The Home Service Expert Podcast - Earning Your Customers' Attention With Consistent Branding

Episode Date: June 27, 2018

Michael is the Founder and CEO of Michael Baldwin Inc, a branding and coaching firm that aims to help individuals and companies to communicate their mission and passion through their brand. He is an accomplished speaker and leader in the communications industry, and has won several professional awards for his work in corporate branding, including the David Ogilvy Award of Leaders, the Cannes Gold Lion, and Ad Age’s “‘Best of the Year”’ TV Campaign award for copywriting. In this episode, we talked about branding, marketing, leadership...

This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Hey there, folks. It's Tommy Mello with the home service expert coming back at you.

I'm here with Michael Baldwin today. And Michael, how's your day going there in New York right now? It's a rainy, wet, and cold day in New York today. What's the temperature? I think it's a rainy wet and cold day in new york today what's the temperature uh i think it's 48 Fahrenheit you know we're at 58 in phoenix and everybody bought jackets sweatshirts mittens you walk outside right now and everybody thinks it's like below zero. It's so funny. Wow. So Michael, you've had a crazy background. You've done acting. You've done a lot of marketing. You've worked a little bit with Steve Jobs in the past. Tell me a little bit about where you are today and how you got there. Today, I would say I'm in my seventh year or sixth year or seventh year, I guess, of being an entrepreneur in my own business. And I, as we talked about earlier, I have a pretty nonlinear path to get here, which started with being a pre-med student and getting into medical school and then deciding I didn't want to go.

And then realizing I was kind of obsessed with advertising. So I spent 25 years in the advertising business as an account guy. And my interest really lied in technology, so I focused on only technology accounts like Apple and Compaq and IBM and Digital and SAP and Next. And I moved to New York actually to run the Next business. And Steve Jobs, my client, I met him in 89 and actually stayed in touch with him until the end. And then I did the next most logical nonlinear thing after 25 years of advertising. I studied as an actor in New York for three and a half years. And then I did a brief stint for a year and a half while I was going on castings at the Apple store as a presenter, which I loved,

and then worked for a London-based company that specialized in speaking, presenting, and presence and leadership. And then I decided that there was kind of an opportunity in this presentation and branding areas to start my own practice, which I did in basically January 2011. Okay. And tell me a little bit about what you got going on right now for the listeners. Basically, if you go to Baldwin.com, you'll see I have main offerings, but I spend most of my time helping senior clients and a lot of C-suite clients in two main areas. One in the branding and naming and naming structure area. And then the other one is for speaking and presenting. So I do a lot of group work, seven or six people over the course of a day. I have a day program,

which is what led to the book that I have now called Just Add Water. And then a lot of one-on-one work with CEOs, COOs, CMOs, et cetera. Okay. So how important do you think, you know, I'm out here, I have a podcast, obviously, I'm growing my personal brand. How important is speaking to a personal brand? Interesting. That's an interesting question. whether it's in a personal context like a rehearsal dinner context or a eulogy context or a political context or a business context. Having that credential, I always tell people it's kind of a credential with no peer because it's all good. And it's something you, if you have it, you're by definition distinguishing yourself.

So as it relates to your own brand, if people know you to a certain level, but then they also know you as an unbelievable speaker, it just elevates everything about you and your business or you and your personal brand. Yeah, I mean, I've seen even politicians and if they're a good speaker, like Bill Clinton, for example, I've talked to several people

that have been in the same room as him. And they say, well, when he spoke, they felt like he was speaking directly to them. And I think I've done a lot of public speaking, but I don't think I'm nowhere near the potential of where I could be. And when it comes to personal brands, it seems like that's one of the largest things to grow a personal brand. Does that seem like one of the top things that you would say will really get you out there? Yeah, well, actually, the book and my teaching, one thing I say often is that nothing will advance your career faster than developing your ability to communicate. Nothing. And I have many clients who would attest to that, who in the course of my working with them over, you know, for a number of years, they've gone from one job to the next job. They've gone from one level to another level.

Their brand has flourished and their credibility, and I wouldn't use the word celebrity, but they're just became more of a senior leadership presence where they work. Yeah, I think that when you think about the whole process of becoming a better communicator, not only in your business life, but also in your personal life, you know, I think my girlfriend more than anybody wants me to become a better communicator. Yeah. A lot of home service entrepreneurs don't understand. They don't see the importance of

branding. And I've seen a lot of companies actually do very, very well in the past without a good brand. And I think they're starting to see as every year goes by with Google, the review sites, more marketing styles that are committed to brands, it's changing. And I don't think they're going to exist in the next few years. Tell me a little bit about how important it is to develop a brand, even in the home service niche. So I was thinking about this, and I don't think it's any different than if you wanted to imagine an analogous situation. For example, you're filling out your own profile and you're about to step into online dating. No brand would mean there is really no description, none of your personal interests, none of your background, maybe not even a picture of yourself.

That would be zero brand for you. Now, how much interest do you think you're going to get if that's what you've done, which is basically nothing? So likewise, what a brand does, well, first, it makes the owner of the brand responsible for capturing the essence of what it is that they stand for, product or service, which in turn makes it very easy for people who are looking for that product or service to find and select you. So on the one hand, the onus is on the owner to figure that out and then to, in a very consistent way, in my opinion, over time, let it become known in the community or wherever. And then you start to, on the flip side, get to be known for what it is you stand for, your product or service. And you get a reputation. People all of a sudden, over time, know you.

So if you think of classic brands, and I don't like to say different, whether you're a giant brand or a home improvement or home, you know, the clients you deal with. Established brands like, you know, BMW, established brands like Coca-Cola, established brands like Volvo or, you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken or something. We've been exposed to so many impressions over so many years of consistent imagery and messaging for those brands. They're like people we know. Yeah, and that changes everything. I mean, even bad media ends up being good media. And it's crazy how that works when there's a book called Brain Fluence. And it really talks about the part of your brain that lights up when you hear a brand

that you know. And it's more of an endorphin releasing part of your brain. It just, the serotonin, it talks about the process of how your brain works. And if it's something that you know, like the general for insurance or Geico, it's obviously trusted because it's still around. And it's crazy how big a brand can be. I mean, even a brand with zero dollars, like literally, I don't know this for a fact, but I know Sears has been struggling recently. But the brand of Sears is still probably worth a ton of money to somebody. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, I would see you and raise you one in that what you said about brands, you know, just imagine a family driving along, you know, any interstate highway.

And there you see the golden arches sign yeah or you see the golden arch you know i mean all of a sudden in every one of the of the minds of the people in that car they know that brand they know those franchise they know that big mac they've known it for years and the next thing you know they pull over and they're they're in there that's how it works yeah and you know what even pull over and they're in there. That's how it works. Yeah. And you know what? Even though Walmart, every once in a while, you might not have the best experience. You don't hate Walmart.

You still go back to it. You say, because their messaging is so powerful. I just think it's amazing how powerful a brand is. And I don't think in the home service industry, we ever think about brand. Like me, it's important to think about brand. Who am I? Who do I want people to first perceive me as? Well, first of all, I want them to know that you're going to be safe in our hands.

Our guys do drug tests and background checks. Anybody that's going to be in your home, around your family. I think that making sure that they know that we don't really care. Price is not as important as not having to see us every year, not knowing that your stuff's going to break down and knowing that we could come out there at midnight if we have to. And so many people always go on price. Talk to me a little bit, Michael, about the guys that you've met. I'm sure you've met a lot of them in the past that say price is more important than brand. It's funny. I think Apple is a classic example of the perceived value of a brand persuading people

all over the world to pay a lot more for desktop computers, laptop computers, phones, iPods, MP3 players, than they would have to pay for a lot of competitive products. I think Apple is a case in point that if you do enough work, in their case, what, 30, they're an over 30-year-old company, they've invested so much money over 30-plus years with brilliant, amazing advertising and products that people don't even think twice about, I don't think, about case in point, paying over $1,000 for a phone, the iPhone X. So I think perceived value is a complete function, a direct function of branding.

Because you're creating, you know, brands live in the minds of consumers and you're creating associations and value propositions in consumers' minds about your brand. So what's the best way to create a solid brand? I mean, literally the guys out there and women out there listening that want to know what's the basics. I mean, if you had to tell somebody three secret tips right now to really get a brand created, where do I start from? What is my first step forward? Well, it's funny. I just had one of my clients is the largest construction company in one of the states, the United States. I don't need to say which one. And I just had this experience recently where I had all of the C-suite in a room for a day. And I would say the first step in the process is to get on the table everyone's idea of what it is, for lack of a better way to refer to it, what is our purpose and what is our passion?

And you'd be surprised, even though you have the people all work for the same company, the chief marketing officer has one idea. The CEO has a different idea. The CMO has another idea. COO has another idea. The CFO. When you start,

there's almost never a situation where everyone has written down the same thing. And that's kind of fun where you have them write it down before they come into the meeting to start the day so they can't change their answers as they hear other people's answers. So that's definitely the first step is figuring it out, agreeing on what it is that the essence of the brand, which I say is what is our purpose and what is our passion? And once you've done that,

I mean, these days, I mean, as old as advertising, articulating that in a phrase, which oftentimes wants to take the form of what's referred to as a tagline or a slogan, that can be incredibly helpful when you think about ones that have permeated the conscious of consumers since a long time ago. Things like, you know, let your fingers do the walking, the antidote for civilization, the tightest ship in the shipping business, the ultimate driving machine, just do it. When you get the right set of words that are the right external facing representation of the essence of the brand and you keep at it, it becomes a part of culture

and everyone knows it. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing is when you figure it out, make sure you have enough 24, 48, 36 hour time period go by. So you feel like you actually have the right answer and then just be consistent over time. You know, I think the, you know, the Elkner drive machine has been in use for, I think, 40 plus years. Four words, the same four words describe a global brand for over 40 years. Yeah. I definitely agree that understanding your mission, your vision, and really making sure that that's a cultural aspect. Now, what would you say to a company that says, yeah, that's good and dandy, but I have eight technicians and two people in my call center. What do you do? Because I know you're used to working with a little bit more of a national type, but I think you need to start,

you need to pretend that you're a big boy. I'm sorry. That might have came out wrong, but you need to pretend that you're a large, huge corporation. And people hate corporations. I call my main Tempe office now that we're in 10 states corporate, and I hate corporations. But the fact is, we pretended, we faked it till we made it. You know what I mean? And what do you do to those small guys that say, you know, look,

we're open weekends. We do drug tests. We're a plus on the BBB. How do you get them to start? I understand what you're saying is like, I'll agree on a plan for a brand, but where do I draw it up? What are the first questions I need to ask myself to determine? You know, you got the USP, unique selling proposition, and a lot of people don't understand that could be you carry the best parts in the industry, but where do I get started if I'm just a smaller company and I really don't understand the

concept of all this? I'm a big believer that the whole prospect of branding and proposition branding need not and is not complicated. It is not something that requires a team of really expensive experts. It should be kept really simple because a brand is like a person that you know. Your aunt is a brand. Your wife is a brand.'s like, if I showed you three things that I, you know, I've never met your wife in three dresses and you'd say, well, you know, she would never wear any of this. Why do you know? Cause she's my wife and I know her. So she, you're familiar with what she likes and like, and what she's the essence of her. It's no different than, you know, if I showed you a really clunky, badly designed, cheap-looking product, and I said,

this is from Apple. You'd say, there's no way that's from Apple. I know Apple. They love design. They would never create something as bad-looking and cheap-looking and stupidly designed as what you're showing me, because you know that brand. So whether you're big or small, it has to start at the same place, which is why did we decide to form this company in the first place? What do we love doing? What is our mission? Why are we coming to work every day? And you start there.

You might say something like there's no way that that guy works at Microsoft. He just doesn't fit the part. I like that because you got to say so many times where I would say ethically and morally challenged by we might have a great salesman who knows what it is, a great CFO. I can't tell you. I've had a lot of people make mistakes in the past and you got to make it challenge yourself and say, does this fit who we are? And by firing some of my best producers, I've got the greatest results. And that kind of sounds of the opposite of what would really happen, but they were like the bad apple and literally getting rid of them and staying true to the company is true to my mission and vision is so important. And I think that's a great example. Apple would

not come out with a flimsy little thing that breaks, even though they might have a battery problem. Right. But exactly. But you know that because, you know, you have experienced, you know, some a guy who actually hired me four times in the advertising world, he always said that a brand is the densest matter there is in the universe because a brand, in consumers' minds, is the repository for every Apple support call you've made, every trip you've made into an Apple store, every iPod you've owned, every iMac you've used, every MacBook you've ever used or PowerBook,

every Apple commercial you've ever seen, everything. And it's all that sort of sits in your mind in a space with an Apple logo on it. So you have a very clear understanding of what that brand is and is not. So that's how you're able to say they would never design something like this. It's horrible looking. The design is stupid. It feels cheap. There's no way. The design is stupid. It feels cheap. There's no way that's an Apple product.

Right. And, you know, and that's when you know you've been successful. And when people can basically tell you if you're Apple as well as you could tell them, that's when you succeed. When you've got a closed loop from the brand or the company, the brand and the consumer. If that becomes a closed loop, you're in branding heaven. So what is one of the biggest mistakes that most people do when they're establishing a brand? Because sometimes you get a bad connotation of a brand too. Like if you get a bad brand and it's not right, it can ruin you. So tell me a little bit about the biggest thing that catches you off guard or catches most

entrepreneurs off guard when developing a brand. I would say there's two things mainly. One is, because I do, I work with a lot of startups and the first thing you got to do is name the company. And these are all brilliant, genius, 20-somethings who could have gone on to Goldman Sachs or SpaceX, whatever, but they want to start their own company. So there's two main gangplanks you walk out on. One gangplank is, let's name the company. And the other gangplank is, how do we want to articulate what we stand for? First mistake, I think, is names that aren't, what they call coin. Now, Google was a coin name, but that doesn't mean anything now. It means everything.

But I actually prefer, if it's possible, names that have some immediate meaning to a consumer that have to do with what you're actually doing. So Federal Express, or you send it, or I'll give you a crazy example, but it's so pervasive, and I have to say it's so good, I'll just give it to you, mypillow.com. Now, is there any doubt about what that business is? No, it's pillows. And this guy is a genius or whatever he's working with. I don't know if you've seen it, but he has like a 90 second commercial that runs. Now there's no dialogue, no copy. It's just this sort of unfolding sequence

of visuals and vignettes about, you know, he had the idea, he wrote it down. Yeah, I've seen it. It's everywhere. Yeah, it's my favorite commercial. He wrote it down. Yeah, I've seen it. It's everywhere. Yeah. It's my favorite commercial. It's absolutely brilliant. And for the best light sleep in the whole wide world, get MyPillow.com. I mean, I could sing the song for you.

MyPillow.com. Yeah. Let's start with a name. He could have called Cloud9. No, he called it MyPillow.com. So the naming part is the first one and I work with startups and I had one

that's a client where I met with them and I said, I just really think this name is just all wrong and then I work with them to change it and they were lucky enough

to be able to get the.com URL also through a broker because these days, you know, everything is taken. So I would say, to answer your question, the first place where people usually run into trouble is the actual naming of the company or the service or the product. And secondly, with how they go about articulating what the product or the service, what it stands for, how you want to talk about it. Right. Yeah. And that's really kind of searching your soul too,

a little bit and say, what do we want to be known for? I'd rather be a master of one trade than a Jack of all trades. And I think in the home service industry, sometimes we become, we work on anything and everything, but we should become specialists. And, you know, back when I was picking my name, Mike or Michael, I'm sure you've heard of this, but I chose A1 just because it fell first in the phone book. So A1 garage door service.

And if I could go back, I probably wouldn't have done that just because there's a lot of other A1s. And it doesn't stand out. If you were a client of mine, I'd say that's probably pretty good because A1 means the best. And I know what garage doors are, and I know I have one. And if I want to have the best garage door, I'd probably go check out A1. Yeah, you see, what I was always trying to figure out is how to tie that to when I first thought of A1, I thought of A1 Steak Sauce and I wanted to kind of tie it into my brand. But I think that was a mistake, but it was something that everybody could relate to. Everybody's seen

A1 Steak Sauce. So I was going to be like, listen, I'll give you a free steak if you get a better price. You know, that was back in the day, but I didn't really go through with that. But I was always trying to figure out a way, but it's nice because anytime there's an alphabetical order of companies, I'm always before AAA and all that stuff. Right. But yeah, I think MyPillow,

I mean, it's crazy because... Brilliant. I'm telling you, brilliant. And that commercial is my favorite commercial. You just can't help but watch it. And it tells this whole story. And it's brilliant. I like it.

Yeah, he does a lot of different things now. He used to have his old same commercial and American Made in my state of Minnesota. Yeah, absolutely. It's all over. It's everywhere. You know, it's crazy. I mean, yeah, absolutely. It's all over. It's everywhere. You know, it's crazy. I mean, he's got to be making a fortune. He's got to be selling a ton of them.

Well, I think he is. But how much money? I mean, I guess he's probably buying remnant space because there's no way he's paying full. I've bought in a lot of media. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on marketing. And I know how much it is to run for two minutes at a time. But you know what, if you're buying cable and you're doing enough and they're just throwing you in the filler space, but you'll get a lot of good space too.

It's kind of like flying. What do they call that? Standby. Standby. But you'll get it most of the time. You know, it makes sense. Yeah. So in one of your interviews, you mentioned that brands should always be measured against three words, simplicity, consistency and durability. Right. Can you tell me a little bit more about what each three of those things mean and how that's applied to business? Yep. And I just actually finished one of my friends' book called Insanely Simple. You know, I've worked together on Next and Apple, and it's all about Steve's obsession with simplicity at Apple and how it really informs so much their success. So simplicity is probably, as I feel like I'm quoting Ken from the book, one of the hardest things to do because I think the definition loosely is

there's nothing else you can remove. You've gotten down to the essence of something. But in terms of branding, simplicity in my mind refers to getting down to what the essence of the brand is. So in the case of BMW, it would be performance. In the case of Nike, it would be performance. In the case of Nike, it would be aspiration. In the case of Volvo, it would be safety. In the case of Apple, it would

be probably cool. And just keeping at it, keeping at it, keeping at it until you've got it down to the most simple, non-buzzwordy, non-jargon language of what the essence of the brand is. Consistency is one of the things where it's amazing to me how infrequently you see it with marketers and branding. Because I'll use Geico's example. I don't know who at Geico believes that having 15 different executions going against the same thing, I don't know if they've tested it, but it seems like they have 65 different commercials that don't look or feel anything like each other.

The only point of consistency, in 15 minutes, we can save you 15% or more. Yeah. That's the irony of Geico, because on the one hand, they have the gecko, they have all kinds of crazy stuff, but the one thing that they consistently over and over and over

and over and over and over broadcast is in 15 minutes you could save 15% or more on insurance. So there's an example of simplicity and consistency with the Geico slogan or the tagline example. And then durability to me

kind of grows out of both, which is the BMW example, which is you stick with it. In the case of BMW, the ultra-drive machine has been the four words that have described a world-class global brand for over 40 years, which means that you put all of your marketing spend over 40 years into those four words. And again, which means in BMW's case, I would argue, probably, I would guess, that that is a closed-loop system between the brand and the consumer

because I think most people know those words. Yeah, absolutely. And it's not easy to get that message out there now. You know, it's becoming, there's programmatic targeting on Hulu. There's radio, TV billboards. There's search engine optimization, pay-per-click, I've been watching this show. It was about how Hugh Hefner kind of built his empire. And there was only three channels on TV that everybody tuned into. A fifth of the country

was tuned into one of the... You know, it's crazy that there was CNBC, there was ABC, or CBS, or whatever. Three stations and it was just crazy to me. CBS, NBC. Yeah, there you go.

You know. And it's like if you were on one of them, you were well known throughout the United States. And I don't think there's ever going to be a time like that again now because the world is becoming so much technology in so many different funnels of, if you like classic rock, that doesn't mean you listen to classic rock. You can listen to one of 10 deeper parts of classic rock. You know what I mean? That you could kind of get into. And it's kind of scary in a way from a marketing perspective, because how do you get in front of everybody? And it's expensive. I mean, TV, radio, and billboards are not cheap. When it comes to really getting a brand out there, what do you think is the most effective and cost-effective ways to do it? Well, God, these days, that's a great question. And I would say that, you know, there's an old expression, no idea who actually said it first, but smart dime versus dumb dollar.

In other words, you can, Apple, again, was another great case because when you think about one of the greatest campaigns ever created in the history of advertising, which is the Apple iPod Silhouettes campaign. Do you remember that? That's the original one where they're like, yep. Yep. Dancing around. Yep. And you just, it was all that you, you was just the silhouette of the person and you can see the iPod and the

cord. Yep. And then they did a print, the iconic white earbuds and the white cord. So that was the only advertising Apple was doing. And what they did was they would find these unbelievable outdoor locations for their billboards. I mean, just how they got these locations, who God only knows how. And then they had just one campaign to run in a very targeted way.

I'm not sure. I don't know what the media buys look like, but where they would be reaching people. But it wouldn't be some massive, you know, scorched earth campaign. And I think they traditionally spent a fraction of what their competitors spent and got infinitely more out of it because the work was so brilliant and because they had one campaign. Yeah, they didn't really mix it up in someone's head. They didn't give a bunch of different campaigns. Exactly. You know, it's like, I'll give you another example from your too young to remember, but, you know, the Maytag Repairman.

The Maytag Repairman ran forever, for decades. And it was the same thing every time. You know, Maytag Repairman, it just has nothing to do because Maytags just never break down. Well, it's true. Yeah. You know, so the two challenges you have are trying to get consumers to remember you, notice you and remember you,

and trying to do that within the means that you have. And there's no such thing as unlimited. Marcom budget globally was IBM in my experience, and they spent over a billion dollars a year, but supporting a whole lot of campaigns, a whole lot of media, and all over the world. And so I think the ideal Nirvana state is when you're putting all of the weight behind one core branding initiative. That's possible. That's so important to understand

and it's really so simple. But yet it's so complex because you got to stand behind it and you can't lose faith in it. One of the people that I think about, which was before my time as well, it was Mr. Whipple, don't squeeze the Charmin. And I've looked that whole, you know, Charmin took off because of that. But you know what I really think about a lot?

And this is the new age of thinking is the Dollar Shave Club, because that guy got so many views and he made a fun video that educated people that was made him that kept him entertained and also made them say is this real and right i've been seeing these campaigns and seriously michael i'm really figuring out a way to do this for my own comedy because it's one way to do it organically. That was shared. It was funny. He put the famous bear in it.

You got to have a bear in it. But the content and the way they copyrighted it was just impressive as hell. And I've seen brands blow up because of that. Look at the, what was that thing called a few years ago? The blanket you can put your hands out of. Snuggie or whatever. Yeah, right. That thing took off and it was meant to be a joke. And literally people wanted it so much they came up with the product. And it's just amazing to me how if you got a well done video that you put on social media and you could do so many things that you could target

people in so many ways now you could hit them on age gender if i wanted to find okay so now now i'm going to give you the trying to say apolitical but i'll give you the most recent the most profound example it happens to be political okay one no One, no clear message. Make America great again. And one candidate had four words from the day he came down the escalator to this day. You know, make America strong again. Make America safe again.

Make America rich again. Brilliant. Whether you love him or hate him, brilliant. No, he is by far, Michael, he is by far michael he is by far look at look at he's been able to do this like the schumer shutdown okay he created a brand about that whole scenario where people could just think about it and say the schumer shutdown you can't not help about

say it was schumer's fault for the shutdown. And that's what he does. He is probably one of the best experts at that in the world. And I know, like you said, we don't want to talk about this because there's so many politics, religion. But literally, I said Clinton was a good speaker. It's not about politics. It's about what people do very, very well. And that guy knows how to brand. He knows how to create a brand.

Look at Trump. Like, you think about it, it's a nice place to stay. I mean, literally. His spending for his campaign was a fraction. Small. Very, very small. Over a billion dollars. He spent a fraction of that. It just goes to show you, what happened was they sat down and said what is my mission why am i running for president because i want to make america great again we have plus we want yeah we want to create the ultimate driving

machine that's why we go to work every day that's why why we started this company. We don't want to make buses. We don't want to make vehicles that are, you know, RVs. We want to make the ultimate performance driving machine. That's what we want to do. And that's, you know, and the thing is for most brands, take a look at Rolls-Royce. They are what they are and it doesn't change. I mean, Rolls-Royce is the same mission, I'm guessing, as they did when they first formed the company, to make the most luxurious automotive experience that money can buy. Yeah, you know, I told you when we got on the call, the reason I do this is I get so much out of these. And I got to tell you, right now my mind is just racing with ideas of, because I came up with this concept of something just super simple. And it's the choice has always been clear A1 from day one. And it's something that resonates, but it really doesn't give you like a reason to call us except for you might remember us and think

of us. But really my passion that I speak about on every one of my meetings is if you could find a better, longer lasting part to all my technicians, if there's anything out there that's better, I want to carry it because we deliver the highest quality, best parts in the industry. And we really build a door to be indestructible. But at the end of the day, the A1 from day one is just something super simple that really does not. Yeah. And I think it was with the MyPillow guy, for the best night's sleep in the whole wide world, get MyPillow.com.

He's just picking up from legendary words to music, like nothing's as loving as something from the oven or from the Valley of the Jolly Ho Ho Ho Green Giant. I mean, you do it right and you can't get it out of people's minds. And again, the end game is to have a closed loop marketing ecosystem where what you're putting out as a marketer or as a brand can and is played back verbatim by the consumer. You think kids don't know Tony the Tiger? It's great.

I mean, every kid. Cynics will tell you, well, this is the, you're preying on the minds of kids, irresistible jingles and creating irresistible Tony the Tigers or Casper the Ghost or whatever. But from a branding context, what you're doing is if you don't exist in the consumer's mind, you don't exist. So you got to get in there. So if it's day one for day one,

if it's day one for Make America Great Again, I don't think there's a voter in the United States of America when you think about it who doesn't know Make America Great Again. Well, that was what Reagan actually ran for. And Reagan, see, he's smart because he took it. OK, so if you think about it, the brain works in certain ways. We think about a tangerine, a lot like an orange.

And if you could make them sound alike and really talk about them the same way, they're identical. And that's the thing that he said, who was the best president on the right side, whoever ran that changed history? And he said, Reagan. So Reagan used to say, make America great again. That's what he ran on. So Trump turned back and he ran on the same stuff. So it's really, really interesting because I don't know if you knew that, but, you know, I get into politics maybe a little bit too much. But yeah, this is really making me think a lot about, I hear people and it's crazy to me when I think about the brands that I know. And what's funny is I had a consultant come in, actually a friend of mine several years ago, and he goes, who is the biggest company in all of Arizona? And I'd give him the name, whether it was flooring or air conditioning or whatever.

And he goes, who's the most expensive? And I said, it's them. And he goes, do you understand that? Is that something that you really understand that you don't have to be the cheapest to be the biggest? And the cheapest means you to be the biggest. And the cheapest means you probably pay the less. You don't have any incentives for your employees. And I'm a big advocate of this, Michael. I talk about this all the time. It's so many people think they're ripping people off. But the first person they rip off is their employee that they're

paying $12 an hour to not letting any overtime. Don't give them any incentives to work there. Don't give them insurance. Don't give them any vacations. Don't give them any incentives to work there. Don't give them insurance. Don't give them any vacations. Don't give them any flowers on Mother's Day or Valentine's Day. It's like they think we won't screw our customer over, but yet here they are taking advantage of all their employees. And also, if a customer has an issue, literally they can't get to it because they only have two employees. So I do think that they're not priced correctly.

They think they're taking advantage of people, but yet they'll go out there every eight months to fix a garage door or an air conditioning unit or a gutter system. Whereas spend a lot more money up front and get it fixed for good and realize you're a specialist and you're the best and you should get paid for more. There's an old story. I'm sure you've heard this before, but a guy spent day after day after day after day. And he had this creek in his floor and he finally called this guy out. And the guy put a little nail. He found exactly where he needed to put it. And he charged the guy 200 bucks. And this might not be exactly how the story goes, but the guy said, what do you mean? I just paid $200 for a penny nail.

And he goes, it's not about the nail. It's where I put the nail. It's the experience, you see? And that's the biggest misconception, I think, in the home service industry is selling yourself short. But if you think about a brand, I would say Walmart's done a great job at saying we're the cheapest. But I would say that so many people, you cannot

be like Walmart. Don't try to be the cheapest because it doesn't work. What would you have to say to somebody out there that's listening? And I guarantee you there's hundreds, if not thousands of them listening that are saying the cheapest always wins. But that's not the case. What do you say to somebody like that? I would say that in only a few cases, is that possibly true? Because in most cases, if you're going to spend more than two seconds thinking about it, there's a difference. You can easily determine what the difference in value or construction or quality is. It's so hard to get over that. I mean, let me ask you this, Michael, when you go shopping, let's say you needed to get a roof done and really try to envision the scenario of your house right now. You're going to redo your roof.

What's going through your mind when you're listening to bids? Obviously, price is a factor, but realistically, who are you going to buy from if you got three quotes? Well, I think I would first eliminate all the common denominators.

And I would like to think that if I got three bids and they're fairly decent from where they're coming from, that to think that if I got three bids and they're fairly decent from where they're coming from, that it's like if you got three applications for Harvard and they've already passed through all the major filters, so you know the test scores are going to be pretty much the same. The grade GPA is pretty much the same. Okay, so now what is going to distinguish one from the other? And it's going to be that unusual unexpected thing so in this case in your example it might be they're all good they're all quality

they all know what they're doing but i just like this guy more or they're all good and they're all going to do a decent job and that being the case i feel safe going with one that's slightly less because i know the quality of the work is going to be what I want. But I think it boils down to eliminating what the common denominators are first and then saying, so what's left? We know they all know what they're doing.

The tools and equipment are all basically at the same level. So then, okay, what is the difference between these three bids? I feel like the common denominator is the only thing is who's coming out there and selling it to you. So if you got somebody that can relate, the number one thing I tell my guys is I know this is an easy, simple task for you, but imagine you're walking in, you never heard anything about it. First of all, you need to figure out what type

of person you're dealing with. So that's why we do disc assessment. We really focus on teaching people personality profiling. Then we say, ask questions. And then we explain to people, because some people might have a different question, completely different than the last person you were with. And if you could really explain to people what they're getting and what's important to them, of course, price, but price only, only 7% of the population truly buys on price if they understand the difference. And I've been on Amazon before and I've found two similar products

and I buy the more expensive one. And so many times people do that. I mean, they're similar, but I say something says, if you buy more expensive, it's probably made better. And they use little adjectives. Like I use ours, our self lubricating high cycle. Those are all adjectives, you know, things that I put in front of them. And we created a brand for our top of the line it's called max life and i actually trademarked it it's called max life anything to do with a1 garage or max life is lifetime warranty it's the best you can get it's been doing really well i agree wholeheartedly with the uh

i just love this conversation about branding it's actually something i want to follow up with you on um sure this week coming up but uh so i want to kind of pivot you on this week coming up. So I want to kind of pivot. We're running out of time here. I know you've got a weekend to attend to here. So many teams operate at suboptimal levels due to lack of clarity. And I agree with that completely. I use organizational charts.

I use job scopes. I use everything that I can do to give them clarity on what they're expected to get done. What kind of tools or approaches do you use to make sure your whole team is running in the same direction? Well, to me, that's just an expanded analogous discussion that we were having about branding. Because what's the expression? If you don't know where you're running, you're never going to get there. Right. So everyone has to understand what the goal is. And also they have to understand what the priorities are. point for optimizing efficiency and functionality with a team is making sure everyone knows exactly what their role is and exactly what everyone else's role is. So the example I use, which may

sound ridiculous at face value, I usually show a picture of the Fantastic Four. There's the Hulk, there's Stretch Man, there's Field Force Woman, and there's Flame Man. There's no doubt in anyone's mind who does what. The Hulk is never going to be Flame Man. Flame Man is never going to be Force Field Woman. Force Field Woman is never going to be Stretch Man. It's absolutely crystal clear what the role is of each individual and every other individual understands what everyone else's role is as well. Job, that's job number one. And you'd be amazed if you get eight people in a room who worked together for a long time and you have them all write down, give each one another person's name and you come into the room prepared for the meeting, having written down what Tommy's job is.

And I read out loud what Tommy's job is. I Tommy says, I haven't done that for about 18 months. I do this. You're kidding. But I thought, no, no, Blanche does that now. I thought, you'd be amazed for that fundamental, that starting point, how much confusion there is. That's the first thing. And then the next thing is, it's getting 100% agreement and singularity about what the goal is. And there's no negotiating different ones once the course leaves the barn. You know,

everyone's got to be on board, rowing towards the same target, or you're going to have problems. Yeah. And you see that a lot. And I don't think it's, I think it's a leadership problem. I think it's the fact that no one ever really realized where their mission is. And I think the branding needs to be right at the forefront of the mission, the vision, and the brand. The brand is like the,

if you had to put it in a triangle, you got the mission on the bottom left, the vision on the bottom right, and then it shoots forward upwards towards the brand. You know, Mike, I had a… I would advise you and I advise other people. An even simpler way to think about it is no one leaves the room until we are all in agreement about what our purpose and our passion is. If you solve those two things and you get everyone's agreement, that will last until you outgrow those two things and it changes for some reason. But think about it. For the most part, McDonald's, hamburgers, french fries, milkshakes. A billion customers later,

hamburgers, french fries, milkshakes. They sort of expand and collapse a little bit. But for the most part, they'll never not sell hamburgers, milkshakes, and french fries. Hasn't changed. I agree. You know, Kentucky Fried Chicken is about chicken. Fried chicken. That's what Kentucky Fried Chicken is. Whether you call it KFC or not.

So until such time that we get into, that's what we're about. Yeah, I think that's important. When you think about Donald Trump, even though he's involved in a million different things, I kind of think of him as like a higher end, you know, you don't really go to a Trump golf course and expect to play a par three beat up course, you know, it's like, and that's the hardest part for me is I think, cause I'm involved in many things and you kind of got to pick about what, what do you want to be known about you? Is it going to be your job?

You know, people don't expect to get into Rolls Royce and see that smell, that really bad kind of fragrance that they bad cab drivers have on the dashboard of their cabs and big furry dice hanging from the rearview mirror. You don't really expect to see that because it's a Rolls Royce, right? Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't know if you have my book or not, but you can get, feel free to share this with your listeners, but you can get my book on Amazon,

on Barnes & Noble. And there's a lot in there about branding, but if you want to become a better speaker and presenter, whether it's a eulogy or a toast at a rehearsal dinner or a presentation to your colleagues or friends or whatever, by all means, go to Amazon.com and look for Just Add Water by Michael Baldwin. I am going to do that. I was just going to ask you how to get more of you. What's a way, if somebody wants to reach out to you and say, look, I need help with my brand.

I want to become a better speaker. What's the best way to get you, Michael? www.baldwin.com Okay. And then one of the questions I always ask is, I always have a few favorite books. I have probably five of them.

I have about a dozen of each of them on my bookshelf because I hand them out to my workers. But what are some of the books that you'd recommend other than it? Trust me, I'm going to go buy this book today just to add water. But if you have a couple of books that you really think just completely and I don't really care if they're business related, I don't care what it is. But what are some of the books that really impacted you? And you say, you got to read this if you're going to own a business. I would say my friend's book, uh, insanely simple by Ken Siegel. I just read it myself. That's one. I would say the book I just

mentioned, which is my book. And there's another one. Um, Ken has a second book called Think Simple, which just came out. So he's got two of them. I'm also reading them. I'm halfway through Satya Nadella's book, you know, the new Microsoft CEO called Hit Refresh. Okay. Which is pretty interesting. There's a lot in there about doing things right way, wrong way, culture change, leadership. It's pretty interesting.

Yeah, we're're big on culture right now it's so crazy how a company starts growing and the culture is so important and uh it's about you know there's that book called built to last and it talks a lot about that as well yeah well listen michael i i'm gonna reach out to you later this week i'm gonna buy both those books i've got uh just that water and Insanely Simple. I'm definitely going to check out more of the website. I enjoyed this and it really helped change my mind. Not changed it, but just really makes me think a lot more about just the success of simplicity on a message that resonates, you know? And if you could keep it short, simple, sweet to the point, what is that?

Kiss. Keep it simple, stupid. Well, you know, I'll give you my latest favorite is the, you know, Ted talks. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, there, there, it's very simple. Spreading ideas. Sure.

Spreading ideas. That's what they're about. That's the essence of what Ted is all about. I love that. And, you know, there's so many things I could think of right now that really have a short, easy, simple message. And I do think it's difficult because all of us want to be more than maybe. Like, I want to be giving beautiful garage doors. But guess what?

We do a lot of service. But guess what? If you don't have enough money to get it done with the best you could get, we have a number one, two, and three. We'll make it just as good as our competitors. We'll make it better. We'll make it the best. And there's so many different facets that really you got to choose from, but I think all of us get in the business to make money, but we can't say our mission is to be the most profitable in the industry. So, you know, I think it's, I think it's really finding it. I like the idea of the passion because of course there's the purpose. The purpose is to make money and be the best of what you are.

I mean, no matter what, typically do the best of what you're doing, but you got to find out what to specialize in and then find out if you're passionate about that. And I think that's a lot of soul stretching. I think you got to dig deep for that. So, yep. Well, Michael, I got to tell you, I got a lot out of this. I really appreciate taking up your Sunday and I'm sorry I was late. And I'm going to read these books. I'm going to get ahold of you this week and we'll hopefully have you back on.

Look forward to it. All right. Thanks, Michael. Have a great weekend. All right. Thanks, Michael. Have a great weekend. All right. You too. Bye-bye. This was the Home Service Expert podcast.

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