Haley Shane - Slayer of Boring Brands

Haley Shane is a brand strategist, designer, and self-proclaimed "Slayer of Boring Brands."

What started as designing band posters for fun has turned into a full-time career of helping businesses stand out in crowded markets.

Now renovating a van to serve as a mobile design studio, Haley is traveling the country to work face-to-face with clients, challenging the rise of AI in branding.

In this episode, Haley shares her creative journey, insights on brand differentiation, and her bold approach to marketing in an AI-driven world.

5 Key Takeaways:

• How to differentiate your brand with bold creativity
• Why personal connections will outlast AI in branding
• The importance of storytelling in design and branding
• Haley’s unique van renovation project and branding strategy
• How to stand out in a crowded, saturated market

LINK: The Brand Wild

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (00:57.418)
Hey, welcome to the Head Smack podcast. So excited to have you come along for our adventure. I am excited to talk to Haley Shane. I've known Haley for quite a while. We've chatted back and forth, but we've never talked.

And so it's great to get an opportunity to finally chat with her and learn a little bit more about her. Haley is a brand strategist, graphic designer, artist, and, uh, but that's not all she is, uh, she's got a little bit of a secret. She is also the slayer of boring brands. So I messed that up. The slayer of boring brands. Haley, so good to have you on and, uh, tell me a little bit about yourself for those that don't know you.

Haley Shane (01:31.401)
Thanks for watching!

Haley Shane (01:35.485)
There you go.

Paul Povolni (01:41.408)
and your journey to becoming the slayer of boring brands. What was it like in the Shire and what she set you off on that adventure?

Haley Shane (01:52.567)
Yeah, I started, so I wanted to be an artist when I was a kid, but I grew up before YouTube and Skillshare and all of that stuff, so it's really hard to learn something just by yourself if you don't have anybody to teach you and show you and stuff like that, so I wasn't very good at it. I kind of ended up giving that up and just...

told myself like, oh, I wasn't born with this skill. So I guess I don't have it. And then later on, I discovered this thing called Photoshop. It was like, oh, well, if you can't draw, like on pencil, you know, pencil paper draw, you just use this, then you can make digital art. And I was like, oh, cool, which is not at all what Photoshop is like. So I pirate it using lime wire.

So you can figure out how old I am based on that. So yeah, I ended up pirating this software and I use it and I get really good at it. And what I don't realize is that Photoshop is actually an incredibly hard software to use. Like the barrier to entry is super high.

Paul Povolni (02:47.182)
Ah, yes. Yes.

Paul Povolni (03:02.174)
I'm still learning it after all this. Yeah, after all this time, I am still learning Photoshop and I don't think, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think I only probably use maybe 10% of its capabilities.

Haley Shane (03:07.777)
I still learn new stuff. I learned something new the other day. Like, yeah, it's crazy.

Haley Shane (03:17.421)
maybe 20 if I really push it. Like if I really push it and I'm doing something crazy, I might, but yeah, it's nuts. But I kind of accidentally developed that skill and I was a musician at the time. And if you asked me, that was what I was gonna do. That was, you know, that was my career path. It ended up not being, but I used graphic design sort of as a, like a supplement.

for it because you have to design flyers and album covers and stuff like that. So it's like, it's this thing that I knew how to do. Um, and we didn't have to hire somebody for it because we were in a band, you're broke and you know, you don't have any money. So I kind of looked at it like that.

Paul Povolni (04:00.438)
So what kind of a band was it? What kind of a band was this gonna be? Okay.

Haley Shane (04:03.769)
I was in several, to be fair. I was in several. Usually always like hard rock metal, like in that genre. It wasn't a cover band. We played literally anything. Like we played Taylor Swift covers. We did, we played like stuff from the eighties. We did like a Paula Abdul cover where we spent it up and made it super aggressive. We would play anything. We didn't care.

Paul Povolni (04:17.268)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (04:24.662)
Ha ha

Paul Povolni (04:28.534)
And so you started off with just out of necessity, creating the album covers and things like that for it. And so then what happened next?

Haley Shane (04:37.093)
Yeah, so that band that I just talked about, the cover band that I was in, I always did the flyers and stuff for it. And it was always, our flyers always stood out because we didn't do like, you know, like the band photos where everybody's arms are crossed. And it's, you know, we never did stuff like that. We had fun with them. We did goofy ones. And so our flyers always stood out. And it kind of became this

Paul Povolni (04:56.942)
Right, right, yeah. Yeah.

Haley Shane (05:06.257)
this thing because we played at this one particular bar once a month. That was like always our spot. We played there once a month. So everybody knew a couple of weeks before we played, we were going to put flyers up and so everybody started talking about them. Like, what's it going to be? Are they going to do this? We did a wrestling themed show every year, like around WrestleMania, we dressed up as wrestlers. Yeah, it was just crazy. But I didn't realize it at the time, but I was learning about branding.

Paul Povolni (05:20.044)
Oh, wow.

Haley Shane (05:35.481)
and marketing because it's very, very hard to convince people to come see your band. And I got really good at that. And I didn't realize it, but yeah, I was getting really good at branding and marketing and differentiation and all of this stuff. And so eventually I got to the point where I liked designing the flyers for the show more than I liked actually playing the show. And so I decided to stop playing for a little bit.

Paul Povolni (05:41.199)
Right, OK.

Paul Povolni (06:00.501)
Oh wow.

Haley Shane (06:04.561)
and I was working like at a restaurant like nothing I did not have any like six figure jobs or some like corporate nine to five where I made you know two hundred thousand dollars a year or something like that like I worked part-time in restaurants and in retail and shit so it was just not you know it wasn't really going anywhere so I decided that I would do some graphic design stuff on the side just to kind of make extra money yeah

Paul Povolni (06:29.086)
Wow, yeah.

And so, so you started off just by yourself freelancing, you know, pirated copy of Photoshop. And then, and.

Haley Shane (06:39.721)
Mm-hmm. That I used for a long time.

Paul Povolni (06:44.494)
Yeah, yeah, we don't have to disclose if you're still using it, but being on Limewire, I'm sure there have been some upgrades since then. So you started off doing band posters, you created this anticipation simply because of the design. People are like, okay, what's happening next? What's the next cool thing coming out of this band? More than, I guess, what the next song is, what's the next cover they're doing. And so you started doing this design.

Haley Shane (06:49.349)
No.

Paul Povolni (07:14.528)
move into doing more stuff for other bands or what kind of work did you start working on?

Haley Shane (07:22.553)
So I started doing the lyric videos. And like the, do you remember, there was this very specific time on YouTube where the equalizer, like the waveform videos were super popular. I figured out how to do those in After Effects. And so I could, and I was already in a bunch of groups with musicians and I had DJed and stuff too. I was kind of in the electronic music world at the time too. And so it was like.

Paul Povolni (07:35.926)
Right, right.

Haley Shane (07:50.061)
just kind

Paul Povolni (08:03.259)
Uh-huh.

Paul Povolni (08:07.903)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (08:13.566)
Right. Yeah.

Haley Shane (08:19.617)
Um, so yeah, I figured that out really, really quick. And like, as far, as far as the band thing goes to something that, um, and I've talked about this on Twitter before, I might need to like pull the thread back up and like repost it cause it is really good, but we, there were so many bands in that area, like we had a ridiculous amount of live bands in the area that I lived in, I don't know what it is about that area that just produces musicians. I think it's cause there's nothing else to do.

and it's basically an open air prison, so everybody learns how to play an instrument. Ridiculous about a lot of music in this small little town. And so you kind of had to stand out and everybody always tried to do the like, no, we're the best, like we're the most talented. And we didn't do that. We were like, eh, we're okay. Like we're, you know. But we played songs that nobody else played. Like nobody else was covering Taylor Swift, you know? And so it was just, it was different. It was like, yeah, we're not.

Paul Povolni (08:48.383)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (08:52.747)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:07.022)
We're average.

Paul Povolni (09:11.944)
Right, right.

Haley Shane (09:17.013)
the most talented like we're pretty good but yeah we have awesome posters and we cover songs you've never heard and like it was different enough you know

Paul Povolni (09:19.666)
Yeah, but we have great posters. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that made you interesting and people followed along with your adventure and stuff. And so you graduated from doing the band posters, band videos, what came next for you?

Haley Shane (09:41.089)
Yeah, so I did that and then I linked up, there was a guy that I'd met on Facebook. He did websites. And he was like, he also did graphic design, but he was like, I can't really do both. Like, can you help me out with the, like with graphic design? I was like, yeah, sure. And so I ended up doing that for him for a little bit. His business partner screwed him over and they had a big falling out. And he was like, I kinda need a business.

partner all of a sudden like are you interested and I was like sure I guess I'm like 23 maybe yeah so I had no idea what I was getting myself into but it gave me a good look into like how you operate with clients and that side of it that people don't talk about a lot right so like how do you onboard somebody like

Paul Povolni (10:13.032)
Oh man.

Paul Povolni (10:18.009)
What is that?

Haley Shane (10:36.209)
project scope and stuff like that and I just kind of just kind of threw myself into it like all of a sudden and I got on YouTube and was watching as many videos as I could about you know marketing and client processes and onboarding and stuff like that I had no idea about so

Paul Povolni (10:54.402)
It's amazing the kind of resources that people have these days when it comes to learning anything. And then of course with AI, it makes it even easier to do the research and find the best of, um, in thoughts and ideas and learning and training and all of that stuff. So when did, when did you become a slayer of boring brands? When did, when did that become a thing for you?

Haley Shane (10:58.205)
I know.

Haley Shane (11:17.829)
So that happened, it was a few years ago. When I kinda, I started to realize that I didn't like the beige kind of super professional and branding like that, because it doesn't work. I wanted to do very different, a lot more bold, contrasted branding to whatever the industry was in.

And so that's kind of where that came from. Then I'm a big video game nerd, and so that was where the Slayer thing came from. So, yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:54.174)
Yeah, yeah, and I want to talk about that a little bit because I like, I love your story and the things that have happened that I've been following along and how you incorporated that into some of the work that you're doing. So what makes a brand boring? What do you think, you mentioned the Bejness, what else makes a brand boring? And how do they solve that?

Haley Shane (12:14.905)
Yeah, I think if you look at, if you're a business owner and then you look at your competition, so everybody else that's in that industry or your area, if you're local or whatever that is, whatever your competition is, if you cannot distinguish either through the visuals, the tone of voice, the way that they message, anything like that, if you can't distinguish between you and the other like top five people in your industry, there's

there's a pretty good chance you're falling into that category of boring. So, you know, if I, good.

Paul Povolni (12:52.925)
So what are some things that a business can do to start creating that differentiation?

Haley Shane (12:58.861)
Yeah, so I know everybody says like when they zig you zag and that is generally good advice, but I see people go wrong with this a lot because they think oh I have to like disrupt this industry and we have to do we have to be bigger and badder and louder and stuff like that. Differentiation in my opinion is just another word for contrast, right? So if everybody in

screaming about how awesome they are, the best possible thing that you could do is just whisper because it'll stand out. Like you don't have to talk over them, it just has to be different. But where this also goes wrong is people think, oh well I just have to be different and then they go off way and like left field doing whatever they want and it doesn't work because there has to be some sort of strategy behind it. It's like why are we doing it this way?

Paul Povolni (13:48.758)
Right, right, right.

Haley Shane (13:56.093)
or like where are we trying to beat our competitors? Where are we trying to be different? Where are we not trying to be different? Because there's some places where you don't want to, like with your bookkeeping, don't differentiate that. There's probably a reason that's like standard across the board, you know? So you have to do it strategically and you have to find where you can be different and beat your competition. Oh.

Paul Povolni (14:11.535)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (14:18.482)
Right, yeah, you don't want to have your Monica, we're creative accountants. It's like, well, yeah, right. What does that mean? Is that code for something? Cause your industry shouldn't be creative. It should be have integrity. It should be truthful. It should be accurate. It should be detailed and all that stuff. So what are some examples that you feel of industries, whether it's work that you've done or within an industry where you've seen those brands

Haley Shane (14:23.546)
Right. It's like, how creative.

Haley Shane (14:29.362)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (14:48.436)
a good job of not being boring and differentiating themselves or creating that contrast.

Haley Shane (14:53.237)
I think as of recently, I think liquid death is a really good example of this because I mean it's water. It's not, it's not interesting. And like I know it, they say it comes from like the Swiss Alps or whatever. It probably doesn't, it probably comes from some whale in Colorado. See there you go. It worked. But they're, I mean they're, I'm on their like text message marketing.

Paul Povolni (15:12.418)
There we go. Ha ha ha.

Haley Shane (15:23.141)
I'm on a lot of people's text message marketing and email marketing just so I can see it. Like I just study it. I don't usually don't buy anything, but yeah, their stuff's hilarious. But yeah, the story behind it's super cool because I think the guy that started it, like I actually didn't know this, but a big part of the reason that it's in aluminum cans is because he cares about like plastic waste and the environment. I had no idea about that because they never talk about it, ever.

Paul Povolni (15:24.946)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:50.392)
Right.

Haley Shane (15:50.877)
They never mentioned that they're like an eco-friendly, like whatever, it's important to him. And so he was like, let's put it in metal cans instead of plastic bottles. But it acts as like a way to differentiate too, because you've never seen water in a can. And it almost looks like a beer can. Like I've bought it before and been carrying it around. I had it at like a, we had a 4th of July party and I had it and everybody's like, are you drinking Miller Lite? And I'm like, no, it's water. Like.

Paul Povolni (15:59.543)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:05.79)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (16:16.541)
Right, and I think they've done a brilliant job of, you know, and it's going to be hard not to use.

water related language, but they entered a saturated market. You know, they entered, they entered a market where everybody was producing water and it wasn't just small companies. It wasn't the little LaCroix. It wasn't, you know, the off brand from Kroger's or whatever. Everybody was doing it. Nestle was doing it. Coke was doing it. Everybody's doing water. And so how do you enter a market that is flooded, you know, with all these options, um, and differentiate yourself.

Haley Shane (16:26.738)
Mm-hmm.

very.

Haley Shane (16:49.864)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (16:53.864)
not be boring. And they did a brilliant job of saying, do you know what, let's create a canned drink that people can order in a bar, they can, you know, take to an event, and they don't feel like the boring person that oh, you're a tea totally or you're a you're a water drinker while everybody else is having a fun time, right. And so it looks like an energy drink. It looks like a hard liquor type drink.

Haley Shane (17:15.075)
Yeah.

Haley Shane (17:18.941)
Mm-hmm. Well, and they use that language, too, the whole like murder your thirst thing. Like it's not, you wouldn't get that from a, you know, like Fiji or, you know, one of the other like water brands.

Paul Povolni (17:25.43)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (17:32.182)
Right, right. They went all in on the name. They went all in on the brand and stood out. And I love that you brought that up. And the reason I had that can so close is because not because I drink it, it's just because it's always been a perfect example of a brand that

Haley Shane (17:48.701)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (17:51.162)
a slade boredom. They came into an industry where they could have easily been just one of the many options and they dominated until they, I can't even remember what they were, they're just worth some astronomical amount.

Haley Shane (18:06.337)
I think it was billions. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:07.838)
Yeah, yeah, and it's such a great story of a company that entered in and they listened to Haley and they said, let's slay boredom. Let's not be just another drink company. Yeah, yeah, so this is one of Haley's projects actually. No, it's not. But I could imagine you doing that. I could imagine you doing something like that.

Haley Shane (18:19.185)
I did this. I'm sure they have no idea who I am. No. Well, and the guy that started it, they got an idea, like it was backstage at Warped Tour. The guy was like, this would be cool. And it was just one of those like shower thoughts is what I call it. Like when you're in the shower and you get these crazy ideas. Like I love stuff that starts like that. Cause it's...

10 times out of 10, they're usually really, really good ideas if you follow through with them and you do them correctly.

Paul Povolni (18:50.858)
Right, right, and that's kind of what I wanted to do with this podcast too is the reason it's called Head Smack is the idea of an idea that you hear or a moment or something inspirational, you're like, oh man, that's so obvious, that's such a.

Haley Shane (19:04.401)
Duh. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (19:05.078)
great idea, let's act on it, let's execute on it. Because ideas are worthless until you execute. You know, you can get a million ideas. Right, right, everybody has ideas, everybody comes up with the next big idea, but they just let it go, they don't execute on it, they don't take action. And so I've met, you know, a recent client that saw a opportunity out of category of what they were doing. And they're like, I think that'd be a great idea. And within a short time,

Haley Shane (19:11.845)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, everybody has ideas.

Paul Povolni (19:35.112)
in six figures, you know, because I just had an idea and they executed on it. So I think, yeah, absolutely. And so I think that's such I'm so glad you brought that up as an example, because they absolutely did enter a market and dominated. And so, so if a client or if a company was, you know, coming to you, and they're, you know, they're in a market that is saturated, they're in a market that is full of people, where do you start with them? What are some of the things

Haley Shane (19:36.552)
Mm-hmm.

It can work.

Paul Povolni (20:05.012)
them that you talk to them about that you start wielding your tool of slaying weapons and what are those weapons what are those things that you pull out and start hacking at their ideas their thinking their plans

Haley Shane (20:22.245)
Yeah, so really, I mean, the first thing that I start with is their customers or clients, right? Because that's at the end of the day, that's who you're appealing to. That's what's most important. Because if you don't have anybody to sell to, you can make the coolest brand ever. And if nobody buys it, it's just kind of, you know, it's there. It looks neat, but it's about it. So I always start there. And

I like to think that I go a little bit deeper than most people do. I don't just do the demographics, which those have their place and that's cool and everything. But I really like to kind of figure out like the identity of the person that it is they're trying to appeal to. And then how do we make the brand identity enforce their identity? I said identity a lot, but that's the only way to describe it.

Paul Povolni (21:12.013)
That's good, yeah, right.

Haley Shane (21:12.937)
Because that's what people buy really at the end of the day with anything pretty much that they buy is they're buying an identity. They're buying something that it says something about them when they purchase it. So I try to figure out like, okay, what it is subconsciously or consciously or in between, what is it that they're saying? So I start there with the target audience and stuff like that. Then I kind of look at the competition. So, okay, they're doing this, why are they doing it like that?

Paul Povolni (21:24.245)
Right.

Haley Shane (21:42.341)
Are they doing it like that and it just happened to work? Can we do it differently? Can you beat them in these areas? Maybe your customer service can be a whole lot better. And we can use that as a point of differentiation. Or maybe your return policy is better. Maybe your this, and this are better. We can use all of those things to differentiate. And then you start to see the core.

Paul Povolni (21:56.078)
Right.

Paul Povolni (22:04.31)
That's so good.

Haley Shane (22:08.881)
part of it start to come together and it's like okay well how do we talk to these which is what i spoke about earlier it's like how do we talk to these people like are we big bad loud brash like are we kind of quiet is it professional is it this is it friendly is it humorous are you a goofy brand you know and that's where you start to you move into more of the tangible traits at that point and then you get into visuals and stuff that you can actually see so

the core audience and the values and stuff like that isn't really stuff that you can see, but it's there.

Paul Povolni (22:42.282)
Right, right. It's the foundational stuff. It's the stuff that is pretty important. I'm gonna get a button where I can press wherever every time there's a head smack idea and just hit it. Because I think you shared a lot of really great value there in things that a business really needs to look at when it comes to who they are, who they're reaching, how they're reaching them.

Haley Shane (22:52.669)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (23:06.714)
And I love what you said about the identity and how the audience associates with a brand and it gives them part of their identity. You've got the Apple users, you know, that

Haley Shane (23:21.889)
Apple's the best. Like, yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:23.666)
Yeah, now though Apple recently has, I think their fanboys, their tribe of fanboys has almost evaporated. I think it was a lot stronger when Steve Jobs was around. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think during the Jobs era, there was a lot more fandom of Apple because it seemed like Apple was very much.

Haley Shane (23:33.786)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (23:37.294)
in the jobs era.

Paul Povolni (23:48.174)
into innovation as opposed to moving to a place of just iteration. It's bigger, it's smaller, it's got this camera, it's got more lenses.

Haley Shane (23:53.203)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (23:58.577)
Yeah, we crammed more megapixels in the five lens camera that we stuck on the back of this giant phone. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:04.542)
Right, right. And so honestly, I have an older phone. I'm usually like an early adopter. I jump in on stuff. I had the very, very first iPhone that came out. I had the very, very first iPad that came out. I bought both of those.

Um, and I was a fan boy, not a, not a nerdy type of fan boy. Like I didn't get everything, but I love the vibe. I love the culture. I loved everything about it. And I think that, you know, Apple, you know, because they've moved into a, they've gone from being a Photoshop to being an Excel spreadsheet, you know, they've, they've gone from being creative, innovative, uh, fresh to a place that, um, it's sales and data and information.

Haley Shane (24:36.794)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (24:47.64)
and they've created this engine that just keeps producing iterations of almost the same thing to the point that people I've met a lot of people that don't care about the latest phone because it's almost like it's created for an audience they've forgotten you know it's created for people that love the megapixels

Haley Shane (25:02.288)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (25:07.361)
Yeah, well, I always go back to that because I'm not an Apple user and I never really have been. I know I might be the only creative in the world that uses a PC.

Paul Povolni (25:11.991)
Huh?

Paul Povolni (25:15.426)
Oh man, I didn't know that before I invited you to be a part of what? Just kidding. No, I'm not that crazy. I'm not that crazy. Yeah, yeah.

Haley Shane (25:22.129)
I am 10 times faster on a PC than most people are on a Mac. I'd argue that. So just what I'm used to. But, you know, I love what Apple did from a branding point of view, and I love what Steve Jobs did. And I agree with you. I think they're just in this. They're trying to appeal to this tech heavy crowd that are never going to buy. They're trying to appeal to people like me. I'm never going to buy an Apple.

Paul Povolni (25:49.171)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Haley Shane (25:49.361)
like they're sitting here talking about like gigahertz and ram and stuff like that and i'm like yeah i understand what all that means which is why i'm not going to pay fifteen hundred dollars for a phone when i can buy an android for 400 bucks that has the exact same specs it's like you're never gonna win me over on that

Paul Povolni (26:03.73)
Yeah. Right. They've, they've stopped telling stories. They've, they've just features. Here's a new feature. It's a better camera. It's got more space, you know, um, you know, the newest phone, you can attach a hard, an external hard drive to it. And it's like 99.9% of your users don't care about that. That's, that's not a feature that really matters to them at all. And so yeah.

Haley Shane (26:11.925)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (26:15.11)
Yeah.

Haley Shane (26:25.021)
now.

No, let me stick an SD card in it like I've been able to do with my android for 10 years. Like...

Paul Povolni (26:33.498)
Yeah, yeah, I think that they've stopped listening. And I think, so they've become in a way a little bit of a boring brand. And so if a brand becomes boring, what is your first step to, you know, I know there's a way to launch to not be boring, but what about a brand that, yeah, that's kind of gone into a place that sales aren't where they need to be, they're not getting the attention that they want.

Haley Shane (26:50.665)
Mm-hmm. Like a rebrand?

Haley Shane (27:01.609)
I think in the case of Apple it's kind of difficult because it was Steve Jobs. I think that led that charge. Because I'm lucky enough to know somebody that worked alongside Steve Jobs and so I've heard some stories about how gung-ho he was, no this is how we're doing it and if you don't know how to do it figure it out. Like he was kind of kind of an ass about it but for good reason.

Paul Povolni (27:17.327)
No, no, no.

Haley Shane (27:28.313)
And he had that vision and he had that creative drive. Because I remember all of the old ads like, the Mac, I think it was for, not a Mac book, one of the iMacs, the original iMac ads when they're talking about, it's like this Orwellian kind of, like everybody's a clone, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, the Super Bowl ad.

Paul Povolni (27:48.426)
Right, 1984. Yeah, yeah, the Super Bowl ad, the legendary Super Bowl ad, yeah.

Haley Shane (27:55.257)
Yeah, those and then of course his quote like, you have it on your page actually about like, this is for the misfits, the rebels, that whole thing. So yeah, I think in the case of Apple, it's hard because you wanna get back to that, but it's like, you can't find another Steve Jobs. That's difficult to do.

Paul Povolni (28:01.514)
Yeah, here's to the crazy ones, yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:18.198)
Right, right.

Haley Shane (28:21.229)
find somebody as close as you can, I guess, to Steve Jobs? Like you need a job or an Elon or you know, somebody like that. Somebody that's gonna push the creativity rather than let's see how much you know, how many more processors we can cram into this fucking thing. Because I feel like right now they're being led by somebody more akin to Steve Wozniak. Nothing against Woz, but you know.

Paul Povolni (28:39.106)
Right.

Paul Povolni (28:48.173)
Right.

Haley Shane (28:50.213)
I think you need, you gotta find a personality and a leader that's more like Steve Jobs. Somebody that's creative. So that's step number one. And then just go, but like dance with the one that brought you there. You know, like what, cause they were a trillion dollar business at one point. Like, you know, what got you there? It was, it was that, that innovation.

Paul Povolni (28:57.522)
Right, absolutely. Right, right.

Paul Povolni (29:04.942)
Mm-hmm. No. Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Haley Shane (29:15.133)
and coming out with like brand new products and I know they got Apple vision and stuff like that and that was hot for a couple days but at the same time that's not really new

Paul Povolni (29:25.195)
Right.

Right, and it's gonna be something that only a certain amount of people can use, will use, want to use, can afford to use. And even the social media, seeing them on trains doing stuff and walking down streets, it's like, you look like a dork. Like really, that wasn't your best promotion and advertising of the vision. And so, when it comes, so, taking it, of course, Apple being a billion dollar company is one thing.

Haley Shane (29:44.486)
Yeah.

Haley Shane (29:49.932)
No.

Paul Povolni (29:56.672)
the local business, the chiropractor, the lawn guy that feels like they've got to a place where they're boring, nobody notices them. What would be the first kind of things that you would look at for them and say, here's what you need to do?

Haley Shane (30:16.625)
Yeah, so again, I mean, you know, in a local business like that, when you're serving one specific area, like if it's, you know, lawn care, like HVAC or something like that, I would Google, like, plumbers near me, look at the first five that come up, like, what are they all doing? I guarantee all of their websites kind of look the same, but they have similar logos if they even have one.

the messaging, the tone of voice, everything's probably the same. We're a professional, blah, and we've been in business for this many years and you can trust us and it's all the same. Figure out where you want to be different. Like where can you differentiate? Do you wanna be, you know, the landscaper that shows up? What is that? It's a junk removal thing.

Oh God, I cannot remember the name of it. Cause it's a really long name. It's like college hunks doing something like remove junk removal or some shit like that. Junk removal is not a glamorous thing, right? They have like, they employ like college kids and have them like go to people's houses shirtless and like remove junk.

Paul Povolni (31:19.778)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (31:26.102)
Right, right.

Haley Shane (31:40.457)
It's like these like buff college dudes that are trying to make extra money, but like that's a very specific kind, you know, cause I imagine the audience for that is older, like middle-aged women that don't have a job. Yeah. Right. They just hoard things, you know what I mean? But that's like, that's a very specific niche and that's one way to do it. You can serve this very.

Paul Povolni (31:42.918)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (31:53.882)
Yeah, yeah. They just find junk. They steal junk. They go buy junk at garage sales and bring it and just put it on there. Yeah.

Haley Shane (32:09.233)
very particular audience. But yeah it's just it's totally different than like your typical because I imagine most of the people that do stuff like that do not look like you know these very fit in shape college dudes if I had to guess. Yeah so

Paul Povolni (32:25.654)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So when it comes to branding, branding has become a big thing. Brand strategists seem to be popping up everywhere, maybe not as much now as they've moved on to other things, other shiny objects. When it comes to branding, as you've evolved from the things that you did early on to what you do now, for you, what was the biggest

Haley Shane (32:48.393)
Thanks for watching!

Paul Povolni (32:58.256)
the strategy behind it.

Haley Shane (33:01.505)
I think, hmm, I don't know, I've had a lot. I think I would have probably incorporated marketing a little sooner because I didn't want to be known as a marketer because everybody was marketer. And I'm like, no, I do branding, it's different. And it is different and I stand by that.

Paul Povolni (33:06.67)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (33:21.229)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (33:25.218)
How do you distinguish the difference?

Haley Shane (33:28.285)
I think you have to have branding first. Branding is the long-term game. I think that's where, if you wanna build, you know, the Apple, the Nike, that level of brand, you have to start with branding. You have to start with brand strategy. I think it makes everything after it easier. If you know, like, this is who we are, this is what we're doing, this is how we talk, this is who we speak to, this is why they...

buy things, it makes your marketing, your advertising, your copywriting, everything gets easier after that. It's a long-term game. You're gradually building trust with people to get them to buy into your brand. And that was all that I focused on for a long time. And it wasn't until very recently that I realized that marketing is the short term that you do need to actually generate revenue.

because I hated promoting myself. I didn't like talking about what it was that I did. And I looked at it as like a necessary evil because I'd seen the way that people did it. And it was so scummy the way that some internet marketers were and still are. And they manipulate people and they just straight up lie or they make false claims and stuff like that. And I didn't want to do that. And it wasn't until I had kind of

Paul Povolni (34:21.847)
Right.

Haley Shane (34:50.005)
went down this journey of like owning a business and doing this and serving clients that I realized like no it is it is something that you need and you don't have to do it in a way that's you know feels gross.

Paul Povolni (35:03.19)
Right, right. I totally agree with you on that. I think with branding, and when you start from a place of strategy, it multiplies your dollars you're investing into drive attention to yourself, because the branding and the strategy and the consistency builds an equity in your brand that when you start putting it out there, you're everywhere consistent. And so people are seeing the same thing over and over. And I've seen a lot of businesses that don't have any strategy

Haley Shane (35:16.881)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (35:33.824)
and they're just putting stuff all over the place. Nothing looks the same. Everything's all over the place. The messaging, the audience, who they're trying to reach, the visuals, the colors, all of that stuff is very different from one place to another. And so everything's got to work on its own power. It's not using the equity of the brand building that happens when they're putting stuff out there. And so I agree with you on that because it does make a huge difference to start at that place. And then when you start trying to drive attention

to your offer or to your services, then it just works a lot better and a lot stronger. Your dollar goes a lot further. And so I want to transition to something else that you've been doing. You've had quite an awesome journey so far.

But then I saw you do something really strange. You launched the SSDC. Tell me about how that came about and tell me a little bit more about it. What does the name mean? How did you come up with that? And then how has that adventure been so far?

Haley Shane (36:24.937)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (36:32.333)
Yeah, so a couple years ago I got really depressed and I was just fed up with what I was doing, the work that I was doing. I didn't want to do it anymore and I was like, should I even keep doing this? Should I get another job? Like, you know, I was just in that, like, we're not going to make it to the stage that everybody gets in. Yeah. And...

Paul Povolni (36:55.754)
Right, right. The Valley of Despair, yeah.

Haley Shane (37:02.853)
I was like, you know what? I'm just not gonna worry about this right now. I'm just, I'm gonna draw something. And I drew this little possum walking in the road.

Don't know why, but that was what I did. I drew this possum, like just walking down the road and there's like a little sunset behind him. It's not like super complicated or anything. And I put the words rambling man on it, like on the top and bottom. And I was like, oh, okay, that's like, that's kind of cool. I don't know. I just thought it was neat. I was like, he's walking down the road. Who the fuck knows where he is? Like, you know, he's just wherever.

Paul Povolni (37:17.646)
Yeah

Paul Povolni (37:23.339)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:30.178)
What does that mean? That's awesome. That is. Yeah, yeah. Love it, love it.

Haley Shane (37:43.885)
Yeah, so I think it was vaguely inspired by the Bob Seeger song, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, because I ended up doing another one when it was Gamblin' Man, it has like poker chips behind it and stuff, but I don't know. That's the only thing I can think. I really don't know. I just put it on there.

Paul Povolni (37:52.69)
Uh-huh.

Paul Povolni (37:56.371)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:00.815)
Well, what I love too, before you continue, is the fact that you started off by saying you used to draw, but you weren't that good at it. And now you've almost come full circle to where now you're drawing a lot more with what you're doing with the SSDC. So keep going. So the birth of the SSDC came out of the Valley of Despair with Possum and the Rambler Man.

Haley Shane (38:10.81)
Yeah.

Haley Shane (38:25.889)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I sent it to a friend of mine. I was like, hey, I just did this. And he was like, that's really good. And I was like, oh, like, what do I do with it though? He was like, fuck it, put it on a shirt. And I knew how to do like drop shit print on demand stuff. And I was like, yeah, I could do that. Said, but I need a website. This is my web developer that I was talking about earlier, business partner. We ended up splitting just because I didn't want to suck with websites anymore, but.

Paul Povolni (38:43.351)
Right.

Paul Povolni (38:50.53)
All right, OK.

Haley Shane (38:55.577)
You know, clearly we were still friends. But so he's like, yeah, just, he was like, find a domain name, I'll set it up. I was like, okay. And so I started thinking, I'm like, well, I said, I always thought it'd be cool to have something that ended in design company, like design co. Like, so it has to end in design co. He was like, okay, well, like, you know, do you want like design.co? And I was like, I don't know, I just, it needs to, I want it to be something, something design co. And I was like, wait a minute.

Paul Povolni (39:12.062)
Yeah, right, right.

Paul Povolni (39:25.326)
That's not worth it.

Haley Shane (39:25.681)
That kind of works. So that's what SSDC stands for. It's something design company.

Paul Povolni (39:31.331)
I absolutely love that. When I saw you do that, and then I saw your explanation of it, I thought that is so brilliant. Like, well done, Haley. Kudos for that. That was amazing. Yeah, something design company. Yeah.

Haley Shane (39:40.621)
Yeah, just why overthink it? You know, I was like, it works. SSDC, I threw a logo together. Like, yeah, I've used the same logo for years. I used the same brand colors that I was using for the agency that I had at the time, because it was easy and I already had the hex code memorized. So I was like, yep, screw it, here we go. That's that same yellow color.

Paul Povolni (39:49.911)
Yeah.

Haley Shane (40:04.369)
But yeah, it's kind of evolved now. It was just a little side project that I had that I could come back to and any sort of ideas or like drawings or sketches or anything like that I had, I could just, that was somewhere I could get it out. I don't care if anybody bought it. I don't care if anybody ever even like saw it. I just wanted it out of my head. Yeah, and so.

Paul Povolni (40:20.13)
Brian.

Paul Povolni (40:27.518)
Yeah, it just became an outlet. Yep.

Haley Shane (40:31.329)
I had it and I just I recently moved it over to Shopify because I'm like, you know, I probably could take this a little bit more seriously now that I know and I thought it would be cool since I work with a lot of e-commerce brands. It would be cool to have something that I could build in front of everybody. Like no, I'm also figuring this out as I go and like showing everybody kind of you know how I approach it from a branding standpoint, from a marketing standpoint and then some of the pitfalls that have happened which happened recently. There was a um

Paul Povolni (40:57.92)
Oh no.

Haley Shane (41:00.817)
There was a video game that came out called Helldivers 2 and it blew up, got crazy popular almost overnight. And it's a shooter, like a war game kind of, Space Vietnam is what people refer to it as. And I got tagged in this post on Twitter. It was, you know those old like Vietnam vets hats that say Vietnam veteran, it has like the army ribbon in the middle? It was that, but it was a location from the game.

Paul Povolni (41:23.766)
Right, yeah, yep.

Haley Shane (41:30.693)
And a friend of mine was like, could you put this on a hat? And I was like, yeah, I could put it on a hat. Like give me 10 minutes. So I design it really quick. I make up a ribbon because I don't wanna use like an actual army ribbon, right? So I just make it up, just do like random, random colors and stuff, throw it on my website. I put it on a hat. I get it mocked up. I'm like, hey, here it is. Like, here's the link. I'm going to the gym. I figured.

Paul Povolni (41:41.73)
Right, right.

Haley Shane (41:58.097)
Maybe 10, 15 people would buy it, some silly hat, like him and his buddies. I go to the gym, I get about halfway through my workout. And I noticed that my smartwatch has so many notifications that it has stopped alerting me. I'm like, well, that's weird. That's never happened before. I checked my store and I had like 400 orders. I was like, oh my God. Like, I don't think I have the money in my account.

Paul Povolni (42:13.346)
Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:22.076)
Wow. Yeah.

Haley Shane (42:27.313)
to fulfill them.

Paul Povolni (42:29.59)
So you had moved away from director press or director t-shirt director garment printing at that point For the hats. Oh, okay Okay

Haley Shane (42:36.481)
No, I'm still like print on demand. Yeah. Yeah, it's still print on demand. But the way that it works is so somebody sends me money, they buy it through Shopify. Shopify has my money. The printer is linked to my bank account. I send the printer money from my bank and then Shopify pays me out later. Which is fine when you only make like 30 orders a month, which is what I had been doing.

Paul Povolni (42:56.051)
Okay, okay.

Paul Povolni (43:03.255)
Yeah.

Haley Shane (43:03.449)
I threw a couple of grand in that account. I'm like, whatever, it'll run forever. Like I'll never need any more than that. It did like $38,000 in sales in seven days. I had to argue with Shopify. They were holding my money. They were like, no, this is fraud. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. It's not like, it was a mess. I'm like, no, you don't understand. And I like, I explained to them, I was like, no, listen, I had a tweet that went viral with a product that went viral. I was not prepared.

Paul Povolni (43:07.828)
Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (43:14.582)
That is amazing.

Paul Povolni (43:21.202)
It blew me away too, you don't get it. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (43:29.934)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Haley Shane (43:33.033)
this at all. I have like $2,500 in this account because it's literally more than I have ever needed in that account. I'm like you guys are holding... it was like $25,000 was my next payout and they wouldn't give it to me and I'm like no you don't understand. I have got orders that I have got to fulfill. I do not have the money to fulfill it because you guys are holding the money. Like I need you guys to release it. Like we finally got it figured out.

Paul Povolni (43:39.167)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (43:45.646)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (43:57.258)
Yeah, yeah.

Haley Shane (44:03.049)
I had to send emails to people. It was a learning experience. Yeah, I went and applied for an American Express card after that for emergencies because I maxed out the other two cards that I have dealing with this. Yeah, it was, oh my God, it was crazy, crazy.

Paul Povolni (44:07.443)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:12.193)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (44:16.898)
Wow.

That is so awesome. So how many sales have you made up to this point? Like you said, 400, has it gone up or did it hit a peak? And then.

Haley Shane (44:27.293)
Oh, it was when the dust settled. It was almost a thousand orders. It was 900 and some orders. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:34.414)
It's awesome. Well, and what I love with what you've done with SSDC and then, you know, out of a time of...

Haley Shane (44:39.474)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:45.97)
the valley of despair. And a lot of creatives go through those times. It seems to be part of our wiring that we just kind of hit some of those points sometimes. Sometimes they last for a few hours, sometimes a day, sometimes a few days. Sometimes it takes a little longer to just get out of that spot. And I think part of that is just hope. I think part of it is chemicals. I mean, recently, Elon Musk with his interview with Don Lemon talked about needing medication

Haley Shane (44:54.386)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (45:16.432)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (45:16.644)
valleys of despair that he, it's a chemical thing. He has no control of it. And so the fact that you hit that place in your life where you were kind of down, down and out, and you said, you know what? All I know how to do is create. And so I'm just gonna create and kind of go back to my roots of doodling, of scribbling, of drawing. And then that became something that,

Paul Povolni (45:45.764)
iteration of your life, you know, this next iteration of what you do. And I love that you've also found a way because, you know, we haven't talked about your gaming, I know you're a pretty passionate gamer. You've found a way to merge

those two loves, you know, your love for design, your love for creativity and your love for gaming. So that's amazing. And I think that's sometimes where people, when they find that way to combine two passions and two loves, it's amazing to see what could develop from that. Now with the work that you're doing for SSDC, is a lot of it around gaming? Is it just like you mentioned, just stuff that pops in your head

Haley Shane (46:29.105)
It's both. One of the things that I said with it was, it's whatever I want it to be. I'm not doing brand guidelines. I'm not doing tone of voice guidelines. I'm not doing, you know, like this is how we run ads. This is the target audience. I don't care. It's for me. If other people like it and they wanna buy it, cool.

Paul Povolni (46:29.872)
it.

Haley Shane (46:54.097)
but like at the end of the day, it's for me. Basically. Yeah. But this is also not a, this is not my main business and this is not something that's like, I have to get this much money from in a month or I'm not gonna eat. It's not that either, you know.

Paul Povolni (46:54.524)
Yeah. So you're doing everything you tell your clients not to do. Do you know what? And that's the thing about.

Paul Povolni (47:14.742)
Right. Yeah, though you can eat a lot better now that you've sold 900 of those hats. Yeah, that wasn't, yeah, that wasn't too bad.

Haley Shane (47:21.189)
wasn't mad about that. Wasn't mad about that. Yeah. Seeing a $25,000 deposit in your bank account for 20 minutes worth of work was, yeah, that was pretty cool. So that was not profit before somebody comes at me. They're like, oh, but with these fees. Yeah, it wasn't profit. That was just the payout. But yeah.

Paul Povolni (47:30.658)
Feels good.

Feels good, feels good. Yeah, and.

Paul Povolni (47:39.938)
ride.

Right, right. And so, you know, and I think, you know, I think understanding branding, and here's where a lot of brand people, design people.

creative people, they want to break the rules before they understand the rules. And I think that's where you get into trouble. You know, there's a design trend, maybe it's not as big now as it was, but called brutalism, where it just feels like designs and creative stuff created in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, you know, old school computer, just very brutalistic, just very, it made a lot of designers like wins,

Haley Shane (47:59.539)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (48:20.112)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (48:24.728)
that's so ugly, you know, but it was people that understood the rules, breaking them and breaking them in a way that got attention and was disruptive and things like that. And so, yeah, and I've tried doing it and I think I did more of it in my early days of a designer. There was also a little bit of that with textures and layering and all of that with Photoshop.

Haley Shane (48:30.587)
Mm-hmm.

Oh yeah. I did some brutalist stuff. I've done it before, yeah.

Paul Povolni (48:49.022)
Um, but understanding those rules and then breaking them effectively can add a level of differentiation and not being boring. And so I think with what you've done.

is you know the rules of branding, you know the rules of design, you know all of that stuff. You mentioned you're a self-taught designer. You haven't gone to school with it, you've just learned some stuff from doing stuff well and finding success in that. But then just breaking it and saying, do you know what, this is a passion project and I'm just gonna do what I wanna do because I know if I create parameters around it and if I create rules around it.

Haley Shane (49:23.804)
I'll hide it.

Paul Povolni (49:24.906)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. You'll hate it. Yeah, yeah. And I love that you've done that. I love that you've allowed yourself to do that and not being so in your head about branding and brand strategy and am I a hypocrite? I'm telling clients I need to do this, but I'm not doing it. That you're like, do you know what? There are times when it's okay to be scrappy. It's okay to be raw. It's okay to be unfiltered. It's okay to do stuff like that.

Haley Shane (49:26.725)
I'll hate it.

Haley Shane (49:45.854)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Shane (49:50.801)
Definitely, definitely. And I'm glad that I got to experience that so that when inevitably my clients go through it, I'm like, no, look, I've been here. This is how you do it. Like, this is how you deal. So.

Paul Povolni (50:03.274)
Yeah. And so what's next for Hayley?

Haley Shane (50:06.429)
So I have something kind of stupid maybe that I'm going to do or crazy. I'm not sure what. I actually I had this idea a couple of years ago and I didn't get to do it then. I had some like medical stuff pop up and so it kind of like I had to put my life on hold for a little bit and just didn't just didn't get back around to it.

I am going to buy a sprinter van or a cargo van and I'm going to renovate it. I'm going to live out of it and I'm going to have it custom wrapped with this new thing. I'll tell you here in a second. I'm going to have it custom wrapped and what I want to do is I want to instead of being on a wait list, which is typically how you would, you know, like build.

Paul Povolni (50:42.584)
Alright, wow.

Paul Povolni (50:53.746)
Uh.

Haley Shane (50:56.729)
scarcity and stuff like that. Instead of, oh, it's this many months out or it's this many weeks out or whatever, it's gonna be dependent on where I am in the country.

Paul Povolni (51:05.78)
All right.

Haley Shane (51:07.657)
So I want to work with people in person and just to just kind of explain my thinking behind this. I see where AI is going. And I don't like it. And I don't like that people don't see it.

And so I have been preaching for the last two years like, no, you need in-person experiences. You need human to human connection. I'm telling you right now, the brands that do this will prosper because of it. Like it's not easy to do right now. And I know AI is the easy way out because it'll do so much of the work for you. But I'm telling you right now, it will water down your brand and it will kill you.

I know a lot of people don't have that opinion about AI. They're like, no, if you don't learn how to use it, blah, I'm not learning how to use it. I don't care. I don't wanna have anything to do with it. I'm going the complete opposite direction. Like I want to sit down with clients in person. I want to see the things that they see every day. I wanna eat at the restaurants that they eat at. I wanna meet their friends. I wanna see the colors that they see every day. I wanna learn how they talk. And then I wanna help them build a brand. So I'm gonna be traveling.

around the country in this van and I'm going to do that for clients in person.

Paul Povolni (52:28.458)
Haley, that is awesome. I love that. That is so cool. I love it. And so, you know, right now you're based out, where are you based out of now? Tennessee. And so you're gonna, all over the country, all over the United States, are they gonna find? Well, you can't ship it over there, but yeah. Yeah.

Haley Shane (52:31.914)
Yeah.

Haley Shane (52:39.037)
Tennessee. Yeah, Northeast Tennessee. Yep. The lower 48. Can't drive to Hawaii, obviously, but. And I don't think Canada would let me in. Yeah, you could. And maybe, and I do plan on doing a YouTube channel for it too, and documenting it, just because I think it would be fun. So, yeah, because I think it's, I don't know of any brand strategist that's ever done this. Like, I have.

Paul Povolni (52:57.679)
Oh, fantastic. Fantastic.

Paul Povolni (53:07.006)
I think it's fantastic. Yeah.

Haley Shane (53:09.293)
If anybody knows, please tell me, but I really don't think that there is. I've looked very hard into this. There's plenty of people that do the van life thing, but I don't think anybody's actually done it as like a traveling business. So.

Paul Povolni (53:15.456)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:21.694)
Right, right, right. I love it, I love it. And I think that's a great way to differentiate yourself. I think you're absolutely right in, everybody's so like gung ho into AI. They're so passionate about it. They're so interested in it. They're so fascinated. AI really is kind of a really pretty snake. It's got a lot of...

Haley Shane (53:41.929)
Mm-hmm. And I wanna be clear too, like just to interrupt really quick. There's things about it, I understand why it's cool. Like as a gamer, do you not fucking think that I think it's neat that like NPCs could potentially be almost player level real in video games and like the amount of immersion that would add? That's awesome. I'm all for the development of the technology. I'm just not gonna use it in what I do because I think that it's bad.

Paul Povolni (54:05.28)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:11.934)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, and I love that you've brought up the point of the human interaction. I think there is a place where businesses can actually excel and differentiate themselves from that human engagement, you know, trying to, you know, in an era where getting a real human on the phone from a company is so difficult, you know, where having some sort of a personal experience is so difficult.

Haley Shane (54:29.01)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (54:44.508)
and things like that where getting a real person that's knowledgeable of what they're doing to talk to them face to face is difficult. And so I love that you're doing that as a brand where that is part of what you're about is, if I'm gonna be doing a project for you, I wanna shake your hand, I wanna look you in the eye, I wanna share a coffee with you and get to know you a little better and you're working with me directly

to your working with somebody that you'll never see or you'll never be in contact with.

Haley Shane (55:20.429)
Well, and I don't, there's just, I feel like that's what's been missing from it too, because there's so many times where people are like, they're trying to explain to you what they want through an email chain. And it's just, it's impossible to figure it out that way. Like I don't care how good you are. It's hard to see what the other person's seeing and be in their shoes on a fucking Zoom call. Like it's just, you know, it's just hard to do.

So I'm like, you know, I'm gonna do the van thing anyway because I want to, like I said, this was an idea that I had years ago. And then I've kind of figured out, but I'm like, I still have to work, you know? Like I still have to make money, obviously. So I'm like, how can I do that and still survive, you know, provide for myself and my dog. I'm taking my dog with me because she's, yeah, she's too big to live anywhere else.

Paul Povolni (56:00.809)
Right, right.

Haley Shane (56:16.025)
so yeah i mean i thought you know i think it'll be cool

Paul Povolni (56:19.094)
Now you mentioned the rap. What are you doing with the rap?

Haley Shane (56:22.817)
Oh yeah, so I wanna custom wrap the outside of it. So I'm gonna call it the brand wild, which it was just called brand wild, but I couldn't find the domain for it. So I've added the V in the front of it. Eventually that'll, I bought the domain the other day. I haven't made a website for it yet, but I'll do that. I'm hoping to get it on the road this summer. So hopefully by then I'll be done. But that'll kind of, it'll also advertise for it. And like,

Paul Povolni (56:35.654)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (56:39.999)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (56:45.538)
That is so cool.

Haley Shane (56:52.449)
I thought probably for social media it'd be good too, because it's a very specific looking thing. So I could take pictures of like the different locations and stuff that I'm in, you know. It's not just a white cargo van like most people have. Like, of course I gotta, it's gotta be different. Yeah, so.

Paul Povolni (56:58.827)
Right.

Paul Povolni (57:02.975)
Yeah, yeah.

Right, right. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

I love that. This has been so good. I've enjoyed hearing about your adventure. I'm proud of you and all that you're doing. You're doing some fun stuff. You're pursuing your passions. You're doing some fun creative work. You're helping a lot of people. And I love this new adventure that you're on. I'm definitely going to be following along and seeing how things are going. And so if somebody wants to get a hold of you, who do you want to help? Who's going to be your best type of client? And how do they reach you?

Haley Shane (57:27.945)
Well, thank you.

Haley Shane (57:38.817)
Yeah, I work mainly with people that sell physical products. I do work with service-based industries every now and then, just depends on what it is. So if you're in one of those spaces and you want that kind of, you know, like a liquid death or, you know, not Apple as we discussed. Apple and Nike used to be like that was what everybody said. That was what they wanted and like now I don't hear that.

Paul Povolni (57:59.394)
Ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (58:05.086)
Right.

Haley Shane (58:08.981)
ever. I don't hear like Apple and Nike anymore.

Paul Povolni (58:09.842)
Right, right. Yeah, what's the last Apple ad that you actually remember? You know, I mean, when you look back. Right, right, yeah, yeah.

Haley Shane (58:15.673)
the Super Bowl one from the 90s. We talked about. So yeah, if you want that kind of, you know, bold sort of in-your-face like differentiated, I used to call myself a professional enabler because I would get clients all the time but like, can I can I do that with my brand? I'm like fuck yeah, you can do whatever you want like do it, you know, basically, yeah.

Paul Povolni (58:31.211)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (58:38.465)
Just encourage them, just do it. Yeah, yeah.

Haley Shane (58:42.582)
If you need that and then you're also like an e-commerce or you sell physical products or something like that That's typically who I work best with

Paul Povolni (58:51.126)
Well, I love the success that you're having. I hope that you continue with that and look forward to even more great success. Thank you for being on. This has been awesome. We went a little longer than planned and I'm totally cool with it because this has been great. Absolutely loved it. And people, what's your website? How did they get ahold of you?

Haley Shane (59:03.642)
All good with me. Yeah.

Haley Shane (59:09.881)
So right now it's HaleyShane.com, H-A-L-E-Y, S-H-A-N-E.com. I will have TheBrandWild.com up, it is not up yet.

Paul Povolni (59:15.438)
All right, and I'll put.

Paul Povolni (59:20.03)
Yeah, and I'll put that stuff in the show notes. If you have enjoyed this.

Be sure to rate and review it on Apple podcasts, like and share it as well. And if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like, comment and subscribe. And more Heads Max coming along, be sure to subscribe in Apple, as well as all the other platforms I'm going to be trying to put this on and also follow along on social media as I post little bits and pieces of this as well. Love for you guys to share it. And thank you once again, Haley. This has been awesome. And you have an amazing day.

Haley Shane (59:53.713)
Thanks. You too.