961: Building ICONIC brands (& how to name them!) that customers remember and FEEL w/ Jared Langston

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and I am excited for genuinely every episode, but especially today's episode, because we are joined by an incredible entrepreneur who is just brilliant in so many ways, whether it's visually, whether it's strategically.

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This is someone who thinks outside the box very creatively, but also puts things into rapid action in the brands that he helps to create.

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So I'm so excited to tell you about today's guest.

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His name is Jared Langston.

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Jared is a disruptive brand builder, entrepreneur and creative with over 20 years of experience.

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He loves using handcrafted techniques, thoughtful processes and immersive experiences to build meaningful, memorable and timeless brands, including.

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I love the fact that he's not just helping others do this.

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He is doing this for himself because, including recently, he launched his own non-alcoholic beer brand called Good Liar, and I will tell you everything that you'll find about this guy and all of his work online.

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It looks beautiful, it stands out, it makes bold statements.

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This is someone who whether it comes from coming up with the name of a brand or the brand positioning, the creatives, the voice, the look, all of it we're all going to learn a lot from today's guest, so I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Jared Langston.

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All right, jared, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.

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First things first.

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Welcome to the show.

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Hey, brian, thank you, heck.

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Yes, you have got a lot to live up to today, jared, because I think all the work you do is so incredible.

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But before we get to your current work, take us beyond the bio.

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Who's Jared?

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How'd you start coming up with your creativity, the work that you do?

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I want to hear that backstory.

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Yeah, so it's definitely a long story, but I had originally started out as a graphic designer.

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You know, when I was, when I was younger, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do.

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You know, I was thinking creative design, fine movie.

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I just knew I liked to create, and so from that standpoint I knew I just had to keep creating and doing stuff and starting out.

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I hated school.

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I absolutely hated it.

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I hated going there.

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I was the guy who would sleep through class.

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I would barely pass grades just so I could pass sports and I would get you know the things that I was interested in.

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I would actually absolutely crush it.

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But then there would be subjects that I just hated and I would literally bring a pillow into school and sleep because I hated it so much.

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Or I truly understood the power of hard work and you needing that to create, and so went to college, hated that too, and I think I finally realized I hated people telling me what to do or living on a certain schedule, and so from there I got into.

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After I graduated, I got into a corporate world pretty quick and started doing package design and realized I learned more in three months than going to school for years.

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And so from that point on I knew I just kind of had to take life and push everything forward to get what I wanted to out of life and create.

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And so from there I really liked doing stuff by hand.

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Still, you know, sitting on the computer all day, you get kind of tired of someone looking at pixels and moving stuff around.

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So I ended up buying a screen printing company when I was, I think, 22 or 23, relocating, and then started designing stuff for bands, printing posters, printing shirts, and I pretty much undercut everyone just because I wanted to learn how to do that.

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And so in the meantime I kept designing and working for agencies, and so I really just wanted to, from that point, just keep expanding my skill set, keep expanding those hard skills.

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And so I didn't really have the soft skills at that point, but I knew that I just keep having to double down on hard skills.

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And so I didn't really have the soft skills at that point, but I knew that I just keep having to double down on hard skills.

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And so I would work day and night, from eight in the morning until one or two in the morning, almost every single day.

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You know I'd had friends going out on Friday night.

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I wouldn't do that because I just wanted to keep learning and trying new things and playing around and just trying to get better holistically as a creative.

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And then I eventually jumped into a couple small agencies and really started seeing what it worked, what it's like working with a bigger team, and then from there got into a midsize agency and then, and then a few years into that, the old creative director he started up a new company and then he called me up right away and was like hey, starting up this new agency, do you want to come join?

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And so I was like hell, yeah, let's do this.

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And was building brands for well over 10 years within that for other people.

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And eventually, at a point in time, he came to me and said, hey, I'm kind of tired of doing shit for other people.

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And eventually, at a point in time, he came to me and said, hey, I'm kind of tired of doing shit for other people.

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And I got an idea.

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You know, do you think me and you could kind of go after it?

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And I remember the conversations and I said, fuck, yeah, let's do this, and dropped everything from doing work for other clients and started turning it internally, and at that point I knew it would be hard for me to go back to normal agency work, of kind of doing cookie cutter stuff which is totally fine and pays the bills, but from a satisfaction standpoint really really didn't like it and so spent over 10 years building up a few brands that we built from two people, and when I had exited I left early from that company because I wanted to start up my new company.

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But we were doing well over $50 million a year in sales and, granted, that's a huge shout out to the entire team and everyone along the way and the struggles that we went through to get that.

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But it literally started with two people and, uh, we were working out of our houses and we just we just grinded our way through it to to understand where you could really pull and build really really big brands.

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And so, fast forward to today, I started up a company called dry department, which is is don't repeat yourself.

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And so it's really about creating new brands under stuff that, under the, the idea of creating stuff that's very purposeful and meaningful, um to me personally as well as our team.

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And so within that context, funny enough, we started a non-alcoholic beer company, but I had dry department way before that and so there was no correlation between the two of the names.

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But yeah, started that good liar at the beginning of the year and it's got just absolutely amazing traction and we're really really close to getting some contracts in place with one of the 10th largest craft breweries to go just full-time steroids on this thing.

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And that was just after a few months of launching this brand.

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They saw the meaning behind it.

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We've had some conversations of where the brand could go, and so we're ready to put some steroids on this thing.

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And so I really had the insight of not only building brands for the people but what it takes to build a brand for yourself.

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And it's two different worlds.

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And I and I realized that building brands for other people, you really put a lot of fluff and nonsense in that, as you give them kind of 30, here's some meat to chew on and actually build your company, and a lot of the other shit's just fluff.

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And so I really wanted to take that knowledge and so we're still working with other brands to help build their arsenal, but we really just trim the fat and give them what they really can use to excel in their particular area.

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Yeah, gosh, I love that overview for so many reasons, jared.

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Part of it is because it's spoken like a true entrepreneur as soon as you said you don't like other people telling you what to do.

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I think that that's something that will resonate with so many listeners along the way.

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However, they're inevitably going to have the question of how the heck do I get there, which we're going to talk business a lot today, but what is obviously super powerful about your background is that creative background.

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You talk about your love for graphic design.

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I want to ask you this right off the bat, because I'm always thinking about the listeners and their potential inside narratives and the obstacles that they'll build for themselves.

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They're inevitably going to think well, jared, you're creative, you're a designer, you have that inside of you, and a lot of people say I'm not creative.

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What's your response to that as someone who works not only strategically, business-wise, but also you marry it with that creativity.

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Is creativity something that's prevalent in all of us, because obviously you build great brands on the it with that creativity?

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Is creativity something that's prevalent in all of us, because obviously, you build great brands on the back of that creativity?

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Where does it come from and how can all of us harness that?

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Yeah, I think every single person is creative in some facet.

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I meet a lot of people all the time and they'll say, oh, you're the creative or you're the creative one that can come up with this.

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And it's like no, everyone has amazing ideas and creativity.

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It's just you can put a process behind it and then you just have to understand your thought process on how to get there.

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And so I mean creativity doesn't mean you have to be able to have a piece of paper and draw, and I think that's what most people think is is I'm not creative, I can't do that.

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There's different ways.

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I mean you can pull creativity in on how to schedule your day or how you're going to take your kids to school and balance going to pick up groceries.

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There's, you know, there's certain creativity things that you can do throughout your life.

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It doesn't have to just be writing on a piece of paper or drawing, and so I think it's just one.

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It's doing it, understanding what you're doing, and then just and just getting with that 1% better every day.

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I know it's a little cliche to kind of say that, but it really does.

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Work is you have to just think about it in micro steps of how you can continually get better and harness that, that, that creativity, if you will, that everyone has.

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But I don't think it's limited.

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I mean I came from a huge family.

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I'm one of five kids.

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I am the only person in my family that took a true creative route, and so I can't just be the only special one that got the creative gene.

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It's just that I found a love early on for creating.

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It wasn't about being creative, it was more about just creating.

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I didn't really care what it was at first, I just loved creating stuff and using your hands.

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Creating stuff.

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I mean I ride motorcycles and I love going out there and tinkering on my bike.

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Just to me that's creative.

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It's how can I make this thing look or feel or put different headlights on things, and so that's just another way to be creative.

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So it's not just limited to you're either creative or you're not.

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I think it just takes will and consistency and time to get there and understand what you're doing.

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Yeah, well then let's talk.

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We'll dive straight into the cornerstone of a brand's creativity, I think, really starts with the name, and when I look at your brands for example, dry Department don't repeat yourself the fact that there's that backstory that you can speak to and and good liar it just reminds me as soon as I landed on the good liar web website.

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I just picture myself in a store or at a brewery and seeing that brand, it just it feels like a real company.

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I remember when I just started my first business, I was like no one's going to take this stuff seriously because it's not a household name, whereas the way that you even name your brands, jared, it stands out as a real brand.

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It's something we can grab onto, it's something that we can remember, it's something that has its own identity.

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Talk to us even at that basic level, because I feel like every entrepreneur, and especially every entrepreneur, that's the first stumbling block where they start to feel not creative is what the heck do I name this thing?

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Yeah, names are really hard and it's even harder when you're naming it for yourself.

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So we'll say that when someone else comes to you and gives you hey, here's 20 names, pick which one you like, it's a little easier.

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But there's, it is infinitely harder doing something for yourself because you are super critical and you don't have that outside lens at some point to to be able to make a rational decision, because you do have emotion behind it, you do have money behind things, and so it does make it a little bit harder.

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But, as from the naming process, even for both of those, I remember I, I I'm from Columbus, I had gone to another city and I was just kind of resetting and I think I spent maybe two a trademark search or what's the URL, and you realize, oh shit, that URL costs $40,000.

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Okay, Well, that name doesn't work or I have to come up with something silly.

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And so for me it was really important to have all those dots connected of can I own the trademark, is it short enough that I can create appropriate assets URL, that I can create appropriate assets URL, hashtags at names, instagram, etc.

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And so when I hit with Good Liar, it really, really stuck, but I still wasn't like, okay, is this the one?

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And then probably went through 400 names.

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And then I was having a late night riff session I think it was like two in the morning with my digital director and we just went through every single name, one by one, of why do we like this, why don't we like this, why do we like this Don't?

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And then we started just kind of snapping and getting all those pieces and parts together.

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And then we saw the URL and I originally was going to go super aggressive with the name and just over the top offensive and then realized I needed to rein that back a little bit and then I still wanted something that had that a push pull.

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So the good and the liar and having the two vowels in there is there was a lot of things that really really connected to it and then able to own the trademark for just straight good liar, not good liar.

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Brewery got not good liar brewing just straight good liar.

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And then own the url good liarcom.

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And so those are the cornerstones for building, as you called it, a real brand so that, as, as you start to scale up, it all feels appropriate and you're you're laying a strong foundation, the way it looks and feels.

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You can kind of figure that out as you go.

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But if, if you don't have a strong name out the gate or something that people remember, you're just kind of working with a three-wheeled car at that point.

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And so it was really important for me from the start to really spend some time and get that foundation and have meaning behind it, and so it all just connected and then from there I think I had five names and then ran focus groups and Good Liar was like 95% over the other ones and so it was a no brainer.

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Yeah, I really appreciate that transparency because even just in you sharing that answer with us, you rattled off so many considerations behind the name, beyond just the domain name.

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I feel like that's something that I do.

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I go to godaddycom and I'm like what can I get my hands on these days?

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But you've really thought down the entire process, down to hashtags, trademarks, social media handles.

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So it's really cool hearing the way you think about that.

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But I want to extrapolate it because obviously a brand is comprised of many things, the name being one of those.

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Again coming back to GoodLiar, I just feel like I'm going to use that as an example.

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So much in our conversation today because it feels finished, jared, and I think that's probably the most intimidating thing for most entrepreneurs is we know about ourselves that we are very much a work in progress, and then we see brands like GoodLyre that just look like the finished products.

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I mean, you've talked about having market research behind it to get that real life feedback, but I see your social media posts.

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Everything's beautiful, jared.

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How does that level of intentionality start?

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Is it something you storyboarded?

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What are the different components that you've already thought about to make it look so good?

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Yeah, that I think that is the million dollar question, if you will, and so that can definitely be intimidating for someone that isn't in this space.

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I've just part of it is.

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I have been doing it for so long and I can kind of cut corners to get to where we need to.

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And it really is.

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It starts down and dirty.

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I mean it does start with.

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I have I just have a little tablet that I just sketch ideas out on.

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I'll be anywhere and I just carry that thing with me at all times and I'll just rip through ideas and then, using tools such as Slack or Miro, so that I can translate to that, to people on our team, so that they can kind of take an initial idea.

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And I mean, as you know, your brain never stops working on stuff and so you might be taking a shower, going for a run.

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I mean, I've woken up.

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Just the other day I woke up at three in the morning with an idea for a social media post and then I instantly text our digital director.

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I said, hey, here's the idea, roughly let's, I didn't want to lose that.

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And then he ripped through it the next day and made it happen and we had it posted and we were live with it.

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But I think that working through all those components and getting to that end result, that does take a little bit of time, and so if you feel like you're not a true creative, that's where it does become important to work with an agency or several creatives, if you will designers, art directors, creative directors that you do trust their vision, because then they can kind of extrapolate what's in your head and get it to being a live product.

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But I say this a lot to people there's no right or wrong way to do something.

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When you're doing something in Photoshop, there's no technical right or wrong way.

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You do have preferences and certainly people do things the way that they want to do it.

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All that matters is that end result and how fast you can get there.

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So and I think that that's really, really important across business is you want to have whatever works for you, you want to be able to do it as quickly as possible and as long as the result is what you think it should be, that's okay.

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You can have missteps along the way, you can go back a couple of steps, as long as you get to your end product.

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The only difference between someone like myself and someone who's been designing for two weeks is just time.

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It's how quick you can get to that end result.

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No one's going to be able to.

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Someone on Fiverr could design a logo just as good, or, if not better, than I could.

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It's just how quick you can get to that end result, and that's essentially what you're paying for.

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Yeah, it makes sense, jared.

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Along those lines, I'm totally going to rely on you here because I don't exactly know how to articulate this next question, but I trust that you'll be able to pick this baton up because, looking at everything that you put into the world, it really, for me, puts into contrast the difference between a brand company has a brand.

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I'll call myself out here that in 2012, when I started my marketing and SEO agency, my business partner and I we were like, well, I mean, we were 22, 23 at the time and we were just like we're the new generation of people who are doing online marketing and we were like, let's call it new gen consultants.

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Of course, we never built a brand on that.

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Nobody ever settled into that and was like we love new gen consultants.

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It was a silly name that we came up with on a whim and we could get the domain name.

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Should every company have or be a brand, or what's your response to that for all the social media agencies or web development houses out there thinking I just you know, I provide these services and that is what it is?

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Should they be brands?

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What's the power of that brand and what's the difference between a brand and a company?

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The biggest thing with a brand.

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It's a feeling.

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It's not a particular asset.

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People think a brand is a logo or your fonts or your colors.

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That's an identity set.

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It's really about the feeling that you want to instill in someone.

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And I think you could be a lemonade stand and still be a brand because you still want to instill in someone and I and I think you could be a lemonade stand and still be a brand because you still want to instill a feeling and that's that's essentially what people buy.

00:20:19.376 --> 00:20:30.923
That's why you can buy a $500 white t-shirt or a $4 white t-shirt, even though they're technically the same, because one of those brands is what is a feeling that you instill.

00:20:30.923 --> 00:20:33.929
And so I mean it's like Harley versus Honda.

00:20:33.929 --> 00:20:41.538
I mean I'm sure there's some people out there, but I would say the majority of people getting tattoos are Harley tattoos and not Honda tattoos.

00:20:41.538 --> 00:20:53.827
There's a reason why Harley sells more t-shirts and net sales and merch than they do actually motorcycles, and so they've instilled a brand and a feeling.

00:20:54.916 --> 00:20:59.080
And I drink the juice I ride a harley because I like the way it feels.

00:20:59.080 --> 00:21:02.277
I like that it's, it's loud, it's aggressive, it's slightly violent.

00:21:02.277 --> 00:21:09.529
You know, I don't want things to be perfect and run smooth, but sure, yeah, if you would say which motorcycles run better, I would say you know, I mean both.

00:21:09.529 --> 00:21:15.085
Both are great motorcycles, but I think on paper, technicals, technically, it's, it's a Honda.

00:21:15.085 --> 00:21:18.839
It's why do people buy a PC versus a Mac?

00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:27.744
They've instilled certain brand feelings that you get, and so I think that even if you just put a little bit of a snippet on it, it's the why.

00:21:27.744 --> 00:21:30.778
It's not what you do or how you do it, it's why are you doing it.

00:21:30.778 --> 00:21:34.507
And that's what people are going to resonate with and continue to come back.

00:21:34.507 --> 00:21:43.344
And that's one thing that we've been really, really good at in building brands is building super fans, as we want people.

00:21:43.344 --> 00:21:59.482
For instance, in Good Liar one, we have an absolutely astounding product, but from the brand side, I want people to go into a bar or to a convenience store or grocery store and get to the point where they're only drinking good lyre and there's a lot of other products.

00:21:59.482 --> 00:22:00.566
With that I mean light beer.

00:22:00.566 --> 00:22:04.431
Like you know, there's the Miller Lite guys and there's the Bud Light guys.

00:22:04.431 --> 00:22:10.505
There's some people that will only drink Bud Light and it's still just shitty light beer in a can.

00:22:10.505 --> 00:22:15.304
But there's a reason why you're resonating with one or the other, just like Coca-Cola or Pepsi.

00:22:15.304 --> 00:22:16.227
It's the same stuff.

00:22:16.227 --> 00:22:18.795
It's just you're able to instill a brand feeling.

00:22:18.795 --> 00:22:26.958
So I think if anyone can still just even five or 10% of that into their company, it's going to, it's going to do a lot for them.

00:22:27.459 --> 00:22:31.325
And circling back on the name thing, look first company I ever started.

00:22:31.325 --> 00:22:35.651
I think I was 16 and I started a company called E&L Graphics.

00:22:35.651 --> 00:22:46.546
It was my buddy and he had a last name of E and my last name was L and I was like let's call it E&L Graphics and we had this really terrible logo and made terrible business cards.

00:22:46.546 --> 00:22:52.306
But we instantly got a couple jobs just because we had business cards.

00:22:52.306 --> 00:22:54.036
And I remember that and it was.

00:22:54.036 --> 00:23:01.401
I mean, the name was awful, but you got to start somewhere and you just keep learning from it and growing from it and getting better every single day.

00:23:02.123 --> 00:23:06.479
Yeah, Gosh, it puts a big smile on my face hearing that your company was E&L Graphics.

00:23:06.479 --> 00:23:07.060
That's awesome.

00:23:07.080 --> 00:23:07.301
Jerry.

00:23:08.826 --> 00:23:18.868
We've all been there, though for sure, and especially, I think, for all of us that first step is going straight to vistaprintcom and using a template for all of our business cards, so we're all definitely guilty of it.

00:23:19.189 --> 00:23:21.338
I want to ask you how's kinkos?

00:23:21.338 --> 00:23:22.101
It wasn't.

00:23:22.101 --> 00:23:23.845
I don't even think vista was around.

00:23:23.845 --> 00:23:27.760
I think it was straight like a 24-hour kinkos that I went and printed them.

00:23:27.760 --> 00:23:29.484
It was bad that's so funny.

00:23:29.585 --> 00:23:30.386
Honestly, I love it.

00:23:30.386 --> 00:23:37.607
Yeah, I'm from boston originally and so vistaprint was a company, so I feel like we at least had that little leg up of Vistaprint before it became that national brand.

00:23:37.607 --> 00:23:43.606
But it's all the same is that we all start out in these very simple ways and we grow from there.

00:23:43.606 --> 00:23:54.867
But I think it really points to part of your superpower, jared, and, in my opinion, looking from the outside in, is that you have that ability to build that feeling from zero, and I'm going to call this out.

00:23:54.867 --> 00:23:58.262
I have that ability to build that feeling from zero and I'm going to call this out.

00:23:58.262 --> 00:23:59.066
I'll use Apple as something to paint.

00:23:59.086 --> 00:24:00.351
Some contrast now is that you talk about Apple products.

00:24:00.351 --> 00:24:07.319
Okay, we know the power of Apple products because when you go to a coffee shop, you see everybody with their very distinguishable Mac books.

00:24:07.319 --> 00:24:11.275
When you text somebody, you see the blue bubble versus the green bubble.

00:24:11.275 --> 00:24:16.086
We know exactly what products people are using, and it has become a bit of a status symbol.

00:24:16.086 --> 00:24:21.942
However, what you do for so many brands, and what you're also doing yourself, is building from zero.

00:24:22.545 --> 00:24:23.468
Where do you get that?

00:24:23.468 --> 00:24:28.982
Because, good liar, even though you started it here in 2024, it already evokes those emotions.

00:24:28.982 --> 00:24:37.746
Now, for me, as someone who has experienced your brand, watching the video on your homepage, it's so clear that you guys want to be bold, you want to stand out.

00:24:37.746 --> 00:24:43.885
Where does it come from, though, with for people who don't have that customer base, who don't have the super fans that you talked about?

00:24:43.885 --> 00:24:55.977
What are those important ways that we can show our values and instill those feelings in people before they've ever, either either they've ever experienced it or they've ever even seen someone else experience it?

00:24:55.977 --> 00:24:58.445
There's no word of mouth yet yeah.

00:24:59.088 --> 00:25:10.364
So that's where you got to go and do a little bit of market research of where do you want to take this brand and, and what ends up happening is is a lot of people will see success and then they'll just replicate.

00:25:10.364 --> 00:25:19.648
It is we really try to come at things and calling it charmingly disruptive, where you're taking something and okay, this is what.

00:25:19.648 --> 00:25:22.097
So, even for what?

00:25:22.097 --> 00:25:30.882
We're building out our full e-commerce website right now and put everything up on the wall of what all of our competitors doing, and so we know, okay, we're not doing this.

00:25:30.882 --> 00:25:37.288
We're going to do the exact opposite and see what happens, get feedback quickly and make iterations.

00:25:38.016 --> 00:25:45.362
And early on in my career and I think a lot of people suffer from this, especially when you're doing stuff on your own is that you want it to be perfect.

00:25:45.362 --> 00:25:52.998
You want to show the world, hey, this is my best foot forward, and you've got to say screw that, this is going to suck.

00:25:52.998 --> 00:25:55.605
Get it out there and get real-time feedback.

00:25:55.605 --> 00:25:57.250
No one's going to know who you are anyways.

00:25:57.250 --> 00:26:01.910
People live in really, really small bubbles and one city over.

00:26:01.910 --> 00:26:07.690
They're not going to know who you are and so think big, make mistakes, plow through stuff.

00:26:07.690 --> 00:26:17.965
I'd rather be on the other side of a glass door because I ran right through it and I'm cut up and bruised and scraped, versus 10 people standing around looking at how to open up that door perfectly and walk through.

00:26:17.965 --> 00:26:24.084
I'm just going to keep running through doors until I finally get to the point where it's super buttery, smooth and I can open it up.

00:26:24.084 --> 00:26:28.113
So I think that there's no perfect process.

00:26:28.113 --> 00:26:43.587
It's just get out there and do stuff and just see how people react and see how customers react and you're going to know who your customer is very quickly based on the real-time data that you're getting.

00:26:43.989 --> 00:26:47.782
And I know what we see on the website definitely was a clear vision we had.

00:26:47.782 --> 00:26:50.068
But we were going to go.

00:26:50.068 --> 00:26:54.005
I was going to do a completely different version of the name.

00:26:54.005 --> 00:27:06.320
I was going to call it holy water and have this 90s evangelical guy and just be super over the top like praise, praise, holy water and be pouring non-alcoholic beer all over people and stuff.

00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:15.068
And there was some issues with some of the trademark and then it just started to not feel right and there was some confusion and is it a seltzer, is it a beer?

00:27:15.068 --> 00:27:22.510
And so I had an idea in my head that was going to work and then, once I started getting into the practicality and started testing it, I realized it didn't.

00:27:22.510 --> 00:27:23.943
So that's why we ended up pivoting.

00:27:23.943 --> 00:27:34.863
So you're seeing the end result, but it's not like it just came out perfectly baked out of the oven, as we made mistakes along the way and we made adjustments to get to where we are now.

00:27:35.744 --> 00:27:39.991
Yeah, that's really important, and I'm so appreciative of the transparency in the way that you share that.

00:27:39.991 --> 00:27:48.933
It leads me to ask you this, since you've worked in and around brands for so long now, is what are your thoughts and approaches towards rebranding?

00:27:48.933 --> 00:27:51.626
Because, as you said, we're not going to get it right the first time.

00:27:51.626 --> 00:27:58.652
From E&L graphics to new gen consultants, to all the things that we do, how often should we even entertain it?

00:27:58.652 --> 00:28:00.324
Is rebranding a bad thing?

00:28:00.324 --> 00:28:01.787
Do we need to give it time to stick?

00:28:01.787 --> 00:28:03.771
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

00:28:04.540 --> 00:28:10.380
I think people do jump too quick to rebrand, but I don't think the rebrand is being used correctly.

00:28:10.380 --> 00:28:12.807
I think people want a visual rebrand.

00:28:12.807 --> 00:28:28.413
I think they want to say I need to refresh my logo or I want a new homepage, but they're not actually cutting it all the way down to how are my customers feeling about my particular product?

00:28:28.413 --> 00:28:30.865
And stepping back yeah, you got to.

00:28:30.865 --> 00:28:36.986
You got to update a little bit with times as things get more modern and they always get more progressive and things like that.

00:28:36.986 --> 00:28:49.826
Or you need to update small tweaks here and there, but a lot of times it's not just a rebrand, is really cutting it all the way down to the core of how's your, how are you communicating, what's your tone, what's your voice?

00:28:49.826 --> 00:28:51.487
How do you want your customers to feel?

00:28:51.487 --> 00:28:57.566
Because I think people just dump to the conclusion too quick that they need a new logo every two years.

00:28:57.980 --> 00:29:05.561
And the thing is is most people don't care about if something looks 5% better, it's not going to move.

00:29:05.561 --> 00:29:07.847
The needle for you is is.

00:29:07.847 --> 00:29:12.285
I really come from the school thought that different is better than better.

00:29:12.285 --> 00:29:19.308
Someone will always make something look 5% prettier, 5% better, 5% cheaper, 5% more tasty.

00:29:19.308 --> 00:29:23.146
It's not going to matter, you really have to separate yourself out by being different.

00:29:23.146 --> 00:29:29.109
So, whatever that means in your field, you have to be willing to go there of really trying something different.

00:29:29.109 --> 00:29:33.810
If not, you're just going to blend in with everyone else and your stuff's just going to get washed over.

00:29:35.201 --> 00:29:37.069
Yeah, Jared, I'll tell you what I knew.

00:29:37.069 --> 00:29:57.813
That time would fly by here in today's conversation, but I do want to squeeze this question in because I'm just thinking about all the things I struggled with 16 years ago when I started my first business, and the things that we hear from listeners all over the world at all different stages in their growth journey, which is that age old question of the personal brand versus our business brand, and especially for solo entrepreneurs.

00:29:57.813 --> 00:30:00.125
We look at business luminaries.

00:30:00.125 --> 00:30:01.854
I'll call out Tony Robbins right now.

00:30:01.854 --> 00:30:05.885
I don't know his business name, but we all know Tony Robbins as the personal brand.

00:30:05.885 --> 00:30:09.333
How do personal brands play into all of this?

00:30:09.333 --> 00:30:14.260
For solopreneurs, is there an advantage from your perspective of building a brand separate from their own name?

00:30:14.260 --> 00:30:19.028
Should they also simultaneously be building a personal brand as someone who's as as yourself?

00:30:19.028 --> 00:30:22.192
I'm wondering where does the Jared Langston brand lie?

00:30:22.192 --> 00:30:23.923
How do you shake all that out?

00:30:23.923 --> 00:30:27.982
Because it's an important thing for people who want to become thought leaders and leaders in their industry.

00:30:28.584 --> 00:30:34.343
Yeah, and so I I totally agree and I even thought, you know, is that something I need to put more time into?

00:30:34.343 --> 00:30:44.365
You know, people only have so much time and energy throughout the day and I've actually worked on that with other people of helping them figure out their personal brand versus their, their business.

00:30:44.365 --> 00:30:56.405
And I think really what it comes down to is your values and your personal goals, because if you want to blow out your personal brand, you're always going to have to be associated with in some facet.

00:30:56.405 --> 00:31:04.843
But you know it's not like you can build up your own personal brand to some extent and just be like, okay, I'm done, I don't want to be involved in this anymore.

00:31:04.843 --> 00:31:13.981
And so if you want to build up a business and step away from it in 10 years and let other people take it over and run it, if that's the goal, then you should put more energy into that.

00:31:14.383 --> 00:31:32.307
But I come from the thought it doesn't hurt If anything it's going to help you test stuff at low stakes, because it's just your personal and you can show behind the scenes stuff, and people really like to connect with you on a personal level and get to know you or see what you're doing behind the scenes hey, what happened here, how did this work?

00:31:32.769 --> 00:31:46.670
And so I definitely think everyone should explore it I don't think it's for everyone, just because of time is you shouldn't let your business die because you're building up your personal brand, but if you're able to massage both, it's only gonna feed one side or the other.

00:31:46.670 --> 00:31:55.046
So you should definitely put some time and really think about what that is, because it also forces you to look internal and really figure out at a core what are your true values?

00:31:55.046 --> 00:32:04.905
Because some people just don't know and some people just kind of keep going on with their day to day without really cutting into the core of who you are as a person and what do you stand for.

00:32:04.905 --> 00:32:07.402
What are your personal values and goals?

00:32:07.402 --> 00:32:09.703
And people would love to learn from that.

00:32:10.765 --> 00:32:21.231
Yeah, really well said, and actually even hearing you talk about that, I'm thinking about the fact that, when our business brands grow to the levels that we hope for, our personal brands are never far behind.

00:32:21.231 --> 00:32:33.339
I think about all the great business minds of our generation, whether it's we think about Apple, we all know Steve Jobs, we think about Tesla, we all know Elon Musk, and so I think that that's really important considerations that you just shared with us, jared.

00:32:33.339 --> 00:32:45.313
This has been way too much fun for me and I still feel like we're only scratching the tip of the iceberg here, but I always love closing these sessions with a super broad question, so you can take it in any direction that you want, and that is what's the one takeaway.

00:32:45.313 --> 00:32:50.049
You shared so much good stuff with us here today, and I'm excited for people to check out your brands.

00:32:50.049 --> 00:32:57.329
We're going to drop those links in just a minute, but I know that people will feel that kick up the butt to question their own brands and say what do I need to do?

00:32:57.329 --> 00:33:02.531
I need to do this inner work and I need to figure out what I stand for and the feelings that I want to impart on others.

00:33:02.531 --> 00:33:06.450
So what's the takeaway for them, jared Walking away from today's episode.

00:33:06.490 --> 00:33:07.974
What's that one thing you want to leave them with?

00:33:08.964 --> 00:33:11.369
Don't be afraid to break stuff.

00:33:11.369 --> 00:33:14.075
You're going to mess up, you're going to fall on your face.

00:33:14.075 --> 00:33:22.689
Just accept the suck there's going through this journey.

00:33:22.689 --> 00:33:25.097
There's a lot of shit that really sucks, and so you just have to embrace it and embrace the journey.

00:33:25.097 --> 00:33:28.067
The end result is never as good as you think it's going to be, is is.

00:33:28.067 --> 00:33:30.874
I've gone through this many times before, is it?

00:33:30.874 --> 00:33:40.833
It's never as awesome as you think it's going to be, but you always look back at the journey and be super proud of the hurdles that you ended up being able to get over.

00:33:40.833 --> 00:33:44.333
So don't be afraid to break stuff and just keep moving forward.

00:33:44.333 --> 00:33:48.289
The only chance you have to being successful is you don't stop.

00:33:48.289 --> 00:33:50.090
If you stop, you're done.

00:33:50.090 --> 00:33:57.511
That's literally the only chance that you have is just don't stop, keep moving, break stuff, pick yourself up and get a little bit better.

00:33:58.444 --> 00:33:58.946
Boom.

00:33:58.946 --> 00:34:01.434
So well articulated, Jared.

00:34:01.434 --> 00:34:09.570
You have a gift not only of creative visuals, but also of articulating these really powerful and transformative concepts, so huge kudos to you.

00:34:09.570 --> 00:34:16.655
I will add, though I think it's required reading for every single listener of today's episode to hit at least your two business brand websites.

00:34:16.655 --> 00:34:18.291
So drop those links on us.

00:34:18.291 --> 00:34:19.791
Where should listeners go from here?

00:34:20.744 --> 00:34:22.170
So good liar dot com.

00:34:22.170 --> 00:34:24.510
For sure, that's the NAB brand.

00:34:24.510 --> 00:34:37.427
We're going to be launching full e-com the full works the next few weeks, and we got some really, really big announcements with some, uh, some partnerships coming up that we're going to be going mega time with this thing.

00:34:37.427 --> 00:34:54.572
And then dry department is the parent company, d R Y D E P T dot com, and there's a little bit of information on there that's getting flushed out to you know, it's one of those things that you always work on other stuff except for yourself, and so you always work on other brands, and so for us it's good liar.

00:34:54.572 --> 00:35:01.731
So but, um, you can hit us up on either one of those websites and you're going to be definitely seeing a lot more of us in the next few months.

00:35:02.373 --> 00:35:04.266
Yes, listeners, you already know the drill.

00:35:04.266 --> 00:35:09.387
We are dropping both of those links down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode.

00:35:09.387 --> 00:35:11.771
We're also dropping a link to Jared's personal LinkedIn.

00:35:11.771 --> 00:35:17.663
So if you want to reach out to him and continue the conversation for your own brand, do not be shy, because most people are.

00:35:17.663 --> 00:35:25.371
I know I've been saying that a lot in these episodes, but the truth is, 99% of people are afraid to reach out to anyone that they ever learn from and hear from.

00:35:25.371 --> 00:35:31.307
So be in the 1% and you'll immediately stand out, as Jared inspired so many of us to do here today.

00:35:31.307 --> 00:35:33.130
So definitely check the show notes for those links.

00:35:33.130 --> 00:35:38.637
Otherwise, jared, on behalf of myself and all the listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

00:35:38.659 --> 00:35:40.141
Appreciate it, thank you.

00:35:41.326 --> 00:35:46.869
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:35:46.869 --> 00:35:50.867
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:35:50.867 --> 00:36:00.086
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:36:00.086 --> 00:36:08.875
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:36:08.916 --> 00:36:10.907
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00:36:10.907 --> 00:36:12.510
These are not infomercials.

00:36:12.510 --> 00:36:15.998
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00:36:15.998 --> 00:36:26.947
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:36:26.947 --> 00:36:35.445
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:36:35.445 --> 00:36:36.788
We also have live chat.

00:36:36.788 --> 00:36:40.617
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00:36:40.617 --> 00:36:42.827
Initiate a live chat.

00:36:42.827 --> 00:36:52.213
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