How to Build a Breakaway Brand That Stands Out

All right, welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And tonight, I want to, I say tonight because I'm actually in my office late and I was just thinking about a couple of things. We had a great magazine come out this month, the Valiant CEO Magazine with the cover with our exclusive interview with Donald Trump. and I've been doing a lot of branding lately. You guys hear me talk about authority marketing and ways you can grow your business, but we've really been deep down the rabbit hole on branding. And I walk over to my bookshelf in my office, like I often do, and I always reference books that I've read and things that I use. And, you know, as many of you know, if you've been following our podcast, I've been building brands, billion dollar brands for 30 years now. Some of the biggest brand names out there. But, you know, there's a book that I've often read and I wanted to just kind of recommend it to you. It's done by Francis Kelly and it's called Breakaway Brand, How Great Brands Stand Out. And, you know, I do this once in a while because sometimes I get so much influx of marketing and things in our office that it's nice to kind of go back to basics and really look at things. And I thought tonight what I would do is share an episode with you on some of the key takeaways on how you can build a breakaway brand. And why would you want to do that? Why would you want to build a breakaway brand? Well, with the noise in the marketplace right now, it is literally almost impossible to get seen. And unless you're doing some things to stand out and doing it over and over and over again, you're going to really struggle. So building a breakaway brand is something that I highly recommend for people to do with their company, whether it's your personal brand or your business. I always really, really promote and push a personal brand. So let me do this with you. I'm just going to share some of the big key takeaways, some of the big strategies that I feel like you can use in your business right now. And I hope it brings you some value. I'll try to keep it short, but let's just get real clear. What is a breakaway brand? A breakaway brand is something that doesn't follow the market. It redefines the market. And it's these brands that create emotional connection, not just transactional relationships. And you know the ones that I'm talking about. And this book actually highlights a lot of them when you look at things like Apple and Nike and Volkswagen JetBlue Starbucks These are breakaway brands And there a great quote in the book that says breakaway brands aren just liked they loved They aren just liked they loved And so, you know, your big takeaway here is that if your brand doesn't spark a deeper connection, you're probably just competing on price. You're probably just competing on price, not value. And you need to move into the value proposition. So you're not just trying to race to the bottom on price. So let's talk here for a minute. Strategies that I've pulled out of this book for you that are going to give it to you in a nutshell. The first one is be driven by purpose, not product. Be driven by purpose, not product. See, great brands lead with why, not what. They lead with why. Breakaway brands have a bigger mission. Customers really kind of rally around them. If you look at brands like Patagonia where clothes is, it's not just clothes that they sell. It's about the environment and activism. You take brands, you know, we could go on and on, but brands that create a mission bigger that customers can rally around. So define your why for you and your brand. Make it visible. Make sure people know what the reason is that you're doing what you're doing. The why, which we'll talk about again in a minute here, is very, very important. And then another strategy I took away was focus on the experience over the exposure, the experience over the exposure, because visibility is not enough anymore. Memorable experiences will build long-term value in customers. And your brand is more than just marketing. It's how you make people feel. And so you take things like Apple, for example, when you unbox an Apple product, there's a real experience that you have. So I would recommend that you audit your customer journey. What is what is it that customers experience when they're working with you and your brand, whether it's your service or a product. Another strategy to keep in mind if you want to build a breakaway brand is you have to own a distinctive point of view, a distinctive point of view. And usually the breakaway brands challenge the industry norms. They challenge what you're used to seeing. It's funny because the book mentioned this brand, Liquid Death. And it's water, right? With a real rebellious brand voice. And I remember seeing that in the grocery store one time and I thought, oh my gosh, what are they selling? They're liquid death. And then who would drink that water And they crushing it They absolutely crushing it So what industry belief ask yourself this question what industry belief can you challenge One of the things we challenging right now is that marketing and exposure is not enough Building an authority brand is something that can help you to grow your business, attract opportunities, and just flat out eliminate your competition because you will be the trusted expert that is omnipresent in the marketplace. So own a distinctive point of view with your brand. Another strategy would be Build a consistent brand culture. Now, whether or not you have a big business is not the relevant point here. Brand culture, it relates to this why that we talked about as well. Internal culture will drive your external brand reputation. And breakaway brands empower their employees to live the brand. Like take Zappos, for example, and their fanatical customer service culture. You've got to get your team aligned with your brand values. Otherwise, you're just selling products. You're just selling services. And if you don't have a team, you still need to create that consistent brand culture. If you want to build a breakaway brand, one that's going to scale because you can't scale with just products. You've got to be able to scale with culture. And then the last strategy I wanted to share with you is that, and this is one I want you to really think about, tell a story that people want to join. Tell a story that people want to join because your brand story isn't just about you. It's about the customer. So breakaway brands have always invited their customers to be part of a journey, a journey like Nike, for example, just do it. It's not about the shoes. It's about the courage to take control of your life. My business partner and buddy, Patrick, who founded the company B-Hood Apparel, who we have, you know, we have apparel in the Miracle Mile Mall in Las Vegas and up in Salt Lake City. You know, he always talks about be you bravely. B-Hood is more than just a clothing brand. So think about how you can rewrite your brand story with your customer as the hero. Many of you see me wear this Phoenix emblem on my hats and on my clothes and things like that. And you know that that Phoenix is, beside it being a trademark of my business, right? It is the phoenix, which is all about evolving your life and unleashing your potential because the phoenix the mythical bird lives forever lives its life until a point where it burns up in flames and rises from the ashes to become a more powerful more magnificent bird And so this symbol of the phoenix is the idea that you can evolve and unleash your potential and that no matter what kind of a dumpster fire you have in a life or no matter how big or amazing your life is, you can always reinvent yourself and take it to another level and continue to grow and continue to evolve. So that's the type of story that I want to share with individuals. That's why we have our EvolutionX mastermind at jointheevolution.com. It's why we do those kinds of things. So with that said, okay, let me just summarize for you. What we've talked about in building a breakaway brand is purpose, experience, your point of view, your culture, your story. What I want you to start thinking about is how you can separate yourself from your competition, how you can go to the next level and literally eliminate your competition and stop trying to compete with the people that are in the marketplace. You are unique. Your brand is you. your business is going to have a purpose and a mission that's going to drive you your customers your employees and everybody the next level but it is up to you to differentiate yourself and build this breakaway brand so i hope those are ideas that'll help you i hope they'll inspire you a bit hey listen join us tomorrow because i'm going to share with you one of our episodes of the franklin planner podcast which i am a co-host of i know the owners of franklin planner very well And it's really all about empowering you, your teams, staying focused on what matters most. So I'm going to share one of those episodes with you just to give you a little bit different exposure to some of the leadership training and principles that we teach. So that's my message for today. I hope you have an amazing day. Would you do me a favor and share this show? Just share it with someone that you feel like might get something out of the branding and marketing that we shared here today. And then tag me in your post if you share that online. because I'd love to see what you got going on. I'd love to be able to comment and I'll throw a shout out, kind of check with you and see how you're doing. So anyway, that's the message for today. Have an amazing day. I will talk to you tomorrow. Once again, my name is George Wright III. This has been The Daily Mastermind.