The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Hersh Rephun, Brand Voice Expert, Speaker, Consigliere, on Building a Brand Voice, Awareness, AI and Content Creation

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

Hersh Rephun, Brand Voice Expert, Speaker, Consigliere, on Building a Brand Voice, Awareness, AI and Content Creation Hershrephun.com Hersh Rephun has led teams in PR, Creative, Brand Strategy, Global Partner & Franchisee Relations, and now helps emerging businesses find their “next-figure brand voice.” His mantra is, “Sell the Truth with Humor and Humanity.” A veteran Copywriter/Creative Director, Hersh is the Founder of HumanEyes, a personal interface for reviewing, editing, and elevating Ai-generated output. Having played standup gigs across the country (Comedy Store, Comic Strip, Funny Bone, The Ice House…), Hersh brings his stage presence to keynote talks and hosts two interview shows ranked in the Top 2% of Apple Podcasts globally.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. To the giant family, the Chris Voss Show family podcast that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as the rest of your family because, you know, they've seen you. They know you. But we don't, so we still love you. Anyway, guys, as always, refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreads.com, 4S Chris Voss, youtube.com, 4S Chris Voss, linkedin.com, 4S Chris Voss. Follow what we're doing over on TikTok. We've got an AI cutting up all the shows now, which is pretty cool, and it formats them in all the TikTokity.

Is TikTokity a word? I just made it up. We'll be talking about branding today, so that might be some branding thing we can discuss. So go check it out over there. It's TikTok at ChrisVoss1 and the Chris Voss Show podcast. As always, we have the most brilliant minds on the show, and none of them are me. That's why we have guests. See what I did there?

There you go. We have an amazing gentleman on the show, and he has done incredible stuff with the work he's done in building brands, talking about stuff. Hirsch Rappun is on the show with us today, and he's going to be talking to us, his agency, how he works in selling the truth, building brands, PR, creative brand strategy, etc., etc. And we'll get into some of the deets from him on how he does it he's very multi-faceted in fact he's a stand-up comedian too on the side so this should be very fun uh he has led teams in pr creative brand agency global partner and franchisee relations and now helps emerging businesses find their next figure brand voice. His mantra is sell the truth with humor and humanity,

which is very different than I think what politicians do. So there you go. Good for that. A veteran copywriter and creative director. He is the founder of human eyes, a personal interference interface for reviewing editing and elevating ai generated output we could do some of that on our tiktok uh having played stand-up gigs across the country he did the comedy store comic strip funny bone the ice house you may have heard of those if you're a

comedy fan like i am uh he brings to stage presence uh to keynote talks and hosts two interview shows ranked in the top 2% of Apple Podcasts globally. So welcome to the show. How are you, Hirsch? I'm fantastic, Chris. Thank you. It's good to be with you. You know, I feel great that I sat through the introduction. You know, like I don't want anyone, I'm not used to hearing about myself that much, but it's great. It's very flattering. It's great to be here. And I can probably help you with all these TikTok issues and the AI and all that stuff.

It's fun stuff. It's crazy, all the AI stuff. We'll get into some AI conversation, too, as well. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs let's get the plugs all in thank you they can go to uh get message therapy.com uh they can go to hirsch repoon h-e-r-s-h-r-e-p-h-u-n.com and there they can find yes brand there and they can find my podcast and uh and they can go to uh brand voice runway.com forward slash review and then they can see my brand new show brand voice runway

and get a load of that um which is all about trying to get brands to that next figure like we talked about there you go and then you got a book that's coming out i think next year maybe yes you heard right uh selling the truth is coming out uh probably early next year maybe we'll get we'll squeak by with a late fall holiday release but uh but it's a real important book to me um it kind of i call it a like a semi-memoir and it's it's, it's my adventures in, in advertising and comedy and life and how they can help you, uh, strengthen your own message and not make a lot of crappy mistakes. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview of what you do and how you do it. Uh, you've got the yes brand. You've got your, your, your voice expert for brands. Uh, tell us

kind of how you help clients and give us kind of that overview summation, if you would. Yeah, I think that the core, the essence of what I do, whether it was in standup or whether it's in what I do now most of the time, is that I just have a good ear for people's voice and their heart and who they really are at their core and what i do in my method of how i how i work with clients is that i listen to them and i come back to them with the most shining possible way they could ever talk about themselves and still be completely honest completely in their character um but without the hangups and the BS and the kind of self-guessing and all that other crap that holds a lot of us up.

There you go. There you go. There's a lot of crap that holds us up. And I like the analogy of brand voice. What is a brand voice and why is it important? Brand voice is attitude you know like you'll see sometimes uh a brand you know what happens when brands get away from themselves as they start to uh do you know you have some intern or somebody working on twitter and then they're posting stuff on behalf of the brand

that's not the brand's voice that's this dinglehead's voice that's going out there but what but what brand voice really is, is that deep down, you have a core value. You have a reason you started a brand or something you really stand for. It's not a tagline because a tagline is very finite. Tagline is just a line. Just do it is great, but that's not really going to cover you on a lot of issues. Nike, as an example, has to take a stand, you know, on certain issues and certain things, love them or hate them, whatever it is. It's where do you, where do you hold yourself in the big picture? There you go.

And why is it important? Like, how does it make a difference to consumers and people that see your brand? Makes a real difference because these days, especially people don't know what truth is. We live in what a lot of people refer to as a post-truth world. And I talk about this a lot in my book. You know, when the line is moving all over the place, we don't know who to trust.

The biggest thing that a brand has to establish before they can really sell to their audience is trust yeah and if you want if you want your audience to know like and trust you you have to build that with them and you do that through consistency but you also do it through having a point of view if you're just vanilla brand and you have no point of view about anything people are like well i don't know what they i don't know what they stand for you know now does uh does toilet paper have to stand for something well you know it's a little easier with toilet paper maybe maybe be soft and uh you know don't tear up somebody's rear end but other than that you're probably you know, be affordable. But there are other brands, you know, that get more complex. And in order to differentiate yourself, you got to sometimes take that stand so you stand out.

There you go. So you work with clients on helping them do their PR, creative brand agency. How did you, give us your origin story a little bit of it. How did you get down this road of being and handling, you know, marketing and PR, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah, as you know, Chris, you know, a lot of people end up doing something they never thought they would do. When I was a kid, I was interested in comedy. I was interested in theater. I was interested in writing.

I was a screenwriter for a while i wrote some kind of beach movies and a space movie with uh bruce campbell and like some some other some other stuff and while i was doing that you know i had to think about a career that maybe would work a little faster i was going to school of visual arts in new york it's a wonderful art school and i was studying film and screenwriting. And the chairman told me to take a class in advertising. And I didn't end up being a creative in advertising like a copywriter at that time. I ended up repping directors of TV commercials, which is like being an agent.

But what it opened up in me was, you know, I started writing their bios and I'm writing press releases and I'm becoming a publicist for commercial directors, which was something that, that there didn't even exist. And that's how my journey in, in PR and in creative and copywriting and brand voice ultimately really, really took off. There you go. So who are your, who are your, you know, potential clients that are working with you and, and is there a certain fit or format of a type of client that you, you usually work with? I think now I'm working with a lot of entrepreneurs, founders. Now, their company could be a seven, eight figure company. And I have worked with, you know, with brands that were that were really, really big.

But I wasn't my I wasn't alone. I was I had an agency. I had a team. I had scaled everything back to work more one on one. And so the category doesn't really matter. Like it could be SaaS, you know, software as a service, online, you know, service provider, coaches. So a lot of people that have a really personal brand that somehow branding is personal to them and they're contained enough that the impact I can have is pretty,

pretty powerful. Uh, and so I work most closely with, I call them entrepreneurs or, or, uh, uh, consultants, you know, I work a lot with consultants, the big brands I do get approached by. I did some work with Nike last year or earlier this year. You know, I I'm honored when that stuff does come through, but I, but I, with that,

with those people, it's more consulting or very specific project. They need. What do you find that most people are struggling with these days that come to you? What's a, what's a what's a some popular things are a popular thing that you you've really helped people overcome and resolve um there's there's some personal things that are like you know confidence and and belief in your

uh brand in what you stand for and I think fundamentally when people approach me, the surface part is I'm lost in a sea of sameness. Everything on the web sounds like BS. My website is like the usual stuff. Like we are a blank and we do this and we innovate that and it doesn't mean anything. And so that's why I call it message therapy. Someone said to me, oh, message therapy sounds negative. And I was like, no, it's not negative. There should be no stigma on therapy, believe me. But message therapy is just you and I talking about who you are and what you are passionate about and then i just am able to

say back to you this is the way that you could really build trust with your audience there you go uh and then we mentioned ai and you have something called human eyes human eyes human eyes like human eyes yeah there you go and uh so uh what are you seeing on the forefront of the frontier or what are you seeing currently i mean it seems like you know whatever whatever we saw today or talk about tomorrow's the frontier right it's yeah yeah that's right oh you mean yesterday yeah yesterday when it became when you and i were both uh replaced by by bots um no i, I think people are very up in arms about AI, you know, and where I land on it is that the people who are best positioned to take advantage of it are writers, are creators, because we understand storytelling. So we look at what AI is able to do, which is, you know,

very astounding and very exciting and very shiny, but honestly limited to whatever exists out there that they're pulling from. And we can look at it and go, okay, now here's where we put the empathy. Here's where, one thing AI can't do is strategize. ai doesn't doesn't pick and choose and it'll you know so while those kinks are being worked out i think we should focus on not the battle between human and technology like they're sentient or they're really trying to kill us but focus on the no but focus on the fact that they're a tool that humans created to help themselves yeah and let's look at it that way try a little positronics and see if you can take what is threatening and see if it can be your your friend and don't overblow its importance either yeah that's true it's uh it's really

great i mean we're using ai like i said right now to cut up the shows you know we none of our shows are made for uh tiktok and there is a format to the show although people might be like why does chris have this stupid format on video but it actually picks up when we do the final version if there if someone has a book you know the book goes in the middle they they pick up the two images of both myself and the guests and then the show is in the middle. They pick up the two images of both myself and the guests. And then the show is in the background for the Chris Voss show. So when people Google it on the thing, they're going to see, oh, hey, this is Chris Voss podcast over here.

Let's go listen to that crap. And so it mixes it with the book. It shows up on all the stuff. And so it's really great what we do. But the landscape version of it does not transport to TikTok. It's been awful and so having an ai now that uh we have that cuts up the shows it actually does this thing where it goes to and scores like the cuts of the that it makes and um we're still kind of testing it so i'm i'm hesitant to give it a plug i'll tell you you off camera what it is. But I can disclose it.

It's just we're just testing it. So if you hate it later, remind me. It's called Opus Clip at Opus.pro. And it seems to be working pretty good. It's still a little new. It's got some bugginess to it. But they've been great at working with us to fix it. But it literally formats the show from this landscape format that we're on right now to this top-down thing.

And then it does the wording that I think is so annoying, the texting, the CC texting, those captions and stuff. And then you can put logos and different things on it. But it's so easy to work with. A dummy could do it, which is why I like it. Oh, good. I was going to say, oh, I should start using it. Now, one of the other things you do is you do original copy, direct response, ascension campaigns.

How do you deal with that, handle it, and get the audience to engage, entertain, and activate with your service? Yeah, thanks, Chris. I'm always trying to develop new ways of my clients communicating with their audience. What I realized a while ago was that, you know, having worked in advertising a long time, paid media, you know, has a certain ROI, has a certain return. But the thing is, with email campaigns, if you've built an email list, and it's an opt-in list, and people are subscribed to your list, they're warm, but you still have to activate and engage them. You can't just send them newsletter after newsletter

and just hope that they're opening or even if you have a halfway decent open rate you know so i so i started playing around with my own newsletters and with a couple of friends companies and their offers and it was doing really well by doing what i what i talked about before writing in their voice and and not every day not their everyday communications although i have trainings where i'm now training companies how to use their voice for their everyday offerings. But saying, okay, you're doing an event in Orlando in November. Let's do a five-day campaign. I will structure it for you if you're a bigger company and you're doing like my premium service or whatever i'll

hire a writer to work for you that will be your writer maybe year round every time you need something and they'll do the writing but i will orchestrate and creative direct the campaign and the idea being we're packing a wallop so that your audience will be like, boom, they'll be like, they'll be snapped out of their slumber. Cause I don't know if you get a lot of newsletters. Sometimes you just save them. You just open them when you can, you know, you open it when it, when it's convenient, but here it it's, it's clever enough and it's grabby enough.

And in your voice enough that the people stop and go, Ooh, wait a minute. Okay. I got to check this out. Let's see. They're finally talking about something I'm interested in. Usually, like I mentioned, consultants and coaches and, and, uh, service providers, it's a meeting that you want. It's not a, it's not just a, you know, a 1999, you know, dollar cable or something. It's, you know, it's, it's you know it's it's there there's a process there's a meeting there's there's a sale to be made that's of a significant uh uh price you know um let's say over over a couple of thousand dollars or something um could be a subscription that ultimately ends up something rather you, but that's the notion.

There you go. One of your mantra is sell the truth with humor and humanity. Why does that work better than just selling lies and hate and kill them all. I don't know. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think that selling the truth and going with positivity, and that's why I add humor and humanity. You can say the truth is I hate your guts. I'm going to sell that. But the idea of finding our own truth, like we talked a little bit about how the truth is kind of murky. It's hard to find. It's, you know, all that. So if we can figure out what we really believe in, what we really love and like and feel good about and what makes us feel good and the work that we're doing that makes us feel good, and then just focus on turning that into the message rather than getting distracted and drawn away by negative feelings and bad stuff. People don't even often try to verify bad news because they're so sure that it's probably true.

And it's like, why put that? Just go with what is really good that you're really feeling. What are you really feeling that's good? And how do you feel about yourself? And maybe the news that you think is so terrible about you isn't even really terrible about you, which goes back to that therapy idea. And that can just, I think, make us better at talking about ourselves. And, you know, and I know it's not easy. I know that, you know, from my trainings that I do, I know it's not easy for people to learn how to talk about themselves,

but I think it's important. There you go. And, you know, telling the truth builds brand reputation. It builds trust. You know, we've seen lots of examples in the world today where a brand can, you know, do all lots of examples in the world today where uh a brand can you know do all sorts of things say all sorts of things and then if they get busted lying uh yeah and they're embarrassed especially in like social media um why is humor important uh you know we we call what we do on the show infotainment so we present a lot of positive and

uh cerebral stuff or what we think is cerebral. You know, we have some authors on that talk about some, you know, they're professors in science and really high-minded stuff as opposed to, you know, what I talk about is like, welcome to the show. There you go. And so, you know, but what I've learned is that if you sell it with comedy, if you sell it with fun, if you make it fun to learn, it makes all the difference. And energy, of course, is a huge factor as well. We were talking on a prior show recently about how, you know, some of the great teachers that you probably liked in high school were the ones who made learning and education fun. And it makes all the difference. So is humor really that important? And then, of course, is there kind of a downside?

I mean, there's some brands we've seen try and be funny on social media and it backfires. Yeah. Yeah. Humor is a great equalizer. So the constant is that it diffuses tension you know i called my first podcast is called truth tastes funny it's a personal development uh podcast that's another one they can go to truth tastes funny.com but truth tastes funny i started uh about a year and a half ago to to talk to people who have made it through hard times and crazy and chaotic

and hard to believe stories and still came out on the other side with some positivity. And I think that humor helps us digest the truth. It does taste funny. It is weird. Tell us something that it's like and the so the self-effacing kind of i'm not going to take everything so seriously is our way of little by little digesting those things that are not so easy to swallow but are necessary for us to really deal with life and move forward so you know that's uh yeah that's that's's the, the purpose of it, I think. And you said, is there a downside? Yeah. I mean, sometimes it can backfire, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There are brands, there are brands who quite, you know, frankly are tone deaf. And I think what, what, where that happens is that they didn't, they literally didn't listen. You know, it's not because they're not the people they're speaking to or the audience that they're trying to, to reach. Usually that's what it is. They're trying to cross over to some audience they're not familiar with. listen and if the humor were focused on hey you know what do we know you know like be yourself

that's where a brand voice a brand might come to me and say hey we did this thing it backfired why did it backfire and i would give them an analysis of why why the perception of them before they did this made this a bad idea you often wonder why why do they why did they not ask anyone it would seem like they didn't ask anybody you know yeah you're just like who's running your yeah you know and and you know you see you know there there's a lot of brands that step into things uh you you can see the bud light thing recently yes yeah flipped into and and uh it's interesting to me the blowback on it um and how bad it's really hurt the brand and there's been some executives that got caught on video that were saying stuff that didn't seem like they really appreciated the uh consumers that

they had and the consumer loyalty that they had and uh i think that really played into it i mean seeing the i think the one or two people that were part of the marketing team on it that they had. And, uh, I think that really played into it. I mean, seeing, uh, uh, the, I think the one or two people that were part of the marketing team on it talk very disparagingly against the, as against the people who are buying the beer, uh, I think it was, I think to me, that was the bigger, the gaffe than anything, just not respecting their, um, their, their consumers. And so it's interesting. There's things that you can get into that can get you in trouble. So tell us, what haven't we covered or touched on about who you are, what you do, and how you do it? Well, Chris, you have done a really, really good job. And it's a pleasure to sit here with you and kind of have you work your magic. I think that what have we not covered?

We covered AI. We covered AI. We covered brand voice consulting and stuff. How can people onboard with um and get to know you better i know you have a mastermind you've got a mini course i don't know if you want to plug away that stuff yeah and and and in a way this is kind of a long lead because when the book comes out there'll be an online course and there'll be a i think if they follow um if they go to, oh, this is really the best way. Go to sellingthetruthbook.com, sign up for the newsletter, and then you will get updates on the courses, on the books, on when things are coming out, what new related episodes of my podcasts are dropping. So everything

Selling the Truth and the newsletter is called Selling the Truth Today. And it's going to be the best place to stay posted. And one of the things that we didn't talk about is that I really am trying to have what I do be about more than just branding and more than just solving a branding problem because all branding is personal and we're all dealing with who we are, how we represent and all of that stuff. And I think if we can make some of these methods extend beyond the business bottom line and go into what I call a happiness formula and just make us happier about what we do, what we sell, and what we say, then I think it will have really had the impact I'm going for so i you know i have people who listen to the shows that you know are you know they're medical professionals or they uh they're longtime employees of a company and they don't own their own company but they love the sentiments and the kind of uh life lessons and stuff that are that are in the shows so the book will have a lot of that too that'll be good we'll be excited to see that.

Being a comedy, doing comedy, how many years did you do comedy, Santa? I did it when I was in New York, and I was in my early 20s. I did it for a few years. And then in my 40s, so like about 10 years ago, I went in L.A. I was living in L.A. And I went back into the whole stand-up world and the stand-up scene with a few friends of mine. And really for the next six or seven years, I did a lot of stand-up. So if you – and really, really, you know, that was where I really committed. I think, you know, so if you say eight years, but I've been around it, you know, and I've had friends who are comedians my whole adult life, I'm definitely on the familiar side. There you go.

And how does that help you write comedy? I imagine having the chops to write lines in kind of short form to be able to get people, you know, to laugh, to get through to people, get your message across. How have you found that has transposed in helping you write good copy for your clients? I love the idea of putting together the words and the ideas, you know, stand-up is written in a very, I mean, a lot of people write stand-up different ways. You know, Bill Burr, for example, will go on the stage and talk and the stuff will come out. And, you know, and we'll then go back and hone it and it'll evolve on the stage. Some people will think of stuff in their car and write it down.

And, you know, a lot of us use set lists where we just use one or two words. But the way that it connects with advertising is when you tell a story, no matter how you came up with it, whether it's a 15 minute bit or a 30 second commercial, there's a beginning, middle and end. And you have figured out that the end is going to surprise people. Right. That's that's the comp. You know, we're drawing out the tension. Something's happening. Something's happening. Something's happening.

And the joke comes and the punchline comes and now we're relieved and we've got it. Now we got to pay off. There you go. I noticed on your one podcast, you're going to be talking to seven figure plus people. That sounds pretty exciting. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. There you go. That's very cool. There's an interesting thing that happens when you talk to people who are either making millions of dollars or they preside over companies that are doing tens and 20

and 30 or a hundred million dollars is what happened to me in my business life before the shows where I would sit in some of those rooms. And I was clearly not that person. I wasn't with them because I also had a million dollars or I also was a player. I was kind of a support person. I was trying to help with their image, solve their problem. I was was a player. I was kind of a support person. Like I was trying to help with their image, solve their problem. I was a different person, you know, but all that stuff goes away. All that stuff comes down

when you're on a kind of a balanced playing field. And I think as a host, and you can attest to this, as a host, this is your domain. This is your turf, you can attest to this, as a host, this is your domain. This is your turf. And I think when people come onto my show, no matter how successful they are, if they're on my show, even if they're a great get, they're here because we're both helping each other. We're helping each other. So I'm doing something for them,

and they're doing something for me. And I think that creates a really nice vibe. There you go. Well, anything more we need to touch on or tease out before we go? I think we have really done a great job. I think we should be proud of ourselves. I think it's a lot, but I think the, uh, the selling the truth book was a good one. I'm glad I remembered that selling the truth book, uh, dot com, because I think, uh, that's why I made this new newsletter to consolidate. I got to go write it now after we're done. Cause I, cause I, cause I got to get it out early this week comes out on Fridays. So I got to get it done. I'm going away for a couple of days. So I got to get,

I got to get it done. But I, uh, but I think that that's, you know, one of the great places that people can sign up and, uh, and get the newsletter, but the other links are good too. And, uh, and I really appreciate being here, Chris, with you. I've listened to your show a lot. I really enjoy it. And, uh, and it's, it's a privilege. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the compliments. Thank you very much. We,

I, I, we try and every, every show do the best we can. And some, it's a journey. And, uh,

I think, I think no matter how good it would ever get, if it ever did get good, uh, you know, it's, it's, we always want it to be better.

And so we always want to keep making it better. So we'll keep trying. People seem to like it so far. We'll try and make it even better. Um, thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Give us your.com. So people can find you on the interwebs, please.

Yeah. So again, selling the truth book.com and get message therapy.com. There you go. And thanks once again, Hirsch, for coming on the show. It's been fun to have you and very insightful. Thank you, Chris. There you go. And thanks to my audience for tuning in.

Go to goodreads.com, Fortune's Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortune's Chris Voss, YouTube.com, Fortune's Chris Voss, and go to TikTok at chrisfoss1 at TikTok and the Chris Voss Show podcast. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.

And that should have us out.