 it's like an eight by eight and then there's like four more and then it says good marketing but yeah I love these things these are like fun to hand out to people and they're like it's cool like yeah anyway
Zach Stevens (1:00:10)
Yeah.
You
Corey Haines (1:00:17)
It leaves an impression. I had multiple people
email me about them and complimenting them.
Nick Loudon (1:00:23)
So they were really, really, really, really, really good. I knew it. Okay, we've been talking for a while. So we're gonna wrap up, but this was super awesome. I love doing like more in-depth focus on, you know, one of our areas of expertise. So that was really fun. Thank you, Zach, for all the insights. And yeah, I'm excited for this. Stay tuned for what we got next time. It's gonna be great. And thanks for listening. We'll talk to you guys later.
Zach Stevens (1:00:26)
Yeah.