Brandon Coleman Jr / Branding OG. Founder. CEO. Author. Speaker

A Branding's OG - 50 Years in the industry

In this engaging conversation, Brandon Coleman Jr. shares his unique journey from being a young athlete to becoming a branding expert.

He discusses the pivotal moments that shaped his career, including the influence of a beloved TV show and the wisdom of mentors.

The discussion emphasizes the importance of curiosity, gratitude, and seizing opportunities in life and business. In this conversation, Paul Povolni and Brandon Coleman Jr. explore the significance of gratefulness, the importance of brand alignment, and the evolution of branding and marketing strategies.

They discuss personal experiences, the impact of philanthropy, and the challenges of educating clients about the true essence of branding.

Brandon shares insights from his early career, the fear of failure that drove him, and the lessons learned in building successful brand strategies.

In this conversation, Brandon Coleman Jr. and Paul Povolni delve into the intricacies of branding, emphasizing the importance of exceeding customer expectations and the challenges faced in franchise branding.

They discuss the necessity of common sense in branding decisions and the significance of genuine gratitude in fostering brand loyalty.

The dialogue highlights that branding is not merely about visuals but encompasses the entire customer experience, urging business owners to recognize the obvious solutions that often elude them.

Key Takeaways:

1. Branding is a promise wrapped in delivery.
2. Gratitude is your strongest branding tool.
3. Rebranding can unlock your business potential.
4. Brand alignment creates lasting customer loyalty.
5. Success starts with clear and honest storytelling.

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Brandon Coleman Jr. is a visionary entrepreneur, branding expert, and accomplished speaker with over five decades of experience. A Mays Business School Outstanding Alumnus and author, Brandon has pioneered strategies that align business goals with customer experiences. Known for his dynamic storytelling and insightful approach, he continues to empower entrepreneurs to reach their potential.

Links: Brandon Coleman Jr

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 (11:16.856)
Hey, welcome to the Head Smacked podcast. My name is Paul Povolny and I am excited to have another misfit with me. I have Brandon Coleman, Jr. visionary entrepreneur and branding expert. He's got five decades of successfully amplifying potential and noted speaker, author and Mays Business School outstanding alumnus. He inspires candor and creativity. Welcome Brandon. Glad to have you on man.

Brandon Coleman Jr (11:44.526)
Hey, thanks a lot, Paul. I'm honored to be here, brother.

Paul Povolni (11:47.62)
Looking forward to this conversation and looking forward to hearing about your upcoming book, but also hearing about some of your adventure. And so I want to hear about the origin story of Brandon Coleman. Tell me a little bit about how you got into branding, but also kind of what led into that journey of helping people out.

Brandon Coleman Jr (12:06.744)
Well, I'm grateful for the opportunity. I'm going to try to be brief when talking about myself. My father was a basketball coach, Hall of Fame basketball coach in Texas and a teaching tennis pro. So I had a jockstrap on it three years old and, and literally played sports, you know, eight hours a day for many years. Went on a college scholarship to Texas A University to play tennis. And ended up leaving the tennis team my freshman year because I turned around and said, Ooh,

Dad's not here kicking my ass. So I said, I want to be something else. I'm tired of being a jock. And I was one of the top tennis players in the state of Texas and said, I just want to do something else. So after leaving the team, I went back to my dorm and I'm watching TV. And back in the seventies, there were like three or four key shows you didn't miss. Leave It to Beaver, Beverly Hillbillies, and Bewitched. Gilligan's Island was one of them too, but Bewitched was the one that really caught my eye. I watched all four of them.

Paul Povolni (13:04.152)
Right, right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (13:04.92)
But in B.W.I.T.C., Darren Stevens worked for an ad agency. That was the husband of the witch who could wiggle her nose and do anything. I've yet to find a wife that can do that, but somehow was still successful in the world of marketing. So I go to my English professor one day after leaving the tennis team and I said, hey, do you know what that is called, Darren Stevens does? Because literally in my family, I had zero business background. didn't know what a business was.

Paul Povolni (13:10.892)
Right, right.

you

Paul Povolni (13:18.319)
Yes.

Brandon Coleman Jr (13:32.332)
other than seeing stores and things like that, I really didn't have any clue. And I said, what does Darren Stevens do? She said, well, that's called an advertising agency. He makes presentations and shows ideas and helps people with their business. I said, I can do that. She said, really? I said, yeah. said, so what do need to major in? She said, well, historically, people in the past have been all journalism. But she said, there's a new way of thinking. And that is that marketing has an upper hand because it's business driven.

Paul Povolni (13:35.013)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (13:46.992)
wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (14:00.428)
And what you're really working on when you're working on advertising campaigns and things that sway people is you're actually working on business metrics and alignments that make sure the business side of the deal is proper before you start launching and telling it to the world. so I think there's a real advantage and a degree in marketing in the business school. So go talk to the Dean of Journalism and the Dean of Business. I talked to both. I chose business. Walked in my first marketing

Paul Povolni (14:25.967)
Hmm.

Brandon Coleman Jr (14:29.07)
class my junior year and a marketing professor looked to be about a hundred and something years old. And I thought, God, here's one these old profs going to roll right over his butt. No big deal. I walk in and he's taking roll and he looks at me and he goes, brand on. And truthfully, Paul branding was not even a word in those days. Yeah, they used it on Madison Avenue for a package product, but there was no brand strategy, brand this, brand that. And he goes, brand on.

Paul Povolni (14:34.032)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (14:48.048)
Wow. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (14:56.239)
Right, right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (14:58.6)
I said, yes sir, I'm here. He said, good. Good to meet you. That was it. On his first essay test, he did all essay test, it was in spring and the girls' dresses were short and the fish were running, so I didn't study real hard that semester. The first essay test I took, I thought, I'll smooth this old guy. This will be a cake walk. I wrote on there and he picked it up three days later and it had F.

said, Coleman, if you think you're going to BS your way through my class, you're wrong. He became a lifelong mentor for 50 years, a dear friend, and I ended up being asked by his family to give his eulogy when he passed at 95 years old. When I graduated college, I was offered a really top marketing job, which back in the day would be the equivalent of being offered 125 to 150k now, coming out of college plus a company car.

Paul Povolni (15:40.174)
Wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (15:52.302)
And he had given the lead to that company, that professor, said, you want this guy? And so they interviewed me and offered me the job. He called me two days later and goes, heard they offered you a job. said, yeah, man, I'm so excited. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. He said, no, no, no, You're going to Houston. You're going to talk to a friend of mine in the ad agency world. I said, why? He said, you need to go talk to him. I said, yes, sir. Out of respect, went down there, interview with the guy. He also was very old. he interviewed, took me around his agency. And I'm thinking, OK.

Paul Povolni (15:59.662)
Wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (16:21.858)
good. We got that done. can go back to college and wrap up my graduation. I got in his office because I'd like to talk to you son. He said, it's been a good day. And he said, everybody really likes you and your professor really likes you. So I'd like to offer you job. Well, I'm a cocky 20 year old, 21 year old. I'm thinking, wow, this is going to be a big number. He's got to know what I'm already about to make. This is getting good. I come live in my hometown. of a deal. He goes, well, I'd like to offer you.

Paul Povolni (16:37.07)
Ha ha ha.

Mm-hmm.

Brandon Coleman Jr (16:49.366)
I'd like to offer you $10,000 a year and I'll give you a hundred bucks a month to use your car for business." And I'm thinking to myself, how do I not embarrass myself or my professor? And I said, well, well, well, sir, he goes, well, what do you think? I said, well, sir, would you give me one night, just one night to think about that? He said, I sure will, but don't take any longer. I said, yes, sir. I got in my car, drove back. There were no cell phones back then, Paul got back to,

my apartment in college and I called my professor and I said, Professor Thompson, can you and I go have a burger and a beer? He said, well, I'd love to. He said, how did it go in Houston? I said, let's go have a burger and a beer and I'll tell you. So we go, we get the burger and beer and I tell him. And he said, he looked right at me. He said, take it. Now mind you, this guy had consulted with companies all over the world in salesmanship and marketing. He was one of the rare professors that could practice what he was preaching. He knew business. He was connected in business. He wasn't.

Paul Povolni (17:29.455)
you

Paul Povolni (17:44.782)
Yeah, well.

Brandon Coleman Jr (17:48.098)
Just an academic. Respect academics, but he wasn't just an academic. He looked at me and he said, take it. Excuse me? He said, I said, take it. I said, why sir? He said, because in five years, you'll own your own ad agency. And if you go the other direction, you'll own your own cubicle. I went, wow. And he said, you trust me, don't you? I said, with everything I got. He said, call the big.

Paul Povolni (17:52.954)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (17:58.224)
What?

Paul Povolni (18:06.319)
Wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (18:17.774)
GTE phone company, thank them for the job and accept the one for 10 grand a year. I did and one year into that job, I'm at a client Christmas party and a gentleman who had had significant amounts of Crown Royal that night came up and asked me when I was going to start my own firm and I was 23 point something. And I said, sir, in five years, I'm going to do that. He said, five years my ass. I want to proform a statement in two weeks.

Paul Povolni (18:23.833)
Wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (18:43.242)
In two weeks, I came back with a performance statement. He invested in me. I bought them all out a year later. 20 years after that, we sold a conglomerate out of New York and we're very, very, very blessed. The only way I ever got in that thing in the first place was asking that English professor, what the hell Darren Stevens did for Bewitched? What was he doing for Larry Tate and the Tate agency he was showing ideas? So the point of the thing is twofold. One on that story, Paul is,

Paul Povolni (18:53.999)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (19:01.84)
Ha

Paul Povolni (19:05.336)
Wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (19:11.596)
You never know where your inspiration is going to come from. No matter what age you are, you just don't know. You don't know what God's got planned. You don't know what that inspiration is. And so I think you seize those inspirations. You seize those moments and you jump to those windows when they open and you cling to those open doors and you don't sit there and watch them shut or close. You just don't. And the second one is when you've got somebody close to you that's got a lot of wisdom, listen to them. And sometimes that's hard when we're young and cocky and everything else, but you listen to that wisdom.

Paul Povolni (19:15.076)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (19:30.168)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (19:36.954)
Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (19:41.506)
because it'll take you places that again, God's got planned, but you don't. And it's His plan I want to follow. So very fortunate to start my firm and sell it 20 years later. And not that we didn't go through the mountains and the valleys, my friend.

Paul Povolni (19:45.72)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (19:55.416)
Yeah. Well, and that's amazing that the curiosity of what Darren did in Bewitched led you to your entire future. I think sometimes people just, I think people sometimes don't pursue curiosity or they think about things like, that's interesting. And then they just kind of let it go. They don't spend time with the things that get their attention, the things that, you know,

that trigger an emotion or a feeling and they don't spend time with it. And it sounds like for you, you know, it triggered something in you. It's like, that's interesting. And so I'm going to do the next step. I'm going to ask around about it. I'm going to get, learn more about it. I think sometimes people don't do that. don't, they don't take time to, when something triggers their attention, when something gets their attention more than maybe something else, they don't think, Hmm, maybe that's something I need to.

think about a little longer. Maybe that's something I need to pursue. Maybe that's something I need to ask about. Maybe that's something I need to look up. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (20:58.35)
I think you're right on the money. think part of that is gratitude. I'm a very grateful person. I didn't grow up wealthy and was always just grateful when something really cool would happen. And I always thought it was God sent. So when something came my way that wasn't in my playbook, I wanted to know about it because I knew it was probably bigger than me. And I think gratitude is at the heart of that curiosity.

Paul Povolni (21:10.136)
Hmm. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:18.542)
Right. Right.

Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (21:26.784)
And that doesn't mean I haven't chased some of those curious moments and gone smack into a steel door either. But, but you know what? You can get up, you can get up when you get knocked down, but you can't reclaim open windows and shut doors and you can't reclaim those. You can miss those all day long. Yeah. I think, I think your observation is right on the money.

Paul Povolni (21:31.981)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (21:36.28)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (21:41.646)
Right, right. Well, gratefulness is so powerful because it lets us be a little more content with what we have. It takes away the desire for things that can sometimes be a frustration, can sometimes be a distraction, sometimes be a way to...

minimize the things that we already have. think when we're not grateful for our family, when we're not grateful for the things that we have, then we can easily get distracted in a negative way towards pursuing the things that sometimes can actually lead us down away from the things that we should actually be grateful for. And then we realize we should have been grateful for them in the first place.

Brandon Coleman Jr (22:24.278)
That is so right. you your observation, your approach to that just leads me into exactly why. My philanthropic knowledge transfer, which is all I'm doing now, I'm not running a firm, trying to develop new business. I mean, we're selling the book, hope to pay some expenses on all this traveling and speaking and my podcast, the brand on show, the things we're doing. I'm trying to take 50 years of wins and losses, 50 years of success.

Paul Povolni (22:49.444)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (22:52.248)
thousands of brand alignment projects with hundreds of clients, large and small, and say, entrepreneurs, hey, you that owns a yoga studio or coffee shop or you that owns a midsize engineering firm or law firm, let me give you this information because when I'm gone, it's gone, at least for me. Now AI will pick up all my blogs, all my writings and all my everything. They don't pick up the stories and the stories or the magic lives because in brand alignment, what you just mentioned about personal living is so true in our best brand alignment projects.

Paul Povolni (23:04.642)
Right. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:10.906)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (23:21.976)
when we would get inside of a client and learn what's really going on with every facet of their customer's journey and their branding and how it related and how it aligned or didn't, then we would be as willing as we were to find Darren Stevens and be which and what that meant, we were willing to challenge those clients sometimes in very difficult situations and say, okay, I heard you're 80%. Now tell me the last 20. What are you hiding? What is your truth?

Paul Povolni (23:22.233)
Right.

Paul Povolni (23:50.116)
But yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (23:52.11)
And the reality is, number one, you never do great branding with committee. So I'll go to court with anybody on that one. Great branding is never done by committee. And clients are rarely, rarely 100 % honest with you. They almost always hold back. And it's for different reasons. Usually, they're not trying to be deceitful, even though that's happened a couple of times. Usually, they're not trying to be deceitful. They just don't want to uncover the family.

Paul Povolni (23:58.512)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (24:03.056)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:17.86)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (24:21.878)
issues or whether it's the problems they've got or whether it was the issue they had three years ago or whether it's how much money they're really making or where they're really going with their organization or what is their real commitment, their real vision, their real mission. And so they dance around it and they want you to do great advertising or great brand stuff or great marketing projects or make my social blow up or make me well-liked or get me a lot of hits, a lot of looks, a lot of friends. And that's just not what it's all about. Those are all tools.

But until I know the essence of what drives you and your company, I can't get you great branding. mean, most of my clients that came to me all over all those years, they didn't come to me because they were failing. They came to me because they knew something was missing. They knew they were hitting at 50, 60, 70, sometimes 80%. And they said, wow, if we're making this much money at 70, 75%, 80%, what could we make it 100? Perfect brand alignment.

Paul Povolni (24:51.022)
Right.

Paul Povolni (25:03.322)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (25:19.874)
being brand on, getting it lined up at every single phase of the customer journey can get you to that 100%. And it also makes working a lot of fun.

Paul Povolni (25:21.55)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:28.996)
Yeah. Wow. Love that. Well, before we continue about brand alignment, cause I want, I want to pull that thread and I want to unravel all that that means. I do want to go a little bit back in your history because it sounds like very early on that people were willing to take a chance on you and willing to give you opportunities, as a very young man. So what was, what was the thing that they saw in you? What was the superpower that you had at that age?

that made you stand out to them.

Brandon Coleman Jr (25:59.886)
I believe my faith drove my confidence. Obviously, I didn't have enough experience to say, I'm great. I've already proven myself. I want to do this. But I had that kind of spirit and that kind of personality. But it was driven by my faith. And it was driven by my faith that I truly believed that if we worked hard enough, we could do anything they asked us to do within that realm of brand alignment, within that realm of marketing. I truly believed that. And I believed it. And I knew I was backed up.

by my savior because he's the guy who put me there in the first place. I go back to AJ, what's AJ's last name? You interviewed a few podcasts ago. AJ was absolutely amazing. Obviously he was from a, I think he was, let me look, I wrote it down, AJ Adams, AJ Adams. a different guy. AJ Adams' father was a minister and so he got an unfair start on us on that way.

Paul Povolni (26:37.644)
AJ Brown.

Paul Povolni (26:43.439)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:49.76)
Adams, Adams, actually I know it AJ Brown at church.

Brandon Coleman Jr (27:00.034)
A lot of people don't get that at birth. But his father was a minister and then he told his story about how he ended up in branding and marketing and how he's aligned those two to create the business model that he's in. And man, when I put him down from your podcast, when your podcast ran out, I immediately messaged him and said, man, keep doing great things. You are serving our Savior and you are serving the world and you're guiding young people to better places. And what a great place to be on your podcast, Paul, and to share that message. He was phenomenal.

I highly recommend the guy and what they're doing. And that's what I felt at a young age. that is that I I felt like, the very, very worst that could happen is if I fail, if I go in and I tell a client, you're going to pay me X because I'm going to do this and I'm going to make that happen. And if for some reason I don't put forth the effort or I don't deliver, what's the very worst that's going to happen to me? He's going to fire me. Now you do that two or three times, you're out of the industry, but

Paul Povolni (27:29.968)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (27:59.278)
It didn't happen. It didn't happen for a long, long, long time. But part of that was fear of failure. You know, being transparent as I request my clients to be, part of that's fear of failure. When your father is a coach, you know, you can give me wins or you can give me excuses and I don't want your excuses. He's one of the winningest high school basketball coaches in the history of the United States. He had over like 800, 900 wins or something like that. But it's because he didn't accept excuses.

Paul Povolni (28:02.981)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:10.597)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:19.118)
Right, right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (28:29.268)
And so I went into business with that same intensity. And so when someone believed in me, when they put me on the court, when they put a jersey on me, they put the ball in my hands. There was no way I was going to drop the damn thing. Just no way. I don't care if I work an extra 20 hours that week or that day on it, which gives me great conflict with today's current silo-driven marketing box checkers that just want to go, okay, I got my task, my task, my task. Don't care how that fits in the picture.

Paul Povolni (28:32.708)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (28:41.178)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:47.77)
Right.

Paul Povolni (28:53.902)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (28:58.474)
I cared how everything we did for them fit in the big picture, how it all aligned with their business strategy and how it made a difference at the end of the day. And my largest client, when he told me one day after we worked for him for 18 years, he goes, you know why I hired you? I said, no, sir. He said, I hired you because once I took it off my desk and put it on yours, I no longer had to worry about it. And if you can instill that kind of confidence in your clientele and then back it up and deliver,

Paul Povolni (29:22.5)
Wow, that's nice.

Brandon Coleman Jr (29:28.174)
You can build some and then you build that a lot of businesses, not just branding or marketing, but I think that's what drove me is that the fear of failure.

Paul Povolni (29:37.55)
Yeah. So what was your first success then? When you, when you realized, wow, this, this is what I love. This is what I do. And I have, I have succeeded. I've done something well.

Brandon Coleman Jr (29:49.174)
Wow, that's a great question. Have I ever answered the first success story once we open the firm?

Paul Povolni (29:55.47)
Yeah. Yeah. Once, mean, as a young man, as you said, it was all about the wins. When was the first win that you said?

Brandon Coleman Jr (30:00.174)
Well, it was funny. So if you think back to being 23, today's college graduates at 22 and 23 are like 1000 times smarter than we were back then. They really are. They're just exposed to more and with the internet and everything else. some of them, this story may sound really hokey, but the guys in my age ranging up, they're to love it because when these guys invested in me to start my own firm, they gave me $50,000, a lot of money in 1980. They gave me $50,000.

Paul Povolni (30:11.922)
Hahaha.

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (30:28.623)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (30:29.902)
and say, and we're giving you a line of credit at the bank and go get them. Okay, you're 22 years old, you're a coach's kid, you've never had anything nice in your life, materially. What's the first thing you go buy with $50,000?

Paul Povolni (30:47.965)
Probably a car ors.

Brandon Coleman Jr (30:49.012)
Nobody ever misses the answer to that question. Absolutely a car. And the hottest car on the road at the time was a Cadillac Eldorado Brits. man, with the silver stainless half roof. That was 25 G. Okay. That was half my deal gone, but man, I was driving large baby. I went out, I left that dealership. thought, shit, what now? I drove over to the office furniture place. I bought the biggest ass desk they made. My desk was as wide as a barge going down the Gulf coast. You know that in Mississippi.

Paul Povolni (31:05.904)
Ha

Brandon Coleman Jr (31:18.51)
I'm like, okay, I got a little money left. went and rented an office. Well, I didn't check to see that my desk would almost go wall to wall. Then I had enough money for a part-time secretary. I said, here we are, 50 grand is gone, we better get to work. That fear of failure again drove us. But we had that client's business and we landed three more like within two weeks. We were just like, I worked 20, 22-hour days because fear of failure. You land clients and you land clients, all of a sudden you see their sales grow and

And you know, the first time a client says, thank you, great win. We had some fun wins. had some, we got to do some fun deals and trade shows and television commercials. And we had a lot of, a lot of wins in terms of big, big wins. And what was that first real victory? I think it was at the one year mark when, when I went to that client that invested in me and I said, gentlemen, I'll never be able to thank you enough. And, and I tripled their money.

a year later, gave it back to them and thanked them. you know, that was, that was the biggest milestone, I believe early on for me, there was no one single client win because all our clients were winning.

Paul Povolni (32:25.508)
Wow. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (32:30.094)
Right. So you had mentioned that the, were attracted to the idea of an advertising agency by Bewitched and you had mentioned that, you know, branding wasn't talked about as much then it was more about marketing. You know, it was more about advertising and things like that. When did you first learn the difference between marketing and advertising and branding?

Brandon Coleman Jr (32:51.086)
Brilliant, brilliant question. I learned it in school as I dug because I figured there was a reason that that professor told me and that dean of business told me back in the day that there's something different coming out with marketing. It's more of the science of business as opposed to journalism, which is more of the creative. And I said, but I'm creative. They said, great, but you can deliver that creative with strategy and you'll win. And so I went out in the market with that attitude and

I really wasn't sure to answer your question. I really wasn't sure all that that meant, but I had an idea. But the man that made the difference in my life, that first professor, but then the second guy was another really old guy named Pete Wolf out of San Juan, Capistrano, California, where the swallows go every year. And Pete had been in all up and down Madison Avenue and run ad agencies, everything for like 50 years. And he had moved to San Juan with his wife in later years and started something called Blood and Gut.

and it was an ad agency newsletter for ad agency presidents around the country that talked about the real trends in the industry and it was real and it was printed on an old brown stock and it looked like crap but God the content was just phenomenal. yeah, yeah came in the mail right. There was no electronic. I would sit back when that would come once a month or every other week whatever was and I would get my coffee out and I'd read that thing cover to cover.

Paul Povolni (34:00.304)
Yeah, that's when newsletters actually came in the mail as opposed to in your inbox.

Brandon Coleman Jr (34:17.389)
Well, one issue a few months in says, I'm going to hold an agency management roundtable. And now he was either in Phoenix or Dallas. don't remember. But what he did was he offered agency CEOs from around the country from different markets. First shot at joining the roundtables. There would be 12 to 13 ad agency CEOs, but you couldn't be from a competing market. Couldn't have two people out of Mississippi or two people out of Texas. I thought, you know what?

I need some time away. It's a three or four day deal. You get to meet the man, he sits at the table with the 12 of you, excuse me, and you get to talk to peers. People that have the same challenges every day when they wake up, face the same issues, a new business and finances and employees. I need to do this. I'm young and I need to learn from all these guys. And so I signed up and I went, you have to give them all your financials, confidentiality behind the scenes because they actually measure them and put them up on the screen and said,

Agency A is making 330,000 in profit a year. Agency B is only making 22,000 in profit a year. Agency C is failing. And then they literally list them up there. They don't give your name. But by the end of the day, everybody figured out who is who anyway. And we're sharing this. In the very first conference, he said, I want to tell all of you something. He said, the day of agency commissions is going to be gone one day. At the time, Paul, every single agency, every one of

Paul Povolni (35:28.279)
Hahaha

Brandon Coleman Jr (35:44.782)
operated on 15 % commission and nothing else. Meaning you land a million dollar account, you're gonna make 150,000. They spend 100,000 to media, you're gonna get 15,000 of that. You do 200,000 worth of artwork, you're gonna keep 30,000 of that. Everything was 15%. That's just the way it was. was sidebar story. That was created way, way, way back in the 1700s when a bell ringing,

Paul Povolni (36:02.564)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (36:14.638)
Pilgrim in the United States up in the colonies went to the town crier newspaper and he personally came up with the idea of selling advertising. It was his idea. And the paper said, I have no salary for you. I have no monies for you. He said, well, I tell you what, I'll sell it and I want 15 % of all the papers and all the stuff I sell for you. And they said, that's fair. And that's how agency commission started.

Paul Povolni (36:27.621)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (36:43.428)
Wow, wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (36:43.502)
and stuck for like 200 years. And that makes no business sense whatsoever. Because if I tell a client, I need you to spend 1 million in media or 3 million in media or 5 million in media, if they can look at me and know, okay, dude, you're getting 15 % of that, are you really making a strategic recommendation or a budget recommendation? And so we quit taking agency commissions right away and said, we're getting paid for our time. And, by the way,

We don't bill by the hour, ever, ever. Because as you know, being a guru in the business yourself, some of the best stuff you've ever created, Paul, came in the first meeting with a client. Some of the best stuff you ever created came within 60 seconds. And you can't get paid by the hour for that. So what Pete Wolfprofess was, he said all these agencies go after all this client business on the come. They go in and they go, three agencies are coming. It's a cattle call. They're all going to make creative presentations and one wins.

Paul Povolni (37:15.556)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:27.3)
Right. Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (37:42.094)
Well, they spend 10, 20, 50, $100,000 getting ready for these presentations. Answer me a question, Paul, who pays for the two agencies that lost and all their work? Their existing clients. So we came up with a mantra that we do not want our existing clients having to pay the rates of failed business presentations. So we did something that Pete Wolf recommended called a master plan, which is now known as a full scale marketing plan or brand plan or whatever you want to brand it.

Paul Povolni (37:51.151)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:55.493)
Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (38:12.15)
and we charged them upfront. And if they said, well, all these other agencies will do one for free. What do you mean you're going to charge 10 grand? We said, well, sir, this is how much we put into it. And here's our deal. If you don't hire us, we're paid. Nobody else pays for it. We'll give you all the knowledge, all the research, all the information. We'll walk away friends. If you do hire us, we'll rebate that money towards your fees. And we won about 90 % of the business we went after because people appreciated honesty and openness and effort. And it made all the difference in the world. So we were not a

afraid to charge lump sum fees. We'd go into a client on the front end and say, this is a quarter million dollar fee project. And no matter how much media buy, no matter how much graphics you do, no matter any of these other things, they're all at cost. We just get our fee and they loved it. Every now and then we'd have one go, well, you all don't operate like everybody else. go, yeah, you're right. And they'd throw us out the door, but that was very, very, very seldom. And that drove us into the upper 10 % of profitable firms in the United States. Our profitability numbers

Paul Povolni (38:44.922)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (39:11.48)
while agencies were taking off six, seven, 8 % by the time NetNetNet was done, something like two and three and four. We were up at 20 and 25 religiously for 20 straight years, which is why this group bought us. And nobody ever complained about our prices. It was just a different way of billing. It was a different way of believing in yourself and believing in your team. And I wouldn't hire anything but outstanding team members, but believing in your team enough to say, we're going to give you the best work and here's the deal.

Paul Povolni (39:19.886)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (39:23.632)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (39:40.142)
and you're all paid up. if we recommend you add another million immediate, we're not going to get a dime of it, but we're recommending you can do another million immediate. They'll listen to us. So the relationship was a lot closer with our clients and that really helped make a difference. But Pete Wolf, Pete Wolf discerned the difference in what is really building strategy and building brand for someone as opposed to doing advertising or just knocking out creative. And he really helped us exponentiate that. And we were, we were using the brand word brand.

Paul Povolni (39:48.078)
Yeah.

Right. Right. so in, yeah, Pete Wolf.

Brandon Coleman Jr (40:10.228)
long before anyone else. Ogilvy was the only other firm in the world that we knew of at the time really pushing brand strategy. And we were kind of doing that together. And know, brand in my book, Brand On, there's a chapter on the history of brand and brand really didn't take off until about 2000. And that's when everybody wanted to graduate in marketing and the internet started booming and brands started getting into textbooks. And that's when it really took off. So we were

Paul Povolni (40:18.202)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (40:24.272)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (40:37.498)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (40:37.934)
We were solid 10 to 15 years ahead of that stuff. you know, it was a joy. We actually rebranded our firm. We were originally named Coleman and Coleman. My brother was my creative director. 10 years into it, we rebranded ourselves Brand Imagination. And again, before the word brand was big, and then we built behind that. And we had a methodology and we had a strategy. the first, you know, yes, I had graphics people, had creative people, I had a receptionist, I had a media buyer, typical small agency. But

Paul Povolni (40:40.538)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (41:06.596)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (41:07.488)
I was the first to ever go to Arthur Anderson, go to Accenture and take their management consulting team and pick top people off of that. And the next five hires I made were management consultants. And what's amazing, what's really crazy is I had a friend that was one of the top guys in Deloitte in the Southwest back in the eighties. And we talked one day over a good beer and he goes, I said, look, you know what you ought to do? You ought to buy us. I said, we're not an ad agency.

Paul Povolni (41:16.099)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (41:19.503)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (41:34.607)
you

Brandon Coleman Jr (41:35.202)
We do all the stuff they do, we also are a consultancy, a management consultancy. And that's where all you bean counters are going. He said, yeah, that Accenture just started and Deloitte's thinking about getting into, guess who's really the biggest marketing agency out there in the world right now doing stuff? Deloitte Digital. They're so big a marketing agency, it's not even funny. But back then it was too early and the bean counters said, yeah, they're one of those marketing guys around our offices. But we were blending marketing into management consulting.

Paul Povolni (41:42.128)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (41:52.73)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (41:56.282)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (42:04.46)
The accountants ended up blending more accounting into management consulting. And when you blend all of those and you're starting to look at the, at the core consistency of an organization and how it moves forward, you become a pretty strong deal. Deloitte Digital is amazing group.

Paul Povolni (42:18.062)
Yeah. So when a client, when you come to a client or when you used to come to a client and you know, you were first talking about branding and they would say, we already have that. We already have that. How did you, how did you educate them the difference between the two of did they actually have a brand or did they just have some ads?

Brandon Coleman Jr (42:36.79)
That's a great question. You're so damn perceptive. And I've seen a lot of it on the internet. I've seen other firms use it today. In these days, here 50 years later, as a positioning statement is a brand is not a logo. Well, a logo is not a brand. That is so very true. But that's also the opening line I used 50 years ago. I'd go, look, your logo is not your brand. I remember talking to the oil field. mean, the oil field has got a lot of money. And the oil industry did a lot of industrial B2B marketing. Big, big budgets, big marketing stuff. Not the kind of stuff that gets you on the front page like Nike or Starbucks, but

Paul Povolni (42:52.578)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (43:06.69)
But the money was good. And so I'm like, I don't care if I'm, it's not about an ego thing. It's about getting out there and building a business. So we did an awful lot of work at the oil field and those guys literally in the eighties thought having a logo designed by their daughter and a ball cap in the back of their car and a case of Crown Royal in the trunk to hand to anybody in the oil field at the well or anywhere else that was making buying decisions. And then doing a barbecue or crawfish boil, that was marketing. And I'm going tell you something, I'm not doing rocks at it because

I partaked in every one of those sins and enjoyed the hell out of them and love that industry and still love that industry, which has now become much more sophisticated in its marketing, but they still have the Crown Royal, the crawfish boils, the barbecue and the baseball caps. But back then it was like, dude, your logo is not your brand. And by the way, it's ugly. And it's hard sometime to sit in front of a guy. remember being in South Louisiana in front of a guy who was, mean, had his gold Rolex was worth more than my entire portfolio. And

Paul Povolni (43:54.512)
Hahaha

Brandon Coleman Jr (44:04.782)
He's, he's, we're doing this and they're making drilling tongs. He really exciting, right? Yeah. they're quarter million dollar tools. So each, they're, they're, they're ad budgets, marketing budget was pretty big. And he says, I want you because I know we can be a lot bigger and better. Okay. Well, tell me your story. Well, he told me the story by the time he stood with his story, wife named the company, daughter drew the logo, his sales director, his sales manager created the marketing program. mean, I'm like, I'm screwed. That's like,

Paul Povolni (44:32.824)
Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (44:33.666)
when your wife or girlfriend comes in and goes, how do you like my new hairdo? No way to answer that correctly. There is no good answer. Period. You got to pretend like you didn't hear it. look at that. And, see if you can get away with that because there is no good answer. So there's no good answer to all those things, but we would have to say, well, John, your baby's ugly and you need to change his name and get them to laugh a little bit and then let them throw something at you and then explain why. And we did that a lot. We did that an awful lot. had one client,

Paul Povolni (44:38.298)
Ha ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (44:44.576)
Skrill, yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (45:03.8)
throw me out of a board meeting as a big family run business, multi gazillion dollar company. And they had some real issues at the top level. They had seven family members on different seats in the board, big money. They owned a lot of things, shopping centers, malls, business buildings, retail. They owned a lot. The man, they were so messed up. I mean, messed up, good people, all in their hearts, good people, they had people with drug issues. had people with

Legally, they had this, they had that. And every family member up at the VP level had their own direction for the company. And none of them were singing out the same hymnal, so they sounded like crap. And when they all got around the table and you started asking branding questions, it just frustrated the hell because you would ask tough questions. Like, why do you do that? Well, don't question me, I own the company. Let me ask again, why do you do that? I don't care that you own the company, I'm trying to get the bottom of your brand so can help make you better. And we would get guys that were so enamored with themselves and so...

Paul Povolni (45:40.933)
well.

Paul Povolni (45:49.786)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (46:02.932)
non-understanding of what a real true brand alignment is, a real customer journey all the way around that they would finally look at us and just go, you know what? We don't need this crap. Y'all take your stuff. We'll pay your bill. Y'all go home. I got thrown out of one of those meetings and my right-hand guy was right there with me. He was a former Accenture guy, brilliant guy. And we walked out the door. goes, I knew when you put it in that guy's face for the third time, we were done. I said, so did I. He said, Brandon, that's a lot of money. I said, yeah, they'll be back. They'll be back one day.

They didn't come back in short order, but five years later I'm in a gas station. I'm filling up my car and that guy who hated my guts pulls up at the gas pump next to me and I'm like, I'm about to get shot. This is Texas. I'm about to get shot. And he pulls up and gets a guy. goes, Brandon Coleman. How in the hell are you? I said, man, I'm good. How are you doing? He goes, you have a minute? I said, sure. I thought that I was like praying God. Thank you for my life. Take care of my kids. My wife.

He goes, I just got to tell you, I'm sorry. I've been wanting to say that to you for four years. I said, why? He said, well, five years ago, you were an absolute ass in that meeting. But he said, you were right on the money. And when we finally did what you said, our company took off. And he said, I owe you a huge apology. And I've been wanting to give it you and I didn't know how to find you. And I'm glad I found you today. And I said, well, thanks and happy holidays. And that was it. And we didn't, we didn't make too many of them that angry. There were a couple, but, but it seemed like all of them came back at some point.

Paul Povolni (47:23.044)
Wow.

Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (47:32.462)
It's hard to get someone to understand when they're making a lot of money and they've been very successful and they're not really marketing people. They're not really brand strategy experts or business consulting experts. Really, really hard to look them in the face and say, look, y'all are only hitting on about 60 % of your cylinders. And I think we can get you to a hundred with a major change, but it's right over there sitting in that chair and they're going like, can't touch that chair. we're going to touch the chair.

Paul Povolni (47:59.664)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (48:00.11)
And we just loved it. It became a challenge for us. It was fun because we never did it for self-interest. Right? You do it for their good.

Paul Povolni (48:09.904)
Yeah. So when you start working with brand alignment, how do you, how, what, what is the definition of brand that you use to say, this is, this is, this is what a brand is. This is where you're missing the mark on what, what you're doing. You, you, you aren't branding as much as you think you are because here is the definition or here's the way I define brand and here's what you're doing. That is not aligned with that.

Brandon Coleman Jr (48:35.47)
Well, you know, again, another great question. It's why you're a top pro at this. We define brand when we started wrapping our arms around it, 81, 82, 83, we kept that in our heads around. They're just not, I mean, the only definition that exists around that time was like can of soup, Campbell's can of soup brand or name on a brand. Like, that was about the extent of it. As we saw what it was doing in business, I want to say we,

Paul Povolni (48:54.532)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (49:01.978)
Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (49:05.198)
actually define it 84, 85 maybe. We said, okay, at the end of the day, what are we telling all these people to do? One, we're telling them to make a promise. And that's what every company does. And one way or another, they're making a promise. Whether you make spiral weight drill pipe, whether you sell coffee, whether you sell yoga services, whether you're an influencer, you're making a promise to your clients.

And here's my promise to you, whatever it is. Okay, is that enough? Is that a brand? No. No, it's not a brand. Okay, what has to follow? Well, what has to follow is impeccable delivery. You have to deliver and is that enough? If I deliver what I promise you, is that enough? Well, you're getting really close. And then if you wrap that whole thing just right,

then it's an immaculate relationship between the consumer and between the brand. So we ended up crafting a definition that says a brand is a promise wrapped in a delivery. And if you Google brand, you can find some really long explanation of what a brand is. And they're all within their own rights, correct? And I say that in my book. But a brand is a promise wrapped.

Paul Povolni (50:20.408)
Nice, I love that.

Brandon Coleman Jr (50:33.064)
a delivery. That's how we defined it. You go back on history of brand. When you read that in my book, the history of brands is really pretty cool. You start way back with the cavemen, right? They pop their, they burn their symbol on something. You go all the way to the great west and I love cowboys. I love country western. I love heroes. Those cowboys brand those cattle and they brand those horses. Yeehaw, I love that stuff. Then it moves on and it goes on up into, starts crawling into the marketing space.

Paul Povolni (50:35.768)
I love that.

Paul Povolni (50:41.338)
Yeah.

Right?

Paul Povolni (50:56.805)
Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (51:02.254)
and then by 2000 become something real. Then you get into the art, science, and common sense of brand alignment. Brand alignment is when all those things come together to have your customer expectations, to have your delivery meet your customer expectations. That's brand on. That's brand alignment. Brand on the way we define it and the way we give awards for it starting in 2025, the way we're to give awards for it is brand on is

Paul Povolni (51:20.015)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:25.337)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (51:31.746)
You're exceeding customer expectations. You're developing joy and delight and surprise and wow. And that and those brands, Paul are so few and far between. And we like to craft people's brands that and encourage them to do that over and beyond. A lot of people go, look, I can't even get brand aligned, much less brand on. I can't get it to where I'm surprising people and delight. And there's too damn many customers. Too many entrepreneurs want to lay it off as the customer's fault.

Paul Povolni (51:42.447)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:53.104)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (52:01.102)
I know there's wacky customers. Okay. I got, that. You got to carve those out, but, you also can't use it as an excuse, right? Like my dad said, I can give me victories. You can give me excuses. I want happy customers. I don't want an excuse as to why that customer left unhappy. Right. And so, so brand alignment is doing all those things necessary to make that customer journey come out and to deliver that brand as it was promised, as it was wrapped in that delivery that we deliver that wrap promise to them at every single

Paul Povolni (52:09.935)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:14.329)
Right. Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (52:30.52)
customer touch point. Some scientific gurus in the academic marketing world say that's impossible. I say they're wrong because I've seen it happen. It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of focus from everyone. That's not just marketing's job. Great brand strategies are not even marketing's job. They need to come from the top. Now they may need counsel or they may need the right arm marketing or branding person if they're good.

Paul Povolni (52:46.245)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (52:56.79)
If they're not, it just destroys their progress on their brand, but they need that direction from the top. And then they need those guidelines to follow through. yeah, so it's a brand's a promise wrapped in delivery and brand alignment, making sure that happens. We had a great podcast yesterday about franchising. Franchising is a difficult sphere for some because the franchisee wants to be an entrepreneur. And they can be, they can own their own business. Owning a franchise is your own business, but

Paul Povolni (53:13.957)
Mm.

Paul Povolni (53:24.601)
Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (53:25.304)
You're beholden to the model of a brand because you've bought into whoever and they have a system. And entrepreneurs tend to want to be creative and inside of a franchise, you can't be creative within that system. You just can't. You need to be an implementer. And I was blessed to interview one of the top franchise consultants in the world yesterday and look forward to it coming out soon. those people have to implement, implement it. But guess what? Even if they have a big brand, let's say it's Burger King.

Paul Povolni (53:29.176)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (53:38.146)
Right. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (53:53.55)
and they've got all that national advertising, have the brand, they've got the commercials, they've got the flames, they've got the whole bit. But when someone walks in that store, they've got a national expectation at a local level to deliver on that TV commercial, to deliver on those flames, deliver on that freshness, deliver on everything, have it your way, deliver on all of that. But then if you can do that with delight and surprise where your people up front are so friendly and so kind and everything's so clean and so right, i.e. Chick-fil-A, perfect every time.

Paul Povolni (54:16.43)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (54:21.006)
Yeah. Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (54:23.17)
Number one brand to franchise world because of that. that's all about brand alignment. It's very difficult on those franchisees because they don't get to control the logo or any of the fun things, but they have to control that delivery to be a brand. It's a promise wrapped in delivery. Same in that business.

Paul Povolni (54:25.87)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:31.31)
Yeah, well that-

Paul Povolni (54:38.904)
Right. Yeah. And a franchise would be a box that you get to play in, but they do have things that you can play in that box. You know, there are things that you can do, like you mentioned, the way people are treated. And that comes from you as management, setting a culture in your business, in your franchise that you own. Cause I've been to franchises where, you know, they're an international hamburger place. And the way it's run is how the management and leadership

dictate and how they create the culture within that organization. And you can have a really great franchise burger joint and you could have one that's just miserable. And that's part of the branding that you do have control of. Cause branding isn't just the logo, the signage outside the, the offering on the menu. It's how people are treated, how people feel when they walk in the cleanliness.

Brandon Coleman Jr (55:22.434)
Right.

Paul Povolni (55:32.558)
your involvement with the community, your, all of that stuff can play into the brand that you as an entrepreneur would have control of. But yeah, you're right. When you buy a franchise, you're in a box. And so you do have certain things that are limitations. And so when you're approaching a business and working with alignment, getting the brand on, you know, there are certain things that you start looking for in the business that are off, that are not aligned, that are not brand on. What are some of those things that you first tackle with?

than when you approach a new business.

Brandon Coleman Jr (56:05.262)
Another good question. I think I mentioned earlier is great branding art, science or common sense. And it's a bit all three, Paul, but if pushed up against the wall, you can only have one of those. I would take common sense every single time. OK, I had a recent Max Hill facial surgeon, just a brilliant, brilliant man. Had a business three or four locations.

doing very well, spending, you know, million dollars a month on TV, bringing people in for these whole face smiles. They to tear out their whole face, put it back in, change people's lives. Literally the most, one of the most amazing things I've experienced in almost 70 years of life. It was just like, my God. And they do that in a day and it's real and it's right. There's nothing hokey about it. And they're just amazing. And they were doing good and making good money, but

Paul Povolni (56:52.175)
Wow.

Brandon Coleman Jr (57:01.496)
They were faltering and they stagnated and they did good over COVID because obviously you're gonna have a lot of people watching TV ads during COVID. So their business grew and then it flattened out, flattened out. And he said, I need help. He said, first thing, I need to hire a chief marketing officer. And he lived in my building, actually, my high rise in Dallas. He said, here's where I'm spending, here's what I'm doing. It's just, we have so much more potential. So I'm gonna hire a chief marketing officer. My marketing guy is not working out. He's okay, but he's not the guy.

I said, well, what are you expecting and why are you going for a CMO? he had all the reasons. And they were all the wrong reasons. And he said, I've been searching for two months. I haven't been able to find one. said, well, okay. He said, will you help me find one? I said, do you want me to help you find a CMO or do you want me to help you with your business? He said, well, yeah, I want you to help me with my business, but get me a CMO first. said, okay. The only way I'll help you with your business is if you let me say you don't need a CMO because I haven't been in your business, but just for what you've told me, you don't need a CMO.

He said, well, you're so smart. What do think the first thing I need? Need is, I well, you need a new name. I'm not changing my name. Their name was marquee marquee centers. Yeah. Take a second. What does that mean? R. Q. I. S.

Paul Povolni (58:07.792)
Ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (58:15.248)
Hahaha

Yeah, it could mean anything. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (58:21.43)
or nothing. Right? mean, all I see are a marquee sign up on the theater going, show today, show tonight, know, Frank Sinatra, whatever. That's a marquee. And I know what marquee means. mean, I get it. I've been ultimate. But that's a word most of us never use in the course of a year. And if we do it's once. And so there's no familiarity. There's no instant ownership. And so the mind has to clear hurdles. Okay. What does that mean?

Paul Povolni (58:27.63)
Right? Yeah.

Paul Povolni (58:38.372)
Right. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (58:49.836)
Okay, you explain it. Well, what does that mean? And you got to keep clearing her. Why am I wasting that mind space? I only, you only get one mind space with me. What am I going to fill it with? So I said, doc, firstly, have to change your name, but then I'm happy to look into your project. And he goes, okay, you put a proposal together for me, but I'm not changing my name. And he's walking out the door and he looks at me and goes, if you come back to me and say, I got to change my name, you better have a damn good reason.

Paul Povolni (58:57.87)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (59:19.436)
or gonna fire you. I said, done. We convinced them to do a name change. We re-rolled out the brand. This was just two years ago. They're doing four times the numbers. They grew trust. Was it so creative that we won awards and people out of New York and LA came bringing me all the trophies? No, we re-branded them doctor's implants. Because you know what we learned?

Paul Povolni (59:33.477)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (59:42.266)
Ha ha ha ha.

Brandon Coleman Jr (59:47.758)
The number one thing patients are concerned about on that whole gig of all those commercials you see about new teeth is who's my doctor? Because none of the commercial really showing doctors. Most of those implant people don't use real doctor. They use dentists and other things. They don't use maxillofacial surgeons, which is all he uses. So there's a huge difference in quality and mouth implants are a lot of money. You're talking 60, 70, $80,000 surgeries.

Paul Povolni (01:00:12.108)
Hahaha.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:00:16.664)
not covered by insurance. People mortgage their homes, they sell their cars because they grew up with drugs or because they grew up with no dental care. They can't smile, they can't look people in the face, they don't go out to dinner, it ruins their lives. And these people, when they unveil them, they cry and say, we're not here talk about it. But the point is, is when I came back to him, we changed their name. And it was just so obvious going back to common sense, you asked, how do you know where to start?

Paul Povolni (01:00:18.48)
Bye.

Paul Povolni (01:00:31.161)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:00:39.664)
Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:00:45.858)
changing the brand. How do you know where to poke the bear and talk to him about it? Well, I knew he needed to change his name. It was too obvious. The obvious is always the obvious. The difference is, Paul, it's harder for the owners of the business to see the obvious because they've been in it for years. They've been in it day in and day out. He said, look, we got the marquee smile. We got marquee everywhere. I said, good, I can erase it. Nope, no sweat, baby. He said, yeah, but it's everything. It's all, it's everything I do. I've got a new jet with marquee on. I said, if you can afford the jet, we can afford new lettering.

Paul Povolni (01:00:51.237)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:01:01.71)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:01:06.514)
You

Paul Povolni (01:01:15.374)
Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:01:15.726)
You know, it's like, it's like, and then you finally, you go up against it enough that you say, look, I can't help you if we don't change the name. It's too big a roadblock. Because if you're in the ultimate chart that changed, was him, me showing him, you're hitting at about 50 % effectiveness level in your advertising and you're spending millions a month. If I change your name, I'll get you up in the 90 to 100 % effectiveness market. And it's done more than that. So

Paul Povolni (01:01:24.09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:01:33.796)
Yeah. Right.

Paul Povolni (01:01:40.194)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:01:43.308)
You've been in it long enough, you've got the wisdom, you've got the experience. These things just jump. They just jump at you. As you do your research and your homework, they jump at you.

Paul Povolni (01:01:47.781)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:01:51.32)
Right. So with alignment or getting a brand on, the first thing is the obvious, but sometimes for the person, for the business owner, it's not the obvious, it's the name. What's the next thing that you look at? If they've got a good name, what's the next thing that you look at to get them aligned?

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:02:05.442)
Well, first thing we do is take a walkthrough. And in my book, Brand On, that's what we ask people to do, There is a chapter, I think it's down in chapter seven, about aligning your brand. The first thing I want you to do is take a walkthrough. I actually provide anyone that buys my book, I provide them two free tools. It took me the better part of 50 years to build. One of them is called the Brain Drain. It has 200 questions that I ask at the start of every engagement. I would say it has a little bit of value.

The second thing is a brand walkthrough, brand alignment checklist, where you just literally take the checklist, walk through your business and go, nope, nope. And it's looking at things. Is it clean? You look in your window corners, is it clean? Is your logo on the wall? Is it straight? I mean, it's stuff so elementary you'd laugh, but it's stuff most people miss. And it goes to the entire, and when you take those two documents and you execute the brain drain and the alignment, both of which come free with the book right off the, downloads off my website.

Paul Povolni (01:02:52.314)
Yeah.

Right. Cause most people think that Brett.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:03:04.794)
And you do the walkthrough with that checklist. You literally do the walkthrough. Another story that's included in my book is a real brand alignment walkthrough of a restaurant experience. And when you read it and you realize it lasts three to four pages, you realize what it takes to truly align a brand and a restaurant because there are so many touch points from the moment you park your car to the moment you get back in and leave. Signage, approach, door.

Paul Povolni (01:03:25.634)
Absolutely. Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:03:34.754)
temperature greeting. I mean, just go on and on and on. And there are so many touch points. It drives us drives us restaurant owners crazy, especially the ones in multiple, multiple locations. It's just hard to get it right all the time. But we go walk through a client. Like if you said, Hey, come walk through my business, I would start and I'd say, Paul, where is the, where is the first time someone engages you? Where do they learn about you? Is it on social on a website? You know, those things have changed a lot today.

Paul Povolni (01:03:42.703)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:04:04.056)
Where do they learn about you? it always referral? And then I would start there, okay, what is that perception of that customer perspective, customer years at that point in time? And then walk me through everything they see from their eyes. And then, and sometimes I'll engage customers who are real customers, not with the client. I don't take the client with me. Give me tour through your customers. Let me pay them and have them walk the journey with me.

Okay, you come to the checkout counter. How do they know? Well, Sally's kind of a bitch. She does this and this and this. She sneers, but she takes my check. Well, okay. Write that down. I wish they didn't do that. They do that and then they do this. Little thing is that the owner's not going to go ask him because he's afraid to. I'm going to ask him everything and I'm going to have him take me through that journey and I'm going to say, show me the highlights. Show me the low lights and I'm going to make the highlights bigger and I'm going to make the low lights go away. But when you do that,

Paul Povolni (01:04:33.978)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:04:44.622)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (01:04:52.078)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (01:04:57.592)
Right. That's so good.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:04:59.372)
You do those three things. Okay, those two checklists, now walk through, you're 90 % there. And if you're gonna go work with a great brand strategy guy or lady, then those documents will provide you an incredible foundation to help that person do what's best for you.

Paul Povolni (01:05:15.598)
Yeah, that's some powerful head smacks right there because I think, you know, we, get so, confused sometimes into thinking that, you know, it's just about the logo. It's just about the visuals, but you know, what you shared is so right on because it is the total experience. And you talked about a restaurant, but it's even for any kind of a store, any kind of a, office, anything like that is it is a total experience is what, what's the sounds, what are the smells, what are the, the, the, the interactions like, what are the.

the coming in, the driving in the signage, the way finding into the parking spot, the finding where your business is. All of those things play a part in your brand. It's just not your logo. It's just not your website. It's not just running a Facebook ad and doing social media. If you're in any kind of a physical space, it's all of it. It's everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:06:06.006)
Well, that's a law firm included or hospital. deal with lots of medical facilities, hospitals, clinics, law firms, accounting firms, all those we had as clients at one point or another. Some of them you don't think of as restaurants or places you go into and pay money and do something and walk out. They're professional service firms. But anything that affects the human senses, any of your natural senses of touch, taste, sight, smell, all that, even in a professional service firm, make a difference. It really does.

Paul Povolni (01:06:31.193)
Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:06:35.2)
Anywhere from your invoice. The way you... I just did an episode on gratitude on the Brand On show. It's not about stamping thank you on an invoice. It's like, hello, everybody does that. That gets no points. I mean, it's better than saying blank you, but I mean, that's not gratitude. And having a sign hanging in your business, in your lobby that says, we love our customers. You know, show me. You don't need to hang a sign up, just deliver it.

Paul Povolni (01:06:46.158)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:06:52.024)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:07:04.346)
Ryan.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:07:05.24)
Genuine gratitude, real stuff. Check gratitude at every point of that checklist. Check gratitude everywhere you go because it is by far and away the strongest brand strategy that there is, period. I don't care what business you're in.

Paul Povolni (01:07:19.269)
Yeah.

That's so awesome. Well, I do encourage you guys to, listen to that podcast episode on gratitude. Well, man, Brendan, this has been amazing. I, do want to, I'm definitely going to be getting your book. If people want to get ahold of you, if people want to get your book, what's the best way to do that?

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:07:35.342)
Well, I really appreciate it. Books available at all bookstores and Amazon. It's brand on, the Hidden Para brand limit. comes out soon. I know you don't like to date these podcasts, so it comes out soon. So check, but you can pre-order it today. You can pre-order it. As a matter of fact, if you don't mind me bragging for a second, we have already become an Amazon bestseller before it's even released. So I'm very, very honored and grateful for friends and clients and people who have...

Paul Povolni (01:07:45.476)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:07:56.954)
Well done.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:08:03.15)
already purchased the book. So it's available to you at any Amazon location, obviously online and will be at any bookstore soon. My website is Brandon Coleman Jr. BrandonColemanJr.com and tune into the Brand On Show at any Apple, Spotify, any of your podcast platforms and follow us there. We drop every Tuesday morning. We hope and aspire to be like this guy.

Lots of followers, lots of people. does a phenomenal job as witness about today's interview. We could probably talk two or three more hours being branding guys. And I just, love your approach. I love your style and there need to be more of you.

Paul Povolni (01:08:30.288)
you

Paul Povolni (01:08:38.798)
Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Povolni (01:08:43.3)
Well, thank you so much, man. This has been amazing. And I love this phase of your life that you shared about. You just want to kind of just give and share all your knowledge and everything. one of the, you know, one of the scriptures that inspires me is when Paul talks about, want to be poured out. And I'm kind of at that stage in my life now, you know, we're different ages, but I'm kind of at that point in my life too, is I just want to pour out like everything that I've learned, everything that I've.

I received in all the different topics. And that's why this podcast exists is just to pour out, you know, I want to be poured out. I don't want to leave this world with stuff in my head.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:09:19.822)
No, I think that's awesome. when it all goes back to my dad, the coach, he said, you know, just make sure you leave it all out there on the court. Don't bring any of it back into the locker room.

Paul Povolni (01:09:26.606)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So finally, what's a question or a head smack that you'd love to share that I haven't asked you about?

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:09:35.542)
A question you haven't asked me about.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:09:41.774)
That's a great question in and of itself, my man. That is a really good question you haven't asked me about. Related to brand alignment or about anything. Wow. You know, it's rare I get caught off guard, but that one's got me stomped, man. You may have to make an edit point on this. What is a great question? A great question you haven't asked me about is how much

Paul Povolni (01:09:52.176)
about anything.

Paul Povolni (01:09:58.244)
Ha ha ha

Well, I know sometimes that, you know, during the in

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:10:09.902)
How much did you enjoy your life, your journey along the way of 50 years of leading a top branding firm?

Paul Povolni (01:10:17.038)
And how did you?

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:10:18.254)
Due to my faith, I was blessed to keep it real. We had groups along the way that wanted to grow us significantly with locations all over the country and even overseas because of our unique approach at the time in the late 80s, 90s that we were doing brand alignment, we were doing brand strategy and that we had combined those. We'd taken an ad agency and a management consulting firm and put them together. Had a lot of people that want to grow us, but I had three kids, three amazing kids. One who is now a big top dog at 42 years old and the

in the hospitality space. He's one of the brilliant marketing minds. Guy's just phenomenal. He's with Adventure Capital Group and he's also CEO of all the cotton patch cafes across Texas. He was president of TGI Fridays for a while and bailed out that deal. But he's just a great kid, great human being at 42 years old, amazing guy. I'm blessed to have a son like that. got my other son, my second son, another amazing human being. I was discovered at 12 as a race car driver. He ended up driving

set a record, world record at 16 and a 24 hour Daytona and ended up driving NASCAR for Joe Gibbs racing. And then my daughter, who's a brilliant, beautiful woman, ended up winning the national equestrian championship, horses over fences and got a scholarship at A and went on to win an NCAA championship and do some cool things. And so I've got three great kids. I was not willing to sacrifice my father time. That's where I drew the line. I was fortunate. We had a lot of money. We did very, very well.

Paul Povolni (01:11:42.82)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:11:48.386)
We could have been so much bigger, could have been so much richer, but guess what? With more money, you can't buy anything more. Not what means something. What means something to me is his family, his people, it's your children, it's your community, it's your church, it's your school district, people I ended up serving as president of our school board, elected official. That took half my time, but we live life together. I didn't live in an airplane chasing new offices and new clients occasionally, but not every day.

Paul Povolni (01:11:53.838)
Right. Right.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:12:17.678)
We could have been a lot bigger of a firm, but instead I chose to coach Little League for 18 years. coached football and basketball. I ran the firm, president of the school board, and you know, we worked hard and we had a lot of fun. We took clients dove hunting in Mexico and fishing, and we did all kinds of stuff. We were engaged with our clients. We learned that the more time we spent with them out of the office, the better job we did for them. Because the more secrets we would learn about their business, the more truth and the more honesty we would get, which would allow us to do a much better job.

Paul Povolni (01:12:43.108)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:12:47.406)
Some of the best campaign concepts I ever had came when we were fishing and a client said X and I went like, well, you never said that. And he said, well, yeah, but that's kind of deep down inside. said, well, yeah, well, that's your new campaign. And so we were all in. When people, I had 75 friends, my wife interviewed on video from a 65th birthday a number of years back. And they said, describe Brandon, the things that came up a lot was all in.

Paul Povolni (01:12:47.695)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:12:52.325)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (01:13:00.399)
Wow.

Yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:13:16.022)
And when I go into something, I was just all in, I was committed. And that again, goes back to a dad who you're either all in or he's going to kick your butt. But that all in, I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the discipline he provided that drove me to be better because I didn't get paid for the hours. The extra hours I put in to be great, to be truly great, I didn't get paid for those hours. I got paid to deliver, but the ones that made us great, the ones where we went over and beyond,

Paul Povolni (01:13:16.293)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:13:23.12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:13:43.106)
were because we were committed, because we invested that time in our own. But I loved my life. I was very, very fortunate. But my faith is what centers that.

Paul Povolni (01:13:49.688)
Man, man, this has been amazing, Brandon. Thank you so much for this and I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and look forward to getting to know you even more beyond this. But thank you so much for being on today, man.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:14:03.406)
Hey, I'm honored and hey, we're doing a book signing tour next year and we're going to go by Louisiana because Tony's Sachery is Creole Season. was one of my products I created and campaigns and brands we built. And I promised Buzzy, the great grandson of Tony himself, that I'd come down to Upper Louisville, Louisiana and come down to see him. So that puts me pretty close to where you live. And I'm going to try to find a way to swing through Mississippi and

Paul Povolni (01:14:21.944)
You

Paul Povolni (01:14:25.794)
Yeah, we might need to connect. That's my son's favorite seasoning.

Brandon Coleman Jr (01:14:30.914)
See if we can't go grab a lunch together something, because I've thoroughly enjoyed this. You betcha. God bless.

Paul Povolni (01:14:34.436)
Thank you, man. Have a great day. Take care.