The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 006 - How to Name Your Business with Jeremy Miller

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode, we're joined by branding expert, Jeremy Miller, for an in-depth lesson on how to name your business to match your brand strategy. Get more: https://ryanhanley.com/Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's episode, I'm going to introduce you to Jeremy Miller, an author, speaker, consultant, and the founder of Sticky Branding. Jeremy has a new book out. We're going to talk all about that. But ultimately, I love the way Jeremy approaches branding and in particular naming. And we go through a thought exercise on how to name a business or when to rename a business. It's incredibly valuable stuff. You're going to love this episode.

Let's go. So basically the long story short is I was the CMO of an insurance technology company. I had been in that space for about six years. Previous to that, I had been in the marketing space doing a lot of stuff, content marketing, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then, uh, then I became kind of on the brand side, building an insurance brand. And then about seven months ago, I got offered the opportunity to become a partner and actually have the position of CEO in a fitness concept, metabolic. Yeah. And so that's what I'm doing now. That's awesome. So you're taking all the marketing they teach other people and apply it to yourself.

Yeah. So I actually kind of have to put my money where my mouth is and see if all that bullshit that I said for all those years actually works or not. We'll see. And so is Train Metabolic like a branded version or a more focused version of what's happening in the CrossFit community? Yeah. So it's its own boutique fitness concept. So metabolic training is a style of training. It's not incredibly widespread. It gets used kind of ubiquitous with a lot of other training philosophies that aren't similar, but in a nutshell,

it's strength training at a pace. So it's doing load-based exercises, but doing them in rapid, uh, succession and it's able, you're able to get all the same impacts on your body as, uh, running on treadmill or something like that with the advantage of also building lean muscle at the same time. So it's sustainable and fun and fits in a busy work schedule. And it's also hard. And, uh, I've been, I've been working as a client or was a client at this business for about five years. So when I had the opportunity to come in and help them grow nationally, uh, it was like a no brainer for me. How are you, how is the, your methodology different from say a CrossFit, uh, water class? Yeah. So they are, um, so from a business standpoint, they licensed their,

their agreements. So I can see from a biz perspective, I think what you're doing is fucking amazing. I have a client who's a CrossFit gym owner. They probably got the largest CrossFit gym in the Toronto area, but they're fucked every time they turn around. They can't, um, like some, a trainer leaves and starts their own gym. There's no, you can't have a non-compete in there. And so the barriers to scale is just insurmountable. So his business model is terrible because of his relationship to Glassman and those guys. Yeah. So, so what we're doing is we are, so what we found is that first year of franchise business and a fitness concept, there are so many landmines. It becomes, it's,

it's partially a barrier entry for new people because they've watched so many issues with the last seven years. Um, and then, uh, the other part of it is, uh, brand quality and quality of product are so incredibly important in this and the way our business is set up where orange theory, Red Effect, insert new fitness concept, all of them are drinking the technology Kool-Aid and going more and more towards a fitness concept that does not involve real human trainers or the trainers are marginalized. I'm going to stand in front of a screen. That screen is going to tell me to do bicep curls. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to move to the next screen.

We are the exact opposite. We have almost no technology in our business besides the sound system and a timing system. It is all about the human trainer. So one of our core philosophies is turning personal training from a job into a career. So we salary our people, we pay them very well. And as we expand our business, our business model is we're going to start new locations as corporate locations, run them from one to three years. And then somewhere in that three to five year range, we're going to look to sell that operating profitable existing business to the personal trainer, to the studio manager of that business. So it essentially gives a personal trainer, the ability to start as an entry level person, work their way up to assistant manager, become a studio manager, and then ultimately give them a path to owning that particular location. If that's what they want out of their life. Uh, but a studio manager and a full gym and metabolic

makes six figures. So it's, so it's like, you know, one of the reasons why we, we don't losing trainers is a big deal, but we haven't lost the studio manager in three years because they make, it's a career. It's not, they're not getting jerked around. They have health benefits. They have a 401k. They, it's a real career for them. And I think, I think that changes the, the, the whole model of the business. I love it. Um, I love what you're doing, how you framed it. A good friend of mine, um, she, uh, uh, ran a daycare, uh, franchise and very similar kind of concept where they would basically run it as, um, a corporate shop until they got a manager up to a certain level.

And then they would empower them to become franchise owners. And they grew that business up to about $80 million. And they ran it. What was where she made a boat ton of money, though, was every time they went... It was like McDonald's. Every time they could buy a building or buy a property, they ran that on top of it. And so they had two companies. They had the Opco, which was running the daycares,

and that was just all cash business. And then they had the property building, and they sold it to an Australian firm, and now she's living beach life. Well, that's the dream, right? I'm Skyping you from my yacht in beach life. Um, that's the dream, right? Is, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm Skyping you from my yacht in the future. That that's, that's where, that's where that's the dream, but we're years away from that. So yes, that is, that's the method is if you can get into the real estate side or even the financing side, um, there's, there's a lot there. so we'll see. I also like the fact that the product actually works. That's always fun. You know, selling insurance is cool, except

everyone hates you at the same time. Yeah. No one wants to pay for something that hopefully never happens. Yeah. You can't take Insta bangers of insurance policies. You know what I mean? That doesn't really work too well. So the, uh, the marketing of the product is definitely tough. And, um, but yeah, so we didn't come here to talk about metabolic though. I'm just really curious and I'm happy for you. Cause as I said, I've been following you for years, going back to your, uh, before sticky branding, my book came out the first one. And, uh,

and so just watching the journey, cause you were, um, like I go back to that period and that was, you were pioneering a lot of, or at least pioneering in terms of vocalizing what you were doing in social. And I thought that was fascinating how you were taking that to a B2B place. So it was always fun watching. I think I've got, if I go back to my blog back in the days, there's gotta be like Ryan Hanley quotes from. Oh, geez. You know, it's funny. I actually, I was being, I was on the other side. I was in your seat about an hour ago. I was being interviewed for Eric Fisher's podcast. He works

for social media examiner. Yeah. And he was asking me about kind of these different stages. This is actually my third podcast I've done and different stuff. It's been interesting, man. Cause like, I keep having to reinvent myself. You know what I mean? I was like marketing and sales guy. And then I became, you know, kind of the CMO of that insurance brand. And I had to kind of take it to the streets, B2B kind of, um, uh, put it all into practice in that world and kind of re-engage. And now I'm out of the insurance world completely kind of focus more on topics around leadership and peak performance and then marketing as well and how all that fits in. So it's,

it's, it's an interesting, life is interesting how it works out, but, uh, It's the entrepreneurial journey, isn't it? Right. Right. That's the game. So, um, all right. So let's, I want to get into, um, I want to actually talk about what you have going on. Um, I'll do a whole intro for you. So, um, all right, so let's, I want to get into, um, I want to actually talk about what you have going on. Um, I'll do a whole intro for you so we don't have to do all that. Sure. I guess basically how I want to get into this conversation with you is I am horrible at naming things. Horrible. When I say horrible, I mean, maybe I'm not as bad as I think, but in my brain, I am terrible. Like the name of this show is the Ryan Hanley show. I had a vlog that was

some variation of that. Like, like I just, like whenever I come up against naming something, I am awful at it. And you know, I got, I got into your book and I just said to myself, like, I mean, obviously I love what you're talking about. Um, but I, I guess, how do you, I guess my first question is like, is, are there bad names of things? Like, can you have a bad name? And, and how do you make sure, like, like just how do you get past that initial fear of whatever I call this thing?

It's going to, it's going to be terrible. Like, how do I just past that initial fear of whatever i call this thing it's gonna it's gonna be terrible like how do i just not i don't know that's that's like i just i hate naming things we all do though it's it's hard shitty work and every time you think you're uh you've found a good name uh you find out someone else has taken it and that's really the reality that we're facing is not only do i have to have good ideas, we have to find available names. So you've got a bunch of questions packed into one. And the basic thing I'd first say is, I don't think there actually is such a thing as a bad name. I think you can have a bad strategy. So if you're running, say, a senior's living center, and you're going to call it Purple Taco, I'm probably going to tell you that's not the right

name for your brand. But if you look at what you do today with Train Metabolic, well, that's a really interesting descriptive name of the gym, the mindset, the whole kind of training you're going to be doing. And so it gets you into that moment of that's interesting, tell me more. So I think what we're first and foremost looking for is, what is a name that fits the strategy? And so what is your strategy would be the starting point of everything of, what are you naming? What does it have to do? How does it have to function? Who's going to use it? How does it require to stand out in the marketplace? And once you know what you're trying to do, then that's really where needing a process kicks in. And I think I've been like you, I have approached naming without process, without a roadmap, and can burn hundreds of hours just

trying to come up with an idea and not find one that I like. And so I think the key to good naming is good process. Does the name have to be a thing? Like, does it have to even exist? I mean, I think the most, the example everyone throws up is like Google, right? Like they just, you just make up a word. Sounds good. Like Google's, I guess, biggest little competitor or littlest big competitor is duck duck go which seemingly is an odd name for a search engine feels very like 1999 2000 e internet boom time name for something um like how do you compare those two and how do you like how do you i guess I just don't know where to start in terms of I this show is is really uh doesn't have a specific topic outside of I want to talk to interesting people doing interesting things learn more about them and share it with an audience so I guess using my name seemed

to fit plus I have a little bit of an ego and and seeing my name in lights feels good but if I were trying to put a name on this show, you know, I think of Maz. I think I just think of these things that feel like someone just like threw items up against the wall, listened for sounds. And they're like, that sounds like a good name. Like,

we'll see if we can figure out how to put that in the words. Wistia is another one, right? They just, it's a made up word that they just liked. Is that, you know, how do you go? How do you think about that strategy like where do you actually

start into this process versus should I use my name should I just use a descriptor should I just start go to go daddy calm and start looking for URLs that work like well let me take a step back so I'm a serial entrepreneur I've been doing this now for over 15 years and not only naming my own businesses and products and services, I've helped lots of companies go through this. And what I have found through this journey is that having that strategy is really important, but then it comes down to that process. And there's a few things that we can unpack in what you're talking about there, Ryan. Now, for me, not having process was really frustrating.

And so I actually wrote a book on it called Brand New Name, and it's coming out this October. And what it is, it's a graphically designed branding book that shows you how to name or rename anything. And you don't need an agency. You don't need a ton of time. It's a process that takes two to four weeks to do. So we unpack this a little.

Let's first and foremost talk about what you're asking in terms of types of names, because I think that's really important. So in the book, what I talk about is there's three categories of names. You can have a descriptive name. It says what the product or service is. So think of big-ass fans. So there are those giant fans you see in a gym or a warehouse, and it says what it is, but it's an evocative name.

Like through the word ass in their name and a logo is a picture of a donkey backwards. So it's a fun, interesting, descriptive name. Or TripAdvisor is another example. The name gives you a sense of what you're buying. You can have a suggestive name. Twitter, Slack. Those are giving you an indication of what the brand is like. It's a suggestive name. And the third is an abstract word. This is where you have the Google, the Hulu, the invented words like Kodak and Verizon. Now, all three types of categories work. I think

you can decide what fits. So one of the challenges I often get people to do at the start of a naming project is to go and create a list of all your competitors, both direct and indirect, and slot them in. Who's using descriptive names? Who's using suggestive names? Who's using abstract or invented names? And get a lay of the land. Because what you're really looking for is not, should we have a descriptive name or an abstract name? We're actually asking the question, what's it going to take to stand out? So you might find that if everyone in your industry is using an acronym or an invented word,

then maybe actually being really blunt and saying what you do is a better strategy. And so understanding what types of names are is a very valuable way to give you a little bit of centering so that you can move forward as you start the creative process. I guess one of the things that I've always gotten hung up on is, and this is actually, it was in big, bold letters in your book. It said, successful businesses create successful brands. And I guess when I'm thinking about names, I tend to think like, does the name really matter? If my business, if all these companies have these ridiculous words that have just become,

they become cool because the business is really cool. Um, does the, you know, does the name actually matter or does, should I just come up with the first thing that feels good that has a URL and then go focus on my business? Or should I take this time? I mean, obviously I'm probably setting you up with the answer here, but like how much time should I take in coming up with a name because you know for a guy like me is incredibly impatient like two to four weeks to come up with a name feels like an eternity okay how long would you spend or actually how long did you spend creating the the train metabolic website the website itself probably took a month to uh build out the website okay

and any planning and pre it was that including planning and content creation or is the whole cycle um hold on one sec man someone just walked in the room it just walks right in what happens it's an office gotta love co-working um all right so all right so uh i will answer your question around, uh, how long the website took again. So we can, I didn't know what was going on. Um, all right. So, um, it took us about a month to build out the train metabolic website. Perfect. How long do you think a website lasts though? Like what do you think the shelf life of this website is probably these days no longer than two years i think that's the point that uh we look at marketing assets like websites brochures any kind of seo campaign and they can take months to create and sometimes they're fast like a month for a website build is

incredibly fast oftentimes it takes about 90 days to to take those types of projects but they have a shelf life of two to three years your Your name lasts pretty much forever. It's the longest living artifact of any business. And the fact that we just kind of half-ass it and throw it away is really kind of shocking considering it's going to outlive the logo. It's going to outlive the website. It's probably going to outlive the fundamental business model. You think of Colgate, it's probably 120, 130 years old now. Coca-Cola and Ford, they're the same type of thing. So this is probably one of the most important businesses decisions you'll have just for the simple longevity of the name. And you're absolutely right though. A great name is not going to make your business great. If you have terrible operations,

terrible people, you're a bad leader, whatever it is, your business is going to suck and the name is actually going to absorb all that suckiness. So your name is a vessel. It contains all the experiences, all the positive and negative affirmations that go around it. And so what we have to look at is the name is like a label in your mind. It's like a label on a file folder in your customer's mind. It's how someone categorized you. It contains all those experiences. And if you get that name right, that label becomes really easy to find and share and refer. But if not, but if the contents of your package suck, then

the name's not going to matter. They're moving equipment today. I'm trying not to be frustrated by the fact that I booked a room in a coworking space and that dude just like plowed right in the door, walked in the utility closet, was banging around in there. Oh my gosh. I try to be an easygoing person, but sometimes I just don't know. No worries. Yeah. All right. So I, um, wow. I apologize for that. No, no, no worries.

Um, okay. So, no, don't worry. Okay. So if you could just pick back up and I'll splice it back in, if you can remember. Do you remember where you were? No, I have no idea now. That's all right. I'll just fade it out. We'll go on.

We'll keep moving on. So I guess, so what I, you know, the thing that I think, so I was reading the part about, about, about Colgate in, in a brand new name, your book, which is, uh, which I highly recommend everyone pick up and, uh, I'll have like, cause you can pre-order it now, correct? You can pre-order it now as a recording and it comes out. Tell me again, you said October. October 8th is the launch date. Okay. So we will, we'll have this package.

We'll have the release of this package around a launch date so people can get the book. Um, and you know, one of the reasons when you first reached out to me that I was so interested is one, because I feel like this is something that I really struggle with is naming in general. And, uh, you, I was, I was reading, digging into the copy of the book that you sent me. And I was, you know, the Colgate thing was really interesting. And Colgate was actually the name of the initial founders, uh, family. And now that, um, today I buy Colgate toothpaste. I don't even think twice about it. To me, it's just Colgate. It could be anything. It could be a word. It's a college. You know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's the,

the family name has been detached probably for most people from the, from the products themselves. Like you don't think of it as, Oh, this is, you know, William Colgate or whatever his name is. Toothpaste that his son created. This is just Colgate toothpaste. And I either buy it or I don't buy it. Coming from my previous life in the insurance industry. So many of those businesses are, are, are family names. The, my wife's family's agency is the Murray group. Um, it used to be the Gilderland agency. There's, you know, the cool agency there's, there's a Rosenkirchen and there's, you know, I'm just

local. So much of the, of this industry is family names. So what I heard you said before was kind of look at the ecosystem of businesses and their naming segments, the segments that they're in, and then it may make sense to go a different direction. So just kind of thinking tactically, it may make sense for an insurance business that might be starting today to instead of just dropping their their last name into the business as the as the naming maybe go go something completely made up or or like lemonade is an insurance brand has absolutely nothing to do with uh with insurance or coming up with something that's very straightforward like cheap auto insurance which is actually already taken.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with this. I'm actually starting work with an insurance agency right now. And what it was, was a family had built up a second generation, very successful group benefits practice, got it up to 80 employees and sold it to a much larger firm. Now, the eldest son who was running the business is two years in, realized working for the man's not his thing. And so he's going to be moving out on to start his own practice and as non-compete ends in January. And so he's going to start a new practice. And so the question that he asked was, do I reuse my name because that name carries weight in the market that he was in,

or do we come up with something different? And to your point, yes, when everyone in the industry names under a certain convention, then good marketing would indicate to stand out, you should do something a little bit differently. And so what we are doing is a naming sprint to generate lots of potential names. And in that, we really have two objectives. One is the family name is focused on one individual. Now, you can have a lot of people working under a family name, but if you're in a startup, it's about you. So, what is a name that will be identifiable and distinguishing in the market? What is a name that staff can want to work for and identify with and make it their own? And also, what can customers use as a way to distinguish what's the difference between agency A, agency B, agency C?

When your customers can't differentiate one option for the next, they're just going to go for one of two ways of buying. They're going to go with what they know and choose the person they like, or they're going to go with what's cheapest. And that's the way insurance brokers have been selling for 100 years based on relationships and price. And that's not a very sustainable, scalable practice. So if you've got an opportunity to actually create value and stand out, 100%, take it.

So when should an agency think about... I'm going to use insurance agencies as an example, just because I think the naming is so ubiquitous. The singular naming culture of using, you know, some founder or family name is just very widespread. So in an ecosystem in which many of your competitors and probably even the agency that you're currently with is staring at all these similar names, right? The Hanley agency, the Johnson agency, the Jones agency, you know, Stevenson and

Robinson, you know what I mean? It's just, it's over and over and over again. Yeah. And, and what's happening in that industry in particular is you're starting to see a rollover from the baby boomers to the next generation, whether it be X, um, uh, or Jen, uh, Jen Y and, and, and these individuals are starting to come up. So if I'm in that position, I'm the next in line. I see this as my future. And the name of my agency is Robinson and Jones. And I'm trying to stand out and differentiate my agency. I want to be forward leaning. What is the conversation look like? How do you start to consider the process of doing a renaming of that business? What should you even be thinking about in order

to consider it? Because it's not going to be for everybody. In some cases, renaming, even if you see opportunity, I'm assuming it still might not be a good option. So how do you start to work through that exercise as to whether or not renaming your business might be something that's worthwhile? Well, it's a fascinating question, especially in the context you've laid out. One of the things I find really interesting in my business is 60% of sticky braining clients are actually family enterprises. And so part of that's because I come from a family business background. And my first naming project was actually changing my family business name from Miller & Associates to LeapJob. And so we were in the IT staffing industry, and I reinvented the business and rebranded it. And that all got triggered with my dad saying, you know what,

there's too many Millers on the door, it's time for us to stand out. And that was our catalyst. But what I have seen and what I've worked on in a lot of Sticky Branding's naming projects have been related to succession. For example, if you go to Seattle, there's a restaurant group there called Consolidated Restaurants Inc. or used to be called Consolidated Restaurants. They own the Metropolitan Grill, Elliot's on the Water, and several other very well-recognized restaurants there. Now, as they transitioned to their third generation, Jim wanted to come up with a name that was more identifiable for the team. And they changed the company name from CRI, Consolidated Restaurants, to E3. And that was actually a hat tip to their executive chef back in the 1980s, Earl Owens. And he created a seasoning spice that's used across

all their restaurants. And so it's a word, it's a symbol that everyone in the entire company knows, and it became a symbol of excellence that they could own as their brand. And so when a business is going through succession, my suggestion to the next gen is to ask the question, what do you want this business to look like five years from now? You have the value that your parents created or your grandparents created. You have that legacy. But changing your name is around putting a stake in the ground of what you want to become. You still can hold on to all those relationships and history that you've created. But what you're doing and changing your name is establishing yourself in the next generation of leadership and growth. Because

the market's moving so fast. If you assume what worked well for your dad or your grandfather or your great-grandfather is going to continue to work in 2020 and beyond, well, that business is probably not being set up for success. So next-gen branding, this is your opportunity to think big, build something. You've been given or you've acquired this gift. Make it your own. When do you think, I'm just going to keep peppering you with contextual questions because I find this to be so interesting. So one of the things that I've also seen, particularly in family businesses, is I am ascending to a leadership spot within that organization, whether it's the leadership spot or just on the team. And I see the opportunity that you just presented, a chance to reposition our business in a way that is future facing

and is more indicative of who we want to become. Okay. I get incredible landslide pushback on the idea of changing the brand that over the last 35, 40 years has essentially built this business, if not longer built this business. So what I've seen some of these individuals do is create secondary brands. So you'll have the standard, you know, Miller and Associates, and then you'll have this other brand that they spin up as a separate company. This to me seems like a long-term fail to sidestep short-term pain. Um, so if this is a situation that is brought to you, uh, how, how do you start to address it in, in, in, in what I've heard as the pushback is being like, this is who we are. Why would you want to change that? Like, how do you start to talk through that with, with, with the neck, with the individual who's, who's looking to make the change? Like what advice could you give them

in approaching, um, the, the, the, the, the previous generation with, with the, with the potential change? Like how does that conversation start to work out? So it's actually from a consulting methodology and the way I'd work with a family would really be in a two-step process. The first thing is to look at the strategy. Are you building this business for succession or are you building it for sale? They're two very different tracks. So if you're building this thing for succession,

then you're looking at a horizon of 10, 15, 20 years. Because if I'm coming in as the leader and I'm say 35 years old, I'm not gonna retire anytime soon old, I'm not going to retire anytime soon. So I want to have some longevity on this. And so if we're building this thing for the long term, then the question is, what does this business need to do? What does our brand need to do? And so what are those strategic questions of where we're going to go? Now, if we come to the decision that, you know what, we actually do need a new name, we need to stand out in a better way. But there's that question of we should keep our

existing and start another business. And you're creating, in branding terms, a house of brands. It's simple math. At that point, you can pull out a marketing budget and just start doubling everything. Okay, I need two websites. I need to have two content marketing strategies. I need two social media strategies. Oh, by the way, we're going to probably have to hire another body because we can't create that much content. Oh, we need a different, we're gonna have to double our PPC budget. And you start putting these line items up and you go, oh, wait, we just took, let's say, conservatively $100,000 marketing budget. We just doubled it. Well, then Pops, who's taking a

dividend out of the business, probably still going, you know what? I really don't care all that much about this name. I'd rather take the paycheck and go to Florida. Are there ways to hat tip the old name into something new? Is that something that you should even consider? I guess I'm searching for ways or guidance, and you've given us a lot to think about so far, to maneuver what is the inevitable pushback that you're going to get. And in the case of my wife's family business, for for 37 years it was called the gilderland agency and one gilderland is a small town in upstate new york which makes it even smaller in terms of everyone else in the world and it's also and this is maybe just it probably makes sense to you i mean it now makes sense everyone. It's just a tough word to say, like Gilderland.

There's like five, there's like four or five different sounds you have to make just to get that word out of your mouth. And what was interesting was our receptionist had a really hard time with it. She would say Gilderland and she would really pronounce like odd parts of the world of the word. And it just got to the point where like, this can't be our

future. And we went with the family name because my wife works with her twin sister, her father, and at her time, her brother, her brother as well. So there were four of them there and they called it the Murray group. And we kept the colors the same. So our hat tip to the previous, to the previous brand was the colors, the colors stayed red and gray and white. And we just changed the fonts and the feel and, and that kind of stuff. Is that, is that a good move to keep some of that? Or when you're,

when you're trying to reposition, should you make a full break different? And I guess, and there's obviously there's no absolutes in this. I'm just trying to help people understand as they think through this process, you know, is it better to think let's, let's stop where we were. If we were red and gray and white, let's move forward as blue and black and green. So the short answer is, I don't know. I don't think there is a definitive way on that. So what I would suggest is actually just a different metaphor. So if you think of Gilderland,

it was a vessel. It contained all the experiences, all the customer relationships, all the staff history, and all that lore sits in this vessel that was Gilderland. And then you have the Murray Group. And what you essentially have to think of is, how do we pour the contents of one brand into the other so people know what that is? Now, you use colors and some signals to indicate the path from vessel A to vessel B. But a communication strategy is fundamentally all you need. And the biggest mistake that I see brands make when they're changing their name is they short cycle themselves or they short circuit themselves and they don't give it enough time. So whatever you think you need in terms of a communication strategy to pour the contents

from one brand to the other, double it. And if you're under 18 months, it should probably be at least 18 months. Give yourself time. Especially if you've got a multi-generational business, you've got a lot of history, you've got a lot of touchpoints, you've got a lot of people. And the larger your brand, the more you're going to have to market yourself. But that's what we're doing. People will be very generous in a name change, provided they're given a clear path on, you've gone from point A to point B and why they've done it. So if you give them that history, you give them that story,

you give them those hooks, and that's sufficient. And it can be as simple as in their invoices for the next two years, you include a one pager that just says that story and says, Gilderland is now the Murray Group. And this is why we changed it. If you have any questions, talk to so-and-so. You know, what's really interesting is we actually found throughout that name change, we found it to be an excellent opportunity to actually retell a story about the business

that we hadn't told in a long time because nothing was actually changing from an ownership structure it was just kind of a modernizing of our business and and getting us out of what was seemingly a small town field to kind of hey we're more regional and um all the stories that we were able to tell around this change and what it meant, we got to say things and share ideas that hadn't been shared in a long time about the business. So it actually, even though there was some kind of hiccups, I guess you could say, and some people I think still don't understand six years later that the name is different, which is probably always the case. Did you see a lift in sales after you launched the new brand?

I wouldn't say right away, but we certainly did trail. I think the insurance sales cycle takes a little bit, but today the velocity is way more and it has to do with kind of regionalization of our area. And it feels we, the Murray group could be anywhere. The Gilderland Agency was in Gilderland. And that gave us the ability to reach into other townships and other cities within the eastern New York area that previously were kind of cut off to us because people felt like we were too far away. And that has definitely been a boost for them.

Now here we are, I guess it's been eight years now since we made that change. So the strategy is really, really sound. So I think the reason to change the name and the opportunities to get into new markets makes absolute sense. And then you had the, where I was leading on the question on sales lift is what a lot of companies experience when they go through a name change or they go through any kind of rebranding is they experience a lift. And the reason for that is they just increase the volume of their marketing astronomically just to get the new name out, just to announce the new brand, they got a new website, whatever it is, they just start promoting that. And they're doing more marketing than they ever did before. And so oftentimes, we will see a one or two year sales lift just on a campaign launch to change a name. And so if you've got an opportunity to blow your own horn and you take it,

giddy up, then you're going to pay for this thing real fast. Yeah, one of the things so at Metabolic, we recently, probably, it was probably two and a half years ago now, I was not part of the company, but we did a name change. The original name of the gym was Metabolic Meltdown. And the whole idea was it was a much more cardio-focused program at the time and was more geared. It was, the issue was the word meltdown made the workout program feel like it was just about weight loss. And we didn't want it to just be about weight loss

because that's one of the things that could be one of your goals, or it could be a goal. But in many cases, especially for me, I'm not particularly interested in losing more weight. Like I don't show up to lose weight. I show up to just maintain strength and be fit. And, um, and there, there are, we didn't want it to feel that way. So we just dropped the word meltdown to just metabolic. And what's been interesting is that has created, and this is where I want your take. I'm kind of using this podcast as free consulting now. There's been two dynamics that have been very interesting to me, both. So now that I've had a chance to dig into the company and I've been here for eight months now, looking back at some

of these things. And what was interesting was people were very enamored by the name, the, the, the, the, the two M's I'm forgetting the rhythm of it. Metabolic meltdown. It had a nice rhythm to it. It was very descriptive. It was very unique. People called it the meltdown. That was like a nomenclature that surrounded it. Um, and, and it was, especially at that time when the business was growing so rapidly, this was, that was the name of the business in its, uh, when it was going through its very initial growth curve, we were going from 150 members to somewhere up around 1500 members in less than two years. And those people, you know, the meltdown metabolic meltdown,

it was the name. And then wanting to get away from the idea that the workout program was just for weight loss, we dropped the meltdown and just left metabolic. The interesting part about that is, one, from a pure, from a out-of-region branding perspective, the term metabolic has pros in that it is both the training philosophy that we are built upon and the name of our business. So there's some advantages to that. I think advantages that will play well in our favor down the line. But in the short term, we are a mishmash of being able to get found online because people are not searching for our business. They're searching for metabolic training and all the various metabolic syndrome and some of these other things. And we just don't stand out yet because our brand isn't strong enough. So that's been really interesting. Metabolic Meltdown is very clearly a business. Metabolic is not necessarily a business just at face value. So that's been really interesting. And then the other part is

the term metabolic though. I think again, long long term, this was a really good play. Short term, I'd say 50% or more of our members called us the meltdown. And getting them to lose that and drop that has been a challenge over time. I think we're probably finally there. But that took easily, you said 18 months, that's taken easily the last two and a half years to get out of that. So it's been really interesting to watch how, you know, what you'd think was a fairly simple name change, just dropping the second half of the word has had some parts where we've really struggled through it and

some other parts where it's helped us. What metabolic does is it sets you up with an accessible name. One of the things that CrossFit's really suffering from right now, and they're going through Herculean efforts to fix this, is CrossFit's view as an extreme sport. And they're trying to get into that place right now that where the running joke at anyone in CrossFit is that you got pukey the clown as a metaphor and everyone's going to get injured. And so my wife, for example, she works out probably two to three hours a day, seven days a week. She's almost on the extreme end of things, but she's addicted to it. It's how she deals with her stress. And if I were to ever ask her, hey, do you want to come to CrossFit with me? She'd be like, no, that's extreme. It's kind of funny because that's what she does is probably on the

extreme end of things. But if you were to ask her, hey, do you want to go train and do a metabolic workout? She'd be like, yeah, that sounds cool. That sounds fun. If you were to say to her, it's going to be a class where you're going to be doing endurance-based strength training, she'd be go, that's interesting. Tell me more. And so what I think is really fascinating in the metabolic brand, especially when you put the word train metabolic to it and make that

part of the name, is that you're giving me an indication of what that life is like and what that program is like. And when I move away from Meltdown, now I'm no longer in that extreme workout profile. And you know that the people that are just so passionate about working out that it's like an addiction, they might be the ones that are caught up on meltdown. But if you want to go from, say, 1,500 to 3,000 to 10,000 and just keep tripling in size, then this brand has to be accessible not to the gym rats and the people that are really looking to kill themselves and to the broader cross-section of people that want a great workout, want some structure, but don't want to get injured and probably don't ever want to use this as a competitive sport. Yeah. So that has been the second half of this path. So in the last year, we've taken that 1500 person gym and we now are over 3000 people at our six

locations. And I think a lot of that has to do from what you just said. I think the meltdown was scaring people away. It definitely attracted that small section of the market because it's so funny you dialed in on that. I mean, it's why you're on the show, but you dialed in on the fact that that meltdown piece, it brought out the people who were looking to get punched in on that, I mean, it's what's why you're on the show, but you dialed in on the fact that that meltdown piece, it, it, it brought out the people who were looking to get punched in the face, right? Like the people that enjoy that, that's what it was bringing them out. And that was a great small, like if, if this was the kind of more, more innovation curve, it got those innovators. Um, but we couldn't cross kind of cross the chasm for anyone who's read, uh, uh, the book. We couldn't, we couldn't get across that until the chasm for anyone who's read the book. We couldn't,

we couldn't get across that until we dropped the meltdown and gave it that broader feel. And, and really the workout has adopted and adapted to the, the, the segment of the population that now will, is willing to give metabolic a try because it doesn't feel like, even though it's an incredibly hard workout, I mean, don't, don't get me wrong. Um, it, it doesn't feel like that extreme thing, which is what we wanted to get away from. We didn't want this to be, you know, CrossFit 2.0, not to do anything wrong with CrossFit, just that's not what we want it to be. And, um, and yeah, so that has helped

us. And it's really, you know, today, um, you know, and, and with, uh, we did a rebrand and a re-logoing, um, with, with meta with just metabolic and, uh, and today it feels like it has that staying power. We'll see. And I think that that's really what great brand building is all about that. You've got a name, but what you're doing is you're breathing life into it. And that 3,000 plus members, you are reaching fans and building relationships and having this referral network. And the challenge that I would be posing to your group, and this comes into some of the core work that I do at Sticky Branding, is how do you get to that next level, which in your case would be, say, 10,000 members. And we look at it scaling through a couple different

lenses. One is through revenue plateaus, when typically a company has to reinvent itself at 1 million, 5 million, 10 million, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500. And you're basically transforming not only your operations, but your leadership and your whole business model to get to those plateaus. Now, in a membership-based organization like Metabolic, we look at it through the lens of the law of three and 10, which is every time you triple in size, you're building for the next level. So it's tens because I don't want to do the math of what the nines would be. So it's 1,000, 3,000, 10,000, 30,000. So you look at those plateaus and that threshold. The question I would pose to you and your team is, what do you need to do to bring the

gym and the franchise network up to 10,000? And when you're there, it's at 30,000. And what you've been doing with your name though, is making it accessible to hit those flips. And so not treating a name as sacred, especially in a startup or in a high growth business, is really important. Like we hold ourselves up and we look at Apple and Nike and these really well-established brands, but we don't look back to the 70s and 80s of when they were being pioneered and built

and just how much changed and how rapidly they changed to find success. So your name is not sacred in the early days. Your name is a living, breathing brand asset that you've got to breathe life into. And if it starts to feel rigid, you change it so they can continue to grow with you. Yeah. I mean, what I think is funny about Apple in particular is that there was a time when Macintosh, actually one of the versions of their computer, they pushed the Macintosh name just as hard or harder and out into the marketplace than they did Apple, the brand. Now today that's, you know, that, that would, they would never do that. Um, but it was just, it's just funny. I completely agree that I,

I, I don't know that I always believed it cause I probably didn't always understand naming, but I certainly have found that there is, it's almost like, it's like half art, half science. You know what I mean? Like you, you obviously put a lot of thought into your name and your book outlines a lot of these processes and anyone who is considering any of these things around names that we've talked about, whether it's a rename or you're starting your own business, this, this is worth picking up. Absolutely. I'll have links to it. And then, or just Google just go to sticky branding.com and you'll be able to find it, or I'm sure on Amazon, all that. But the idea around metabolic in particular that I've seen

is interesting is how people chop it up. Meta this, you know, they're adding the M to all different kinds of words. And there's like this, yes, you want to have the science of feeling like you've done the research and the work to feel like you've put yourself in position. But then there is also this organic nature to how a name evolves and how people use it and how it becomes a signal for who they are. And you kind of have to, I almost feel like, and I'm really seeing your take on this, you kind of have to let some of that run and play out. Like you don't want to, you almost want to be careful not to over-engineer it because I don't know, you know, if I have, I could have an entire portion of my client base that,

that feels a certain way about the brand. And if I over engineer it, I could take that away from them. And, and it's, uh, am I describing what I'm saying to understand what I'm saying? I think what you're describing, I think is really wise and hard that I think we tried to, especially in a young business or in a small business, we try to defend our names and we try to protect our brand and we're almost overzealous with it. But if you've got your fans, your clients and members are actually creating nicknames or variants of your name and it becomes theirs, then my challenge for you would be to empower them to make it their own. Because what you can do is the company name could still be metabolic, but if the membership community starts to give it an endearing name that means something to them,

it's something worth paying attention to. That's actually how Frisbee got its name. So just to give you a little tangent, so Frisbee, play those little plastic discs, it actually started out life as the Pluto platter. And the guys that created the hula hoop actually licensed the product from the inventor, Fred Morrison. So Wham-O, which created Slip and Slide and Hula Hoop and Silly String and all these great brands, they licensed the Pluto platter. Now, when Fred, or sorry, when Nair, who is one of the founders of Wham-O, went out to

see kids playing with this, he went out to Connecticut, was out near the Yale campus, and he noticed that the people playing with the toy were calling it a Frisbee. And he asked them why. And it turns out there was a pie company known as the Frisbee Pie Company. And it was actually named after the family, Frisbee. Now, instead of Frisbee with two E's at the end, it was I-E. And so Rich Nair, from Wham-O, he noticed what these kids were calling the discs, and he changed the name. And he changed the spelling. But he went and he paid

attention to what the market was calling it and then adopted that and so if you can create that relationship where your members feel like they own metabolic and they give it an endearing name the sign on the door could still say metabolic but the insiders all give it a different name that's powerful branding. And that takes balls on the entrepreneur's side of things to allow that kind of thing to take place. Yeah. It's really interesting. And being in this position today that I'm in and thinking, you know, we're six locations today. I want to have 21 locations by August of 2020. And then our goal is to be up over 200 locations in the next, say, three to four years. And I look at that, and there's this part of me that thinks, you know, got to own the brand.

Certainly quality of product is of the utmost importance. But, you know, you have to own the brand, have to own the brand, you have to be on top of it. You have to be pushing it. And then I watch, it's funny. I, I always try to do the workouts as a client, not as the CEO of the company. I try to show up. I try to go through everything just like I did when, you know, a year ago when I was still a client of this business and not, um, not working here. And I watched the way people interact with each other and the way they talk about it. And one of the things that I've always found, I find very funny and something that I never want to lose and is, is, is definitely a struggle, um, internally for me as I try to work through this process is, uh, like, I'll give you an example. Like you ever see the movie pitch perfect Anna Kendrick and a bunch of the singing or whatever. And they say like,

Akka something like it's like a big joke, like Akka what they have this like thing where they put Akka in front of all these other words. And it's, you know, kind of cheeky and fun. Well, people do the same thing with meta. They'll be like meta, whatever. And I heard someone say, geez, I got metamorphia. And I'm like, what are you, you know, what is, what is that? And they're like, that's that 20 minute feeling that I have after the workout is over. And it was just like, so I got my guys, um, working on, I want to do a video around metamorphia and like what it means to people. And I gotta, I gotta refine the person at the, at the gym who shared the topic with me. I was like, man, that is really, how do we start to capitalize?

And I don't want capitalize to feel as smarmy as it kind of just came out of my mouth, but like, how do I start to take this idea that there are people building little micro brands and micro sayings and around this and start to pull those out and, and share them with the rest of the community so that they can, so that the language can start to, you know, I feel like that will help the community be even stronger. If someone can walk in and know that that 20 minutes of being high as a kite after the workout that people refer to that as metamorphia, I feel like there's a lot of power in that. I think it's brilliant. And I think you have so many opportunities right now as an owner and a community builder, because not only

can you take these ideas to social and video and create quote images, the first thing I would be doing is t-shirts, like putting, put the name on someone's back and also giving people credit. I think, so my approach to naming is actually to unlock the creative genius of teams, not to hire an agency to name things, but actually to use your employees and your own team to name things. And when you do that, when somebody, when you are empowering, in your case, your community to be helping to build the brand, then give someone credit for the idea. Put their name on it. Let them know they're part of that story. It doesn't cost you anything, but it means huge psychic

income for them. But it's also a signal to everybody else that you value that kind of creative participation. And with that, I think it's something you can fully bake into the operating DNA of metabolic. I think you can build bake into the operating DNA of metabolic. I think you can build it into your community and your culture as something that is something you value and that it's safe to do. But I also would suggest that it's also leading you to what is probably the next generation of branding. Baby boomers very much ran from a command and control mindset.

And that is very visible in the way we have been coached in terms of how we think about our brands today but if we look at this through say a millennial lens in terms of how young professionals lead teams expect their engagement it comes from basically a philosophy of empowerment and so as a brand to empower your customers and your members to have ownership of the formation of what you're creating and to give them credit where it's credits do. Wow. That is just, that's beyond awesome. Like that's a, let's showcase this and, and hold metabolic up as just the epitome of a sticky brand.

Well, I think that's the perfect tie-in of our two organizations. My man, this has been a tremendous conversation. I know I use it as free consulting, but I think the audience at home has gotten a lot out of it. And, you know, this idea, you know, you had said something that we didn't really touch on. And, you know, I want to be respectful of your time and, and, and probably my own as well, everyone at home. But, you know, you had said that, that you see an uptick in sales when people change names or make brand changes, because they put a put a lot back into the marketing of that. And what I would love for everyone listening at home is, is there are a lot of micro changes you can, you can make

from, you know, if you're not ready for a full blown rename or brand change, um, there are micro changes that you can make from the conversation that Jeremy and I have had today, especially if you, uh, go and get a copy of his book. Um, you can, you know, there's lots of little things in there that you can make just to make tweaks to what you already have. And what I would encourage them to do, what I encourage you to do is, is to keep marketing. Don't, don't stop marketing. Don't, you know, start just when you have something to, when you, when you have a big change coming. But I think, you know, consistent, consistently making little adjustments, little tweaks, dialing in, it doesn't have to be set it and forget it.

That's one of the things that I took away from your book and one of the things that I've taken away from my own work. And I think it's a very important way to keep people engaged in what you're doing is small micro changes continually in an effort to bring people in closer. So Jeremy, this has been tremendous. Thanks so much, man. Give people just, I know we've kind of mentioned a couple of times,

but give people the best place to reach out to you, best place to find more about you and the work that you're doing. So you can find me at stickybranding.com. If you Google Sticky Branding, you'll find me. It's the handle on all my social networks. The new book you've sticky branding, you'll find me. It's the, the handle on all my social networks. Uh, the new book you've mentioned a couple of times is called brand new name. It's available wherever books are sold. It comes out on October 8th. And if anyone wants to

chat or has follow-on questions, just hit me up. I'd love to chat. All right. Thanks brother. Appreciate your time. so Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the one-call-close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups,

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