Jake Van Buschbach 0:01
Yep, I think we're good. Okay, so Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us today on Wednesday. Hope you're having a great day. My name is Jake from umbrella IT services. And today we're gonna be talking about branding your business with a good friend of mine, Kevin Adel. So I'd like to thank Kevin very much for coming on today. And before we begin, I do have to do the YouTuber thing here and just ask you to please leave a like on this video, it really helps us out. And if you'd like to see more videos like this, then please subscribe to the channel. If you have a suggestion for a future video, please leave a comment below in the description or send me an email directly at Tech Tips at umbrella it services.ca. So now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'm really focusing today on refining the brand of your business. So refining the brand of your business is something that can be intimidating for people. And for me personally, it's something I've struggled with for years. So thankfully today we've got Kevin on with us, and he's going to help us shed some light on this topic. So again, I'd like to give Kevin a big Thank you for coming on today. And we're going to be discussing things like how to start thinking about branding changes of the industry over the last decade, where to spend your time and intention as a business owner, what does authentic branding look like? And we're going to go into a couple of other topics. So again, thank you, Kevin. And how's your day going so far?
Kevin Adlparvar 1:18
Please Me, Jake. He's going good. He's good. That's good.
Jake Van Buschbach 1:23
That's awesome. As usual, it's a pleasure to speak with you, man. I always learn a lot whenever we sit down, whether it's Starbucks or my office, or your office or anywhere. It's always great talking. So I'm very excited to kind of jump into this today. pleasure, thanks for having me. No worries. So what is it exactly that drew you to branding in the first place?
Kevin Adlparvar 1:44
So I'm sure it gets a little bit about myself. I started in InDesign. I mean, my path was very intent on going into architecture out of high school. I interned for a design firm And, and then came to Vancouver and went to Emily Carr. I didn't finish it Emily Carr I dropped out after, after some time and I took a year off to volunteer and kind of find myself, whatever. But the reason I talked about that is because I always kind of had that, that artistic background and that creative mindset. So I ended up before going back to school, I thought, you know what, I should get a job before I get back into it. And, and I ended up in sales, which led me to, to spending a couple years with with BMW. And while I was at BMW, I was at the number one volume store in Canada. And I realized that you know, of the 1516, and one salespeople, six or seven of them had been there for 20 years, and then practically everybody else had been there for somewhere between five and 15 years. And so what that meant for me was a lot of people walking in the door or calling in the store. Either bought from one of these veterans or had been referred to one of them, you know, somebody that you had bought from them. So I had to figure out how to get people in front of me. And so I didn't I didn't know necessarily what branding was, you know, I, I guess by way of the the car business I kind of heard about some of the big guys in you know, motivational sales marketing speak. And so I kind of had a little bit of influence. But I got in touch with the, you know, the marketing team was upstairs in the ivory tower. And one of the guys came down and started helping me think about thinking about how to market and so one of the ways that I did that was through email marketing campaigns. And so I knew nothing about you know, marketing campaigns, then nothing more or, you know, response rates or open rates or any of this stuff. And so, I started taking lists of upcoming service appointments, and and we'll break them down Excel spreadsheets, and then applying them to email templates and sending them out. And so, you know, I titled The the email, you know, Brian just a BMW service appointment, whatever the day was, and then the email would look something like, you know, Dear Mr. Customer, Mr. Mrs. Customer, I took keen interest in your upcoming services serve are looking through a list of upcoming service appointments and took keen interest in your you know, your BMW model. You know, with the incentives the end of the year yada yada, I wanted to offer our valued service customers the first chance these incentives, are you open to discussing trading your car for something new while you're here on, you know, day of the point. So I had all that in Excel, and it just auto filled. And so the first day I sent out probably about 12 or 15 emails, and I got a response rate of about 50%. One of them said, you know, No, thanks. Thanks for checking in and everybody else who responded said Yes, I'd love this. So I very quickly learned that Okay, there are other ways To get people in front of you. So effectively, I built my first sales funnel, though I didn't know what that was. Yeah. Another thing I did was I started, I started working with a company based in San Francisco who ran, you know, some Instagram support algorithms. And so, you know, I paid them a couple hundred bucks a month, and we started looking at, you know, what they would supposedly do, I don't know how, how true it is. I didn't write the code. But basically, you know, they would like, comment and and follow. And so the parameters under which that happened, we consulted on so one of the things was, I troll, I chose 100 locations in and around the lower mainland. So anything from a premium car dealership, to you know, Rogers, big stadiums, high end restaurants, high end, you know, shopping districts, to any one of those businesses, if somebody liked or followed one of those pages. You know, supposedly, again, I don't know how effective it was, or how true how honest they were. About how it worked, but it would go in and like and comment, there was a list of generic comments, like, nice page, so on and so forth. I loved the post that it replied. And so for me, you know, at the time, it was a couple hundred bucks a month. And, you know, to my way of thinking, I thought if one if I get one deal a month out of this, it'll pay itself off. And so that's kind of where I started thinking about marketing. And I realized that
actually, I'm much more interested in figuring out
how to get people's interests and get them in front of me than I was at closing Cardinals. And I was better at it. And so I left and and I went into, I went to Audi. I work in finance, after a few months, or, you know, finance office in our dealership on finance for Audi, Canada or anything. So I left after that. spent a couple months there and then business partner and I went into into another space and I kind of ran in the in the way of like the marketing rollback company. So I did that for about 1011 months. And then I decided I worked for e commerce sites and and I got in touch with a friend who'd been in the space for about 20 years in different forums. And that's when I started to build campaigns, build sales funnels, mostly for e commerce clients. And we also did stuff like automotive lead generation, and we sold the dealerships. But But anyway, kind of that's the path right? And so why I was, I guess drawn to it is because it, it blended these two notions of, you know, how to gain people's interest, how to how to build business, how to do all these solve these problems are really interesting to me, as well as, you know, looking at it through the lens of creativity and kind of understanding that as much as we try and make this a science. It's never fully a science. So that is an extremely long answer to your question.
Jake Van Buschbach 7:57
Yeah, there's a lot there. Um, so I know For sure that the Steve Jobs opening there, where you went to the college, that you kind of got the formal education of it, as you said, you ended up dropping out, you did the self exploration and the same thing as Steve Jobs did, which I always find interesting. And then you went into the real world and got the direct sales experience, and kind of got that reality check and went into the more personal loyalty side of things is what I've learned from our previous conversations is that direct sales is too robotic. It's too disconnected for what your approaches, and I've noticed that you always kind of focus on how can you build brand loyalty? How can you make sure that who you're talking to is someone that wants to be in front of you and vice versa? And how can you really form a relationship with these people long term? Is it would you say that's a pretty good summation of your your approach to things?
Kevin Adlparvar 8:51
I definitely would say that, really the Steve Jobs is not a good summation.
I appreciate that. But
Jake Van Buschbach 8:59
anyone who drops out a College I always just say it's the Steve Jobs thing because you went into the system it wasn't that you took the time off. I did drop out of college.
Kevin Adlparvar 9:07
So yeah, I mean
a little bit more on that point maybe about about direct sales, you know, what I, what I thought was exclusive to the car business, you know, this old mode of thinking, you know, insert cheesy line here, like, you know, now is the time you know, last day of sale, we only have three units left like all this stuff that is very much pressure focused. And, and you got to do this now. I mean, look, there's there's some kind of like, there's definitely a lot of
logic and experience
backs a lot of these theories and approaches to selling things and you know, earning earning revenue. Based on the sale of products or services, I personally, I think that and I'm definitely the first person who said, and it's been talked about for a couple years now, but I think that it's very, very much changing. I mean, all you know, consumer trust is certainly at an all time low.
You know, we look at,
we look at, at, you know, for example, Instagram 10 years ago, you know, you could start an account, you could throw up, you know, a photo of a nice car, and, you know, Photoshop yourself in a nice hotel room or on a beach somewhere that has some cigars and, you know, some Gucci shoes or whatever, the 50 cents.
Jake Van Buschbach 10:41
Was that the 50 cents approach?
Kevin Adlparvar 10:44
Yeah, that's it. He said, Oh, you know, no offense, he said, but,
but basically, you know,
I can crap this image and yeah,
though, that thinking certainly exists. The reality is that what works then no longer works? Yeah.
And, you know, I followed people Who for a new decade have been extremely consistent
with their content extremely consistent with their messaging, you know, brought people along for the ride the whole way. And still, you have so many people who question, you know, will say things like this guy's faking it is all a lie. And it's like, you know, it's certainly a reflection of the time. But, but that's kind of what interested me more in branding. It wasn't that I don't believe in sales anymore. It was more that how people are thinking about being sold to has been changed.
Jake Van Buschbach 11:35
Yeah. So as you mentioned, you've been tracking stuff for a long time and you've seen a lot of changes happening. How do you recommend people get started nowadays now that things are so the market is so saturated? And there's so much distrust like if you even mentioned like a corporation says x? Most people immediately say, Okay, well if a corporation saying it, therefore is evil. So how do you recommend that people can To get started with developing their brand strategy during these kind of turmoil, like these kind of confusing and saturated times, because I know for myself speaking from experience, I'm always afraid that if I put a message out one, it's going to be considered too cheesy, like you said, like, oh, we're running out of things. This urgent call to action is coming on too strong. And then I'm afraid that if we're just posting generic information, it's not going to be helping people, which is why I'm so happy about this YouTube opportunity, being able to interview experts like Gabby last week, yourself this week, Kevin coming in from yardstick services next week about WordPress design and this kind of stuff. So I feel personally like education is the best way to do things. But from there, I have no idea what to do when it comes to developing a branding strategy. So what what do you usually recommend people do to get started nowadays?
Unknown Speaker 12:58
You know what I work with when I work With,
Kevin Adlparvar 13:01
with with clients,
I think one of the most important things, Jake is is kind of getting getting to a place where I feel like we're on the same page and where they feel like we're on the same page. And a lot of that comes from kind of downloading onto them my mode of thinking, where am I insight from where I get my perspectives from? Who I'm who I'm listening to. And, and one of the things that has really stuck out for me over the last couple of years I've been looking at this is this idea of documentation. And, and why I say that is because look, you know, with, you know, supposing all the things that we've just talked about consumer trust being true, you know, how, how is it that we then can present an image that is authentic, or at least as authentic as possible, to to kind of draw attention from people that actually like us or want to buy our products and services. And it's difficult, of course, it's difficult and and what I'm going to suggest is was very difficult. But one of the things that stuck out to me the most is is this idea of documentation, documenting the process. And the reason for that is, you know, if you, for example, have, you know, several hours a week of long form video content that you documented it becomes a lot easier to break that up. So let's look at let's look at its advantages for one it's, it's authentic, it's, I mean, what is authenticity anyway, but but it's, it's pretty. It's much more interesting and much more real and honest than, let's say, every day, I wake up in the morning and I think, Okay, I got to post something. What's going to be interesting today? Yeah, we're gonna post something 10 times a day, what is going to be interesting what is going to retain people's people's confidence people's interest in us as a brand and so when you As long form content, it becomes a lot easier to be honest. And it gives you much larger pool to play with. So if you have two or three hours of content a day or you know, a couple hours a week, then you can say, Okay, well, not only can I break up three hours into hundreds of small video clips, in editing, I can also take photos from it, I can take gifts out of it, I can write articles based on things I've said I can take, you know, let's say you do like a podcast like this, I can create an audio form on on on, you know, Spotify or iTunes or something else. And, and what you'll find over time, is that you attract people who are interested in you're interested in your brand. And, yes, it's not going to win everybody over but I think we're kind of past that, that my opinion is we're past that stage of branding or marketing as a as a ploy to get everybody to like us. Especially with with what's going on the world. Right now, we see that it is impossible to have everyone like you. Yeah.
Jake Van Buschbach 16:07
Okay, perfect. So it sounds to me like step one is again, forget about, again chasing your market. Just be authentic broadcast things that are interesting to you. And your market will actually find you as long as you stay consistent with your messaging. So I cracked
Kevin Adlparvar 16:26
Yes, to an extent. I mean, the only thing I would kind of have issue with is this idea of consistency. Because, look, if you're consistent in putting out honest content, I think that that is that is going to you know, authentic content, stuff that that's real. That's not necessarily scripted. If you're consistent in that, that is that's what I think that's where I think that makes sense.
Jake Van Buschbach 16:49
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Okay. And if you're, let's say that I started doing this as I've been doing it now for about three weeks and I'm posting when every Wednesday every Friday How would I be able to tell that my branding strategy is working? So, for example, I can see that my numbers are on an upward trend, which is great. But what if, you know people do get anxious about this stuff, just, especially if you're doing something with a professional marketer like yourself or like Gabby, or other professionals out there, where you're spending $1,000 a month on on their management of the campaign? How do you recommend people kind of think about and how do they track their progress with this stuff? I know documentation is key, that you can see what's actually going on. And you can say, Okay, last month, we had these results. This month, we're having these results, but what do you recommend for people who are trying to track their progress as it were? or How can they see that their strategy is working?
Kevin Adlparvar 17:44
If we look at companies like, you know, massive companies like say, you know, Unilever or Nike or Pepsi, the reality is that the amount of data that they have and the amount of people working on that data And the amount of technology they have that assist them in analyzing that data is is massive. And, and insights can certainly be drawn. You know, for for a lot of people, including myself, before I got into this space, I'm always looking at, you know, what is my ROI? How much am I spending? Or, you know, how much am I getting back based on what I'm spending? If I'm going to spend 1000 bucks a month, or to spend, you know, 10 k a month on on branding or marketing, you know, what is it? What am I going to start to see a return? Look, it's, you know, the first thing I'll say is it's always very case dependent. And there's never going to be a blanket answer. But it's certainly a it's certainly a challenge for small business owners, because they don't necessarily have that time. their budgets are really tight. They're more concerned about, you know, getting more leads this month or this or next week, or, you know, six months down the line, whatever the timeline is. get very protective of our money when we don't have a lot of it. The reality that I believe is that it's just one of those really uncomfortable things to be patient for. But the sooner you get started, the better it's going to be for you long term. Maybe you decide that you don't want to be online whatsoever. I'm sure there's you know, you've got your reasons for that. But But you know, the benefit the other benefit I would say is like now with with these social media platforms, there's it's really easy to get analytics. So you know, watching those things are certainly important. Like you're you sort of need to like what like, what is it costing you to do this YouTube channel and put it into podcasts? Yeah,
Jake Van Buschbach 19:45
just time really. Like that's the only thing that I'm really doing. It takes me probably, probably an hour to two hours to do a prep for an interview like this. And then the webinars probably took me four hours of prep time to do it. Like a presentation on something, so I can definitely but I am documenting things as you mentioned. So I will be able to eventually hand this off to someone else. And they'll be able to take over this role and continue doing this, should it pick up and begin allowing us to develop, again, a community around the company and enabling revenue growth and all these kind of things. But yeah, I'd say probably about six hours a week. Eight hours total. I think, if we include the time it takes to actually record the webinar, record the interview, posted all that stuff, Cole. Yeah, exactly. So about eight hours a week out of my 60. stores. Yeah. So I would say probably, yeah, I think probably eight hours a week out of my 60 Hour Workweek. So nothing crazy.
Kevin Adlparvar 20:46
Right? You know, for some people, it's not a lot for some people might be a lot. You know, what does that do? Look, I personally think what you're doing is is one of the greatest ways to go because not only is it authentic, in You know, you're, you're you're having conversations with people. It's also it's also interesting because you're bringing in people that you know, or people you've worked with or friends of yours. And so there's kind of that element. Look as you go, certainly I would I would encourage different ways of promoting what you're doing, you know, get get the podcast guest to to kind of to plug it, get yourself you know, make sure you're plugging yourself, putting it on LinkedIn putting on other places it is going to be it is going to be a little by little thing. You're going to develop a you're going to develop a base for sure. It might happen that it takes, you know, five years to get a really a lot of attention. It might it might be that it takes a couple months. There's just so many variables that are not are not able to be analyzed or have insights drawn from them by small business owners.
Jake Van Buschbach 21:56
Yeah. So how do you recommend that people kind of To build this brand is it by creating original authentic content like this? Is it best for them to just pick a platform and run with it? When we spoke with Gabby last week, she mentioned that a good idea is to look at where your audience is. So you need to kind of Before you begin, you need to think about, okay, if I'm going to be targeting lawyers or accountants or as creatives or young entrepreneurs, whoever it is that you're going after, you have to say, Where are these people located, you then pick your platforms, you create the content to best suit that platform while maintaining that authentic message, and then analyzing the data, a B testing and then just waiting. What would you recommend people do is that seems to me like that was a very good strategy, but I know you have a slightly different outlook on things and you're always thinking outside the box but what do you recommend for people getting started?
Kevin Adlparvar 22:52
Certainly, I mean, you know there's if you're a business owners had your had your business for some time, you're definitely gonna know something. With your customers. And so and so, now looking at looking at, where do they spend their time? Are there are there? Are there similarities? Are there kind of insights I can draw around where they, you know, what they're what their interests are beyond, you know, my product or service. That's definitely definitely a good way to look. It's difficult. I mean, that's one of those things that you gain more insight into as you go, you know, you'll you'll only know more about that as you kind of get the experience which is why I say starting as early as possible. Now, whether that is whether that is starting to understand your analytics on different platforms, whether that is you know, hiring hiring company come in and help you. Whether that is you know, just doing a lot of research on your own, following people in this space. They're all important, but I think I think The most important thing and kind of my heart that I want to express is that this is this is more than 10% of your budget, you know, quote, unquote, this is more than Okay, all I have to do is think about spending 10% of my budget is very, very common on to think about as percent of my budget on marketing. And what I take issue with is not the percentage of the amount of money or rather, the, the kind of tendency to want to just brush it off as something that's not important. building your brand is more important than ever these days. You know, even Jeff Bezos right now is, is you know, screenshotting emails of people who've called in and I swear, I'm not gonna get political but but people who have emailed in and said things, you know, in in there against him supporting, you know, with a cause, for example, and he'll screenshot his response and tries to grab, you know, that's, that's so much more valuable than running an Amazon ad. So So yeah, very, very interesting times. Again, all I want to say is that it's I think it's really important that we think about it. Think about where customers are coming from. And, you know, be curious about Are you truly intellectually curious about where your customers are coming from and how to how to meet them where they're at
Jake Van Buschbach 25:18
now, that that actually brings up a good point, speaking about the political stuff. Is there such a thing as good branding and bad branding? Because I know, for example, right now we have all of this, these crazy tensions going on. There's a lot of problems in the world that that need to be resolved and dealt with. And a lot of people I see are either in my camp or I don't think my business has any right to discuss topics that are going on with any community at any time. I think my business's job is to live it deliver it services to people. And my business's job is to indiscriminately empower employees and clients to do whatever they need to do. I don't think my business needs to be getting involved with any of that stuff. And then on the other side of the coin, I see a lot of these companies like Under Armour and Nike And Citibank Goldman Sachs people with not exactly good histories of helping people that are very much pushing the current BLM stuff. They were pushing the Coronavirus thing quite heavily. And they get involved in a lot of these campaigns on both sides of the aisle. And I always wonder is that is there a such thing as good branding and bad branding? Or is it the old saying where all press is good press? So I'm curious to kind of hear your thoughts on is it? Have you noticed any sort of negative pushback, for example, I see right now I think it's the Vancouver candle co guy. He came out and there was a lot of racist text messages that he was sending off. And, but for me, I just heard of a Vancouver candle coat. Now I know that the guy who was running it was a racist piece of shit. But that allegedly, but I also found out that he was an intern. He was a gay man and interracial marriage, which I know appeals to a lot of my friends. So, again, is there such thing as good branding and bad branding here? What do you think? a loaded question. Yeah, I know. It's very sensitive. So yeah, I apologize for that.
Kevin Adlparvar 27:15
No, no, it's okay. Look, before.
Before we get into that, to answer your question, is there good banding bread? Is there good branding and bad? branding? Yes, I 100% think that there's good branding and bad branding. Now. For example, if you look at all, you know, a large majority of business pages on Instagram, they will have hired somebody, whether it's somebody that's not very experienced and just clocking in paycheck or somebody who is you know, your, your your niece or nephew or daughter who's 24 or 25 years old, and knows how to run Instagram better. I think that most of those pages have very similar type of content. It's You know, quotes, with with, you know, your, your color and your logo in the corner.
Or
what's another really common one, but you know, tips and tricks like there's, you know, just just as some examples, it's really don't and it's really boring. And, look, it's not easy to create a very unique brand. Which is why I kind of go towards this idea of documenting your process documenting your story, because it's much more interesting to see somebody build a business than it is, you know, to hear about or to read a quote. Yeah. Oh, great, James. Unreal. It is put out this inspirational quote. I couldn't give two to two shakes of a stick, right? Yeah. And so looking at that compared to Okay, Jake is, you know, breaking into this space or he's already doing this this morning. Or, you know, this is kind of the office vibe. Adam roll it, I think definitely is not going to get everyone's attention. A lot of people won't care but at least the people who are interested in that, it'll it'll get them a lot more loyal leaders to kind of hang on. As for as for, you know, relevance to kind of what's going on and and taking issue with political sides of the aisle. Look, I mean, I think, I think what I can say is certainly that there are there are trends, it's trending towards being really clear on who you are as a company, or what you as a company believe in.
Jake Van Buschbach 29:39
So it is important to express those beliefs then if it is truly something that you do support, you would recommend that the people again express themselves honestly without hesitation, like, again, I'm not the type of person to shy away from a question or conversation, which is why, again, the political stuff I'm always happy to discuss it openly and make sure everyone He's going to be able to get hurt at the same time. So that's really interesting to hear. So in terms of the good branding again, like it sounds like it falls back to what you said initially is one of your staples, which is be genuine, be authentic. No one cares about your quote that you can see on every other basic Instagram page, it's much more important to highlight what it is that you're currently experiencing. So even though to myself I think it might be irrelevant, that people understand like, Okay, I'm going to be doing my first bit of marketing. This is something I'm struggling with, etc. Or when I first started the business in a bedroom closet, fixing phone screens, I do regret not documenting that more. And I feel like you are correct where if I was able to share that stuff earlier, I feel like if I had been documenting the process and sharing that with the world I feel like I would have been able to help a lot more versions of myself that are now five years behind. You know, I mean, like that's because that's kind of the the motivation for me to do these videos is to help other business owners And help nonprofits and help these people. But it's also to find and help me five years ago, because I know that if I could have seen, okay, it is possible to go up against a big company like apple and fix their phones faster, better, cheaper, and you can do it using these methods. That would have been hugely beneficial for me to see someone else doing that. That's one of the reasons why I like watching Lewis Rossman, who is a YouTuber from New York City who runs a repair shop so much. He goes on his YouTube channel and he'll he'll literally just to start cussing Apple out. He's showed laptops that have human fluids inside of them that he has to fix, and he curses and he's very genuine. And I've watched him go from 1000 subscribers four or five years ago when I started watching him. Now he's over a million I believe. And it's the same thing with Eli, the computer guy who's another rough around the edges kind of kind of guy, and sometimes they dip into the political stuff, but for the most part they stick to their little corner of the internet which is computer repair and computer education and watching their journey and watching Louis go from having his one employee and having a shitty repair equipment to now having a brand new store in New York City in the financial district and watching Eli the computer guy travel around the world and his van with his wife and his two dogs, as he does these computer seminars like it is I very much have this parasocial relationship with the guys where I'm like, Oh, I know this person, even though I don't know the first thing about them. It could be a total act, I do feel a connection to their content and when they're posting things. As another business owner, I'm like, okay, what's Lewis talking about today? What can I pick up from him? What can I learn? What can I read in the comments that other business owners and other tech enthusiasts are commenting and it does kind of create this good relationship. So even though the messaging I don't agree with it all the time, like you said, You can't please everybody. Just the documentation and the trail of content that he's created is enough for me to be able to share the links with other people. And then they'll kind of get sucked into the wormhole. And all of a sudden, I can watch two hours of this guy's content while I'm working or listen to it, like you said in the podcast. And all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh, now I know that if I'm working on a MacBook, I need to keep this in mind. And I need to know that this 2015 MacBook is very likely to have are a better example we have 2017 Mac, MacBook Pro, is very likely to have a video cable malfunction because Apple made the cable one or two millimeters too short. So when you open the screen, it's going to pull on the cable a lot after you do that 1000 times it's going to break. I wouldn't have learned that unless I had been following Louis and I wouldn't be following Louis, if he wasn't such a genuine guy. If he was this. What's the word if he was the sanitized corporate spokesman where he put up a video that was just like, live your life? Live laugh, love. I would have been like, Okay, I'm gone. I'm out of here but because he's this rough guy who's just like, I don't know this piece of shit won't fucking work. What am I do about it? No. It's like, Okay, well, let's hear what this guy has to say like, This is hilarious. Like, this is very interesting seeing this guy go up against apple and these other things. So what what would be an example you think of bad branding? Other than just the generic stuff? Like, is there any tips you can give people for content creation?
Kevin Adlparvar 34:22
No, I mean, yes, I think, I think Sorry, just to just to rip off your last kind of point there. I think you're right on the ball. And and in fact, I would, I would probably pause it that there's also an aspect of entertainment that exists when you watch Eli, because you've formed that relationship with them. I'm sure you're not you're only looking to it for correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you're probably not only watching it for the insight, but also it's entertaining. Absolutely. It's entertaining and and you know, you've you've developed kind of a relationship with them. In this you know very new
I guess mobile way
What does in terms of what what else? What examples of bad branding I could give I mean look
Jake Van Buschbach 35:17
or good branding you know either way just just examples or yeah yeah yeah
Kevin Adlparvar 35:22
you know i don't know i don't know jacket done very well but I've seen
their ads around the center if you're not to make Hoover their local radio station I think that are they Vancouver based I think they are they've had a lot of
you know, bus stop ads and and you know, on the on the side of buses and it's just like very funny stuff. They're like, you know, stuff like what's what was one of those like, we don't mind being your fifth favorite first or your fifth first fader radio station. So I just like like, kind of very like, you know, selfless self deprecating stuff. Yeah, like they know they're not the best. They know not everybody loves them. Yeah. Look, I I don't know if it's necessarily, you know, I don't know if it's working for them. But But that's an example of like, stuff that I find that I find funny. So like, if you look at, for example, why why we're kind of, in the age that we are from, from my perspective, you know, of course, being in being an advertising I, I love the show Mad Men. And so one of the things that happened in, you know, as they did, because they document, you know, period in history. So one of the things that happened was, it went from purely print to, you know, being on TV, and then the way that technology came in, the way that computers became really a significant force to be reckoned with was that they started, for example, looking at they started creating algorithms that could for example, match up an ad, let's say for lemonade, I think this is one of these ads. But maybe not perfectly on it. But, you know, lemonade. And they saw that there was one ad for lemonade at a TV at a commercial break, right after the scene in the TV show was a guy, you know, chewing on a sour lemon and, and him being like totally against it because his face was, you know, he's like, Oh my gosh, like, this is terrible, so sour, whatever it was. And then it was an ad for lemonade. So like people, we can't have that next to each other, because people are going from one association to another, and therefore, they're not going to like our lemonade. And so that's kind of when that's when, when context became really important. And as we kind of go on in the different platforms, I mean, what marketers do is we ruin things. We use a platform until it's no longer it's no longer people are no longer receptive on it. And you know, email marketing 25 years ago was extremely effective. Now, how many emails Do you get in the morning, Jake? I think like 65 a day usually I actually read right?
Jake Van Buschbach 37:57
Yeah, no, I that's my thing is I open it up and it says like, This morning, I think it was like 6567 emails. And I go, Okay, how many of these are from people I actually give a shit about and what subjects are actually engaging. And I'll go through and I'll delete 98% of the automated ones. And then maybe it's one from like, a competitor, or it's from a vendor that we use. And it's like, here, we're doing a webinar on security, or we're giving you information unless it's educational content. And I open it up and it's some that says, oh, big sale, or Oh, this thing is going on, or congratulations to this, whatever, I don't care and I delete them all. But if it's something that says, here's our tips on working remotely during COVID-19 for your clients, I'm like, Alright, okay, I'll keep that I'll download your PDF, I'll give you my email again, even though you already have it, and I'll be good. So at the end of the day, I'll go from 67 in the beginning, within five minutes, I go down to like 18 to 25 that are better from clients or contain actually Engaging information.
Kevin Adlparvar 39:01
Sure, sure. So So yeah, exactly right. And and so I don't actually know recent numbers, but you know, that's, that's an example of something that, you know, what was always going to happen is that that attention is going to shift and based on a bunch of different factors, and one of them is, if something becomes too saturated with garbage, we're not going to look anymore. Yeah.
Jake Van Buschbach 39:32
So speaking of that, really quickly, I noticed that when tik tok came out, like whatever months and months and months ago, you were actually one of the first people I know saying, jump on this boat now and then I still don't like it. I still use that iPad has too many ties to things that I don't like. But I remember you saying that and every one of the times we lose stupid kids dance and whatever. And now it's everyone that I know all these parents with their kids on Facebook are using it. And you were one of the first people I know who was like, Don't Don't miss this boat, get on Tech Talk. start promoting yourself. It's gonna blow up. You want to be one of the first people on here? And is that what you mean by the attention changing? Like, are people gonna move from? Oh man, I forgot now are people going to move from MySpace to Facebook? Like, is it important to be keeping those things in mind? Like, is it an attention economy where you want to be building your brand and building your tribe so that you can jump over to the next platform when marketers end up taking over and ruining the current ones?
Kevin Adlparvar 40:33
Yeah, well, I mean, just just to be super clear on that tic tocs, around for about three years now. And they started out as an app called musicali or musically, but it was anyway Oh, really? And yeah, I didn't know about it. I think three years ago back when it was still called musically, God. Um, and, and yeah, I mean, look, that's that's always an example. I just like just like a just like a A stock just like a piece of real estate, just like anything you're going to invest either mind money or time into, there's always some risk, you're never going to know fully. I think it's kind of important to, to have your finger on the pulse of what's going on. Where are there other platforms where people are getting attention? Can't get them all, some people do get them all, some people get, you know, one of 50. But to your question of, is that what I'm talking about what I'm talking about shifting? To an extent, yes. But also going back to some of the other points we've been discussing what is going on in this space? So you know, beyond just platforms, like what are people talking about what's interesting to people and i think that i think that that's where that's where this idea of documenting you know, your your true story or you know, as authentic of of your process as possible. becomes becomes kind of a One size fits all strategy in that it, it's always going to be genuine. It's always going to be real. And you will lose a lot of people in the way you'll get people along the way. And And so, again, how many times have I hammered this woman and just this one conversation, but I think that that's where that's where good branding really lies and bad branding. I mean, look, like you mentioned there's there's examples of people who have gone either for or against certain issues. I don't have enough data on that I you know, I can't say for sure what's right or wrong. I think that's, that's really going to be a personal choice. I don't want to start getting into getting into believing that this is the way the world should be or shouldn't be. Because, because not because I want to avoid the topic truthfully, because I don't know.
Jake Van Buschbach 42:50
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think I think that's right, because it does. Again, I think it goes back to what you said if you're genuinely, if it's genuinely something that that you do think needs to be talked about then, again, that's your genuine belief you as an individual, go for it. That makes a lot of sense. So another question that I have for is, very quickly, what tools do you recommend people use while they're beginning to develop the brand or they're refining their brand? Because one last little closing thing that I kind of want to talk about just to move on to this before we do is, I think that what I've learned so far is that my branding does come through even in our services, like when I was talking to somebody yesterday, we're getting a new client on just in the sake of conversation, they made a comment saying, Okay, so this is, this is a concern of ours, because with our previous provider, this was an issue and I just let them know, we only provide services in this way. And immediately they were like, what do you mean like what but no one else does that. And I just let them know well know the way that we do business is in a way where I don't want to be doing business with people that Don't want to be doing business with us. It can't be an enforced system. It's got to be a voluntary agreement between parties. So for me, it's very important that if we're going to be continuing to work together and doing these kind of things that we have this level of communication, we have this level of engagement, that there is that understanding of, we are here to help your business were a part of your business. And to them that was just completely out of left field. They're used to people saying, okay, we're going to get you on a contract, we're going to lock you into this contract, we're going to use you for three years neglect you as soon as you sign the contract and then throw you out the back door, which was their experience with this prior providers. So the branding and the culture that I've kind of created with my team does shine through every day and the way that we help our clients. I have people that have come over from other providers saying your quality of service is so crazy, you guys are so fast to respond to things. I know if I'm calling in I'm always gonna get help with things and I kind of made sure to happen hammer home, these basic values and tenants of service that I have with my employees, which has then bled out to our clients, which I'm just now starting to try to express through our social media stuff. So and you've given me some ideas already, like going on Spotify and putting this on Spotify, for example. And then just kind of now I have the almonds are activated. my noggin is jog and, and I'm going to be trying to highlight those things on our Instagram or on our Twitter, and being able to highlight employees going above and beyond etc. because like you said, documenting those differences and the highlighting the values of your company are things that again, will resonate with some people and not with others, but as long as it's a genuine message and I am genuinely proud of employee x for going above and beyond. That's all that matters. So I very much appreciate those insights so far. So to unless you have something to follow up on what what tools would you recommend for people
Kevin Adlparvar 46:00
Yeah, no, it's great. I think I'm so you know, I've kind of run the gamut in terms of, you know, the web development. I've done social media marketing, and then what stuff I think one of the one of the really cool tools that I tap on was an app called over. Just like, just like it sounds, and it's the yellowing of the yellow square with a with a white o in it. So that's a really good app for for doing content creation. So there is a, a free version which limits you and then there's a version that you charge that charges 20 bucks a month. And it's a it gives you basically so templates for social media posts. As well as access to I think Shutterstock and pixabay for professional photos. And, and it you know, has has templates for were different policies. There's not a plug in to work with them anyway. My only my only concern in recommending something Like that is that someone's going to then take one of those templates and go completely off track and what we've been talking about. But if you're looking for like really cool tools to be able to, to create quality posts with, that's one of them. And they also have, you know, fonts and all kinds of template videos and stuff like that as well. So that would be one of them if you're into Okay, well, I got to start somewhere. I'm gonna have you know, small, you know, x 25 year old or 22 year old do my Instagram, you know, pay for over, let them use that. Yeah, and that can be on Facebook and Twitter and everything, not just Instagram. So that's one another would be. Sprout Social Sprout Social is a another paid app, and service that allows you to schedule posts and receive data from different posts. So for example, if you've got, you know, your business Facebook page, your Instagram, your Twitter, your LinkedIn, you can For example, for a creative like myself, I am not very good at every single day at you know, 9am, doing the same amount of creative work, you put out the post, but when I when I'm very good at is going, you know, 16 hours straight with, you know a little bit of water, doing a whole bunch of creative work, and then being completely sick of it for a week or two. So what that allows you to do is you can then schedule posts out. So if I get three months worth worth of posts in a month or two, or in a day or two, then then I can schedule them out, and it'll give you insight. So that is that is another paid feature, or service. So this author, kind of social media. And then more important than all that though, honestly, Jake, I think is kind of where you're getting your information from. And where you're getting your insight from, and I'm not the person to decide that for you. But one place that has been really helpful. And you know, Gary Vaynerchuk I'm sure most of you guys have heard of. I used to listen to him. Nobody more but he pulls out a lot of really incredible documentation. You got to keep in mind he does service companies like Pepsi. You know, he does service fortune 500 companies, reports and 15 companies in in, you know, digital media space no matter what you think of them online. And so he puts out a lot of really great documents. Another is Jim Stengel, he's got a podcast sponsored by the void cmo podcast. So he interviews, you know, chief marketing officers and global heads of marketing from around the world. And, and his podcast is really great. So my favorite conversations have happened there.
Jake Van Buschbach 49:38
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So when we're listening to people like Gary Vaynerchuk, or listening to the CMO, podcast, or even looking at brands, like you mentioned to me, we had a brief discussion before we went live about Casey Neistat. And I haven't watched him for a couple of years now, but I know that he blew up again being genuinely angry at Apple. He was showing people Hey, the iPod batteries, they only last 18 months, you're paying 800 bucks for this iPod. And then you have to throw it in the garbage after after 18 months, because Apple wasn't replacing batteries at the time. And his genuine outrage led to him being one of the most successful independent filmmakers on the planet, I would say. Right, so when we're looking at people like, like people again, like I have my little sect of people that I like to watch like Louis Rossman and Eli, the computer guy, etc. What kind of mindset do you recommend people use while we're looking at our favorite creators or we're looking at our favorite brands so that we can kind of deconstruct them and build our own? Yeah.
Kevin Adlparvar 50:40
Look, I think
there's definitely no one size fits all right. If you're, I think the most important thing is just kind of this curiosity, this intellectual curiosity of who are my customers and how can I meet them where they're at.
And and, you know, that will kind of inform you and and
Yeah, man, I mean, you might you might be interested in things that are wholly irrelevant to, to marketing or branding, but you pick up some insights because for whatever reason, you know, he said something that made sense to you and gave you that, you know, that sense of, of inspiration that you needed to go and then tackle this? Look, I don't know, man, I, you know, I truly can't say for everybody that it's the same.
When it comes to specifically marketing stuff, I think.
Look, there's a lot. There's a lot of people saying a lot of stuff out there. There's also people who have a lot more experienced than me, that have opinions that I completely disagree with. Am I right? Are they right? I'm not sure.
But, you know,
my theory is that it's not simply about getting attention. And
that's, that's just my belief, right? When in my work, I don't think it's as easy as just getting attention or just convincing somebody to do something. But all of that kind of kind of goes to how you how one runs their business, how they think about earning revenue, you know, how they want to impact the world. So those are, I think things that are important to know, individually or as a team or as a company, while you kind of enjoy this process,
Jake Van Buschbach 52:21
mm hmm, that makes sense. Do you have any other overarching kind of tips for people before we close off just like from the like you said, you want to document the process? So what would be the process? If you were to break it down into let's say, five or six or three to five steps of going from not consciously thinking about branding to operating things? Well, what would you recommend people get started with?
Kevin Adlparvar 52:44
So first thing I would say is kind of having a consistent blanket of messaging across the different platforms. So if you have a website, make sure that it's consistent with with your Instagram, your Facebook page, all these things, the amount of people that I know that have actually I think you were saying mean as well, that guy that have like multiple YouTube channels or multiple Twitter accounts or whatever else, like get rid of that just have you know, make sure you have one, make sure the messaging is consistent. If you have colors make sure you know this is like step step one
basic picture think about anything
Jake Van Buschbach 53:15
don't even know this stuff. All right, so you're already
Kevin Adlparvar 53:18
teaching anything so this is great 100% that like because look, you know, the reality is you you're trying to get people's attention you want people to think about you. And so if I see umbrella it on YouTube, and the Florence is one way and everything is red, and and they don't talk about being in Vancouver, and you know, it's just as unreal it versus unreal, IT services for example, and then you know, I go to a website, it's all professionally done, and everything is clean and clear. And it says is in Vancouver.
What is making you assume the same company.
So so that's just like a simple example. So get get your messaging, get your branding on point would be the first step. And then I would say Just like start with really consistent posting of content. And, and I would say start as soon as possible, just documenting, documenting everything. And it doesn't have to necessarily be hiring a camera crew or walking around with with, you know, hiring somebody do it, it could be as simple as, Okay, I'm gonna make sure that everybody on my team takes 10 photos a day around, let's say, you know, the shop
and takes 30 seconds of video every
day. And then you know, and then that funnels back into into kind of your, your database at the end of the week within day you're reviewing it or your marketing courses, reviewing it and coming up with with with pieces of content from that. So that could be a way to start.
Jake Van Buschbach 54:50
Yeah, that sounds great, because I think that really gets you started and then like I'm hoping to do it's kind of starting to click into place as you get the feedback loop from your audience. So Like, that's what it is. And then one, right? You want to meet people where they're at. And so this is all about getting that
Kevin Adlparvar 55:05
feedback. Mm hmm.
Jake Van Buschbach 55:07
Yeah, cuz, yeah, I think that's great. That's awesome. Kevin, thank you so much. So I think that about does it. Do you have anything that you would want to promote or how people can reach you if they have any questions directly for you? Anything you want to leave us with?
Kevin Adlparvar 55:24
Well, first of all, just Thanks for having me. As far as far as anything I want to promote just just this podcast man, I think your your intention behind this is good. You want to help your clients and other people, local business owners in the area. And I think that's great. If you want to get in touch with me, you can just give me on Instagram. Like you said, you'd plug it down down below.
Send me a DM there.
Jake Van Buschbach 55:46
Perfect. That's awesome. Thank you, Kevin. I really appreciate your time. Thanks again for coming on. And I hope this video does give everybody a good foundation to start implementing different brand strategies for their nonprofits or businesses. And if you will, Like to reach Kevin, as you mentioned before, hit him up on Instagram. That's Kevin for everyone. So at Kevin for everyone, that'll be down in the description. And then we can also give out your email. And I'll leave that in the description as well so people can reach you directly. So, again, we got to do the YouTube thing here. But if you would like leave a like on the video, it does really help us out. And if you want to see more videos like this, then please hit the subscribe button as well. And if you'd like to see us go live, you can click the little bell if you do have any questions in the future. So if you have a suggestion for future videos, make sure to leave a comment in description down below, or email us directly at Tech Tips at umbrella it services.ca and if you have somebody that you would want to come on the podcast and have them talk about something that you think would benefit small businesses, or some of our clients, please again, email me directly and we can schedule them to come on. So in other words, have a great day and I'll see you all soon.