Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - How to Build Your Business into a Brand - 022

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

In this episode, Craig and Bedros talk about the seven strategies behind building a brand for your business. Today, people don’t solely buy things for the service it provides. They buy into the personal identity of your business. The more connected customers feel to your brand, the more you can dominate the competition in your market. Here’s what you’ll discover: 2:25 - How Fit Body Boot Camp builds a deep connection with the end user by stepping out of the studio and into the comedy. 4:03 - How bringing charity into your business inspires global and local change while adding a competitive edge. 6:58 - Why you need to embrace change and lead with courage and confidence before you perish. 9:43 - Why building morale around your brand will create a strong culture and crush the competition. 15:10 -  How building your team members up into fighter jets grows your brand and impact.

Let's break it down using the seven strategies of taking the personalization into your brand, building the equity in it so that you have a massive, massive, not just million dollar business, but actually like a 20, 30, 50, 100 million dollar business. How do you turn your business into a world-recognized brand? Hey, folks, I'm Badros Kulian. This is Craig Ballanty. Welcome to another episode of the Empire Podcast Show. What's up, Craigie?

Hey, you know what? Something that has really changed in the last, probably two decades of business is what people consider a brand, how they view a brand, how they interact with brand. Would you say that's not changing quite a bit? It's been a huge shift. And so what we found is that people really are responding more to the personal identity of a brand. Just like we have personal identities in our own personal brand. So for example, you're known as the man up guy now with your new book. I'm known as the guy who brings structure and discipline to people's lives. And so every person out there is building

their own personal brand. Another guy is Joe Polish, who is known as the person who just connects everywhere. So what businesses need to do now as they go into empire building mode is develop, there's about seven of these characteristics that we can take from personal brand building into building our business brand and putting so much more value into it. So when and if you go to sell it, you get a whole lot more money. Is that sound interesting? That is very interesting. And I dare say that Apple probably led the charge on this whole brand building thing where it became in vogue to to know and recognize a brand so well. Yeah, and I'd say that Nike is also there as well. You know, when people are getting tattoos

of a brand, you know that they're making that personal connection. So I think we can do a little case study, and I know one business that is really, really great for this. Hmm. Yeah. Is it called Fit or Body Boot Camp? Yeah, let's do Fit Body Boot Camp. Let's break it down using the seven strategies of taking the personalization into your brand, building the equity, in it so that you have a massive, massive, not just million dollar business, but actually like a 20, 30, 50, 100 million dollar business through the branding. Absolutely. All right.

So let's talk about the first pillar of this new branding, which is having a deep connection with the end user. So tell us about how FitBody does that. You know, one way we do that is, and I started this when we run our FitBody Boot Camp universities for our new owners that come on board, right? And we say, hey, look, we'll focus on growing the global brand, but we want you to focus on growing the local brand. And so the deep connection with the end user happens when we take FitBody Boot Camp outside of our four walls, outside of our FitBody Boot Camp studios, and into the community.

For example, charity drives, organized mud runs, 5Ks, etc. We even have celebrations like our like our six-week challenge that graduates into a little cocktail party where everybody gets a black dress and goes out and celebrates. Now, what's unique. about that is there's a identity that gets built around Fit Body Boot Camp. It's, gee, this is more than just a fitness place. This is a place that I can go and have a community. There's a sense of culture, camaraderie. And what we found is when we run the mud runs together, when we do the 5Ks together,

when we do the charity drives and we do our, you know, Operation Toy Drive that's coming up here for the holidays, it really creates a sense of not only retention, but referrals. And so it becomes a word of mouth thing that takes over. And that's marketing, branding that you simply cannot purchase. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the great thing about that is definitely when you and I get our little black dresses at the end of these challenges. Yes, I love those. Yes.

So the second thing that it does is inspires change. You know, so we see this so much, you know, your book inspires change, my book inspires change. But how does a big brand like Fit Body Boot Camp go and inspire change on so many levels? Yeah. And again, I always like to look at it. If you're building a brand, I like to look at it on the global level and local level, right? Because at least for us, we're a franchise, and so Fit Body Boot Camp locations are located all over the world throughout communities. Yet my job is to build the brand globally.

And so, for example, our big mission right now is the Shriners Children's Hospitals, right? There's 22 of them worldwide. When we started donating to Shriners Children's Hospitals, there was only 11 of them worldwide. And a portion of every single client onboarding fee that comes, that a client comes on board, goes towards Shriners Children's Hospital. A great example of this is Stella Beer, right? Stella does this where for every bottle of Stella that you buy, they donate money to water.org that produces clean water to communities who don't have them.

And so for us, we let it be known that we are all about change and creating an impact. And so the global impact is how can we help the communities where there's children who need medical procedures but whose families can't afford him? Well, we let it be known that for every Fit Body Boot Camp client that comes on board, $3 is donated to the Shrine of Children's Hospital. That accounts to be tens of thousands of dollars every single month. And so people know that when I have a choice in all things being equal, Fit Body Boot Camp or another brand of fitness business, I'm going to go with Fit Body Boot Camp because it's a good body boot camp because it's not. they're cause driven. They are change driven. But it doesn't just stop there because we have our Girls Night Out program that we run as well and our, we call it the GNO. And we run that about three or four times a year. But that's creating local change. And so we'll have women sign up for our

six week challenge, for our Girls Not Out challenge. And the entire thing is not designed around scale weight. It is designed about feeling empowered, confident, sexy. And at the end of the six-week challenge, again, they take those little black dresses, go out into a cocktail party that the studio owner sets up, and it's a time to celebrate the change of breaking out from not, I'm not just a mother walking around in my sweatpants, but I can still wear a little black dress and be proud of who I am in this phase of life. And so whether you're creating global change or local change, a brand, I believe, like you said, has to be aligned with the change element. Yeah, absolutely. And it's no surprise that the Girls Night Out is the best promotion. I mean, look,

I own four fit body boot camps. We run these things. And I always get excited when it's that time of year because I know that more clients are going to come in. And I'm most excited for that night for those ladies because it is something that just inspires them to change so that they can go out and change themselves. And then the business changes as well and the brand grows.

Exactly right. Okay, so then the next thing is leading with courage and confidence in a changing environment. And wow, are we living in a changing environment right now? for the way that brands interact with their end user, for the way that, oh my goodness, brands are disappearing that have been around for almost 100 years. So tell us how great brands are leading with courage and confidence

in a rapidly changing environment. And this is actually something that the personal end user, the individual listening, can go and use in their own small business as well. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, leading with courage and confidence simply means that we are in a changing times, right? We're in a changing times where, you know, through technology, through the internet, through so many other factors of the economic changes that happen so much faster today than ever before. And if people don't want to change, they will perish. And so a good brand, a successful brand, is one that leads change and is not afraid of change.

So we use technology like websites, our apps. Now, our websites, for example, are number one source for getting new clients inside of FitBaBoo Camp locations. I cringe when I see small businesses worldwide still using lead boxes and postcards. And in fact, there's some franchises out there who mandate that their franchisees spend upwards of $2,000 to $5,000 a month on sending postcards to homes. I mean, what would happen if you embraced the change and you led from the front and said, you know what? We're going to use that $2,000 to $5,000 on running really effective funnels to target the right audience on social media. I mean, that $2,000 to $5,000 would yield $30,000, $50,000 in new clients. And so whether it's using it through a website, social media, an app, if a company is not

courageous enough to embrace change, they will perish very quickly. And I think brands like ours have an obligation to do that and to lead from the front. Yeah, absolutely. And that kind of leads me into the next one, which is creating a future that is impossible to ignore. Creating a future that is impossible to ignore. Let's talk a little bit about some guy that you and I, both respect, Elon Musk, who is creating a future that's impossible to ignore because he has

a courage and confidence to lead a rapidly changing environment as well. Yeah, I mean, that is huge. Speaking of Elon Musk, the guy not only tackled electric cars the right way to where he got on the radar of the three big car manufacturers in the United States, he's also working with NASA and now crushing the big military giants that would send equipment to the international space station. Now, he's actually sending equipment more frequently at a lower price than any of the big global conglomerates who were in that space. And so you cannot ignore the kind of impact and change that he's making. Absolutely.

Yeah, okay. And then next one, a brand is loved and gets people excited. And I think this goes on, well, multiple levels, not even just two levels, but first of all, the consumer, the team member, the corporate team member, all of these people. I mean, if you're a brand where you're getting love from the community and where people are excited to be a part of you, whether they're getting a tattoo or whether they're being part of a, you know, a 5K team or whatever, I mean, that is just difficult for any competition to fight against, right? Yeah, you know, and I used to think that we just got lucky in creating that environment in Fit Body Boot Camp, but I realize now that, you know, we've got Fit Body Boot Camp owners and Fit Body Boot Camp clients with tattoos, just like that gentleman who came to your TT Summit and who has. had a massive TT, turbulent training tattoo right on his thigh, which was pretty neat. But that is something that is manufactured. It's not accidentally created. And what I found that is through culture and morale and having your own language. So, you know, people go, well, what comes first? Culture or morale? I said, if you have great morale in your studio amongst

the clients or your team or here at our corporate headquarters, if we have great morale, culture is automatically born as a byproduct of morale. A lot of people focus on, well, we need good culture because Apple says and Zappo says that they have great culture. Well, that's great. Yeah, you need culture. But if you don't have morale, people aren't happy. They're not excited to come to work. They're not happy to take a new project and run it across the finish line. You're never going to have the culture. And so we've really focused. No, it's not like just building a thing that you follow instructions. There's a whole lot of secret stuff to it, right? Yeah. So we've gone all in on morale and leadership. And through

morale and leadership, we've built this amazing culture at the studio level, at the team level, and at the corporate level, and so much so that we've created our own vernacular, right? Like, you know, man-up, GSD, amongst many other fine terms that we use across FitBah, Bada, Bucamp, locations worldwide. And by doing so, you become part of this unique family that's got a unique language, and that only deepens the culture again. Yeah, absolutely. And then that leads into another one, which is taking a stand.

And this can be something as simple, like Apple took a stand against ugly electronics. I mean, not only were they building really, really excellent products, but they were building beautiful products. So they took a stand against bad design, as many companies have. And Elon Musk has taken a stand against badly designed electric cars. Now, FitBody Boot Camp also has taken a stand against obesity, against McDonald's, against that being your competition. So talk about the power of taking a stand and how that really attracts the morale and leadership and allows you to build that culture. Sure. You know, a lot of people will ask during an interview like, hey, who's your competition?

Aren't you afraid of your growing competition? I said, well, you know, there's only one competition that I'm really worried about, and that is the food organizations that are using marketing to stuff, you know, hamburgers, french fries, tater tots, soda pop, candy, potato chips down people's throats. And at the end of the day, most people are misled through the advertisement of sugar, food. cookies, but there's stuff with so much fat and so much processed garbage that they are a real competition. That's my competition. And if you can take a stand, a polarizing position on any one thing, going back to Apple, they took the stand against regular computers, both in design and in functionality.

They said, we're going to create a closed environment that you can't add on features to our software and to our hardware, making it virus-proof, which was the main reason why people bought it. it and then making it aesthetically pleasing, skinny, thin, beautiful looking computers versus things that were gray and clunky. And so while most people were after functionality, Apple proved that they can through aesthetics and better functionality crushed a computer space and they did. They just crushed Microsoft where that's concerned. Yeah, and they even took a stand against the end user in some of their ads where they had

the nerd and then, you know, the kind of the cool nerd going back forward. It was still a nerd versus nerd battle. But at the end of the day, they took a stand against who they wanted their user to be. And I think that even in FitBody Boot Camp, you've decided you've at least not taken a stand against certain users, but you've said, this is who we are for. Yeah. And I always say this. I say, look, 89% of our client tailor are women.

We're not a women's only gym. But 89% of our client tell are women, so we're going to build out the gym to please women. We're not going to have mirrors in there because that's intimidating to women. We're not going to have squat racks and chalk and all this goofy stuff that's intimidating to women. We're going to market to women but welcome men. And that has been our polarizing position. And as long as we can maintain our polarizing position, and I am unapologetic about it, we will continue to thrive in light of competition, in light of economic change, in light of technological change.

Absolutely. And so, you know, that polarizing position is what allows a lot of personal brands to stand out. And it's not surprising to see that allows your business as well to stand out. So that finally takes us in to possibly the most important of the seven-factor. of building a brand and this one was tripling down on employees and I mean I've just watched your brand grow over the years I've watched your team grow over the years and it has really been amazing it's like been watching you know little little kids grow up watching your little kids grow up and it's very proud of them as you

should I'm sure you are so talk about how going all in on your team members really allowed you to like 10x your business well you know I'll speak to anybody watching this who's a who's a which is probably most people and who an entrepreneur who has a really big dreams and big ambitions. I'm talking empire size ambitions and if you have those empire size ambitions then you have to triple down on your employees and your team members Actually I cringe when I even think of them as employees. I think of them as team members because I just happen to be the team Captain and they each have critical roles on the team and here's why I say you can't build an empire without a Efficient high-performance team and some people will say well what if you do invest all that money in the

to them. For example, I paid you $25,000 to come out here with your team and run a perfect team workshop. And it was a very valuable experience for my team here. They all learned their superpowers and they are all checking in with you and your team, making them more efficient, more effective in growing our brand and growing our impact, right? And so... Well, also aligning them with the vision, getting them the origin story, getting them all on the same page on so many levels. That's exactly right. And so we've got a gentleman coming next month who's going to teach communication through improv. Oh, cool.

I mean, look at all the ways we communicate. We communicate with our clients via text message, via email, via phone, via video, live video, and regular, right, pre-recorded video. And so when you think about all the different ways that my team communicates with our clients and their clients, wouldn't it make sense to bring in an improv professional to help them communicate better, more efficiently, maybe in a way that will actually make that person laugh and chuckle on the other side of the computer or the phone? That's my goal with this.

And so whether it's leadership training, whether it's sending them out to seminars and workshops, the way I look at it is if I end up losing them, I'm losing them and making the world a better place because they're going to go out there and be more effective at whatever it is they do. But they're also going to say, hey, you know what, I learned all this great stuff at this company. Exactly. You got to go and work there. The reality is we don't lose them.

We keep them. They grow and they are in line with my vision and the path that we want to go down. Well, you know, one of the things that people, a really great example of a response to that is, well, what if, you know, you train them and they go out there and then they leave? Well, what if you don't train them, right? Right, right. And what if you don't, exactly? What if you don't train them and you have this empire?

And they don't leave. And they don't leave. Now you're stuck with what I call crop dusters instead of fighter jets, right? I want fighter jets all around me, not crop dusters who can't perform and who freak out and have emotional, you know, emotionally react at the first sign of stress. And so if I want fighter jets, I've got to build them up to be the best versions of themselves. Having said that, if I've got big vision for my empire and I want to have thousands of Fit Body Boot Camp locations worldwide, I've got the vision, but I can't do it on my own. I have to replicate my effort, my skills, my abilities through every single one of my team members.

And that is how a force multiply my growth. So if you don't triple down on your team members, you're really in for big, big trouble. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that is fantastic. That was a great deep dive into FitBody Boot Camp, the seven factors that allowed you to build that brand to massive heights. And anybody who watched this as an entrepreneur, you can build your brand, your corporation, your company brand, but you can also build your personal brand with these seven steps as well, where you inspire change, where you are doing that with confidence and courage, where you're making it impossible for people to ignore you, where you are tripling down in employees, and you're having that impact in the community. So when you do that, when you do all of those things, you build your brand personally, professionally, and you have a lot of success. And that's going to lead to building an empire, right, B?

Damn straight. Now, folks, I got to tell you one last thing here. If you like the Empire podcast, we would really appreciate it if you would share, subscribe, and leave a review for us so that we can get more entrepreneurs on board with the empire mindset so we can make a bigger impact in the world that we serve. Thanks so much for listening.