Stephen Houraghan / Brand Builder. Brand Master Academy. BrandBuilder.ai

The Branding Blind Spot That’s Costing You Customers

In this conversation, Paul Povolni and Stephen Houraghan explore the multifaceted world of branding, discussing their personal backgrounds, the journey into branding and design, and the importance of understanding brand strategy. 

They delve into the definitions of brand, branding, and marketing, emphasizing the human experience and the depth of meaning behind branding. The conversation highlights the significance of consistency and clarity in shaping brand perception and the need for a strategic approach to branding. 

In this conversation, Paul Povolni and Stephen Houraghan delve into the intricacies of brand strategy, emphasizing the importance of understanding the core purpose behind a brand, the significance of audience engagement, and the necessity of a well-defined messaging framework. 

They discuss how effective branding goes beyond visuals, focusing on the strategic elements that drive brand success. The dialogue highlights the need for consistency in branding and the role of personality in shaping brand perception, ultimately guiding businesses to create meaningful connections with their audience.

5 Key Takeaways:

1. Branding is about perception, not just design.
2. Positioning is the foundation of effective messaging.
3. Consistency builds brand familiarity and trust.
4. A clear brand personality differentiates you from competitors.
5. Without strategy, your visuals are just decoration.

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Stephen Houraghan is a seasoned brand strategist, CEO, and Founder of Brand Master Academy and BrandBuildr.ai. With a background in business and finance, Stephen transitioned into design and marketing, founding the Iconic Fox Agency to offer global brand strategy services. Through his academy, podcast, and community, he’s helped tens of thousands transform their businesses with proprietary brand-building systems, dedicated to closing the brand education gap and simplifying strategic brand-building for all.

Link: BrandBuildr.ai

Link: Brand Master Academy

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 (06:16.671)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack podcast. My name is Paul Povolni and I am excited to have another misfit along for the ride with me. I have Stephen Houraghan and he is a seasoned brand strategist and CEO and a founder of Brandmaster Academy and Brand Builder AI. He's got a background in business and finance that he later gained qualifications in design and marketing found in the iconic Fox agency to offer brand strategy and creative services globally.

Through his programs, podcasts, and community, Stephen has helped tens of thousands transform their businesses by sharing his proprietary brand building systems. Stephen is dedicated to closing the brand education gap, providing systems and tools to make strategic brand building more understood, streamlined, and adopted. How you doing, Stephen? Glad to have you on,

Stephen Houraghan (07:05.336)
Paul, my man, thank you very much for having me. I'm looking forward to the chat.

Paul Povolni (07:09.267)
I'm looking forward to it as well. Always love talking branding. It's been my bread and butter for a while. And I just love those conversations, love hearing different people's perspectives. And I think this is going to be a great conversation. You're very much about strategy. And so if you're building a brand, if you're looking to build a brand, launch a brand, start a brand, and you want to get started right, this is the conversation for you. So Stephen, I want to kind of get started a little bit with your origin story.

I love hearing how people got started, where they got started, their journey to become who they are now and what they're doing. So share a little bit about the origins of Stephen.

Stephen Houraghan (07:39.49)
Mm.

Stephen Houraghan (07:45.986)
Yeah, yeah, well, we actually had a brief chat offline there and I gave you the broader version of coming from Ireland, but I am originally from Ireland. moved to Australia when I was 20. And I ended up in the finance industry. I was a stockbroker for a while and then GFC hit 2008, the financial crisis. And I was at a crossroads and I was like, what am I gonna do?

with my life now, I had no plan B. And I did have the opportunity to ask myself, well, what would I enjoy doing? If I could do it all again, what would I enjoy doing? And I had always loved creative work. I played with Photoshop in my spare time. So I decided that I would head down the design road. And that's when I fell into the world of branding. And branding became my muse. And, you know, it...

I devoured it. was something that I really was interested in. When you're interested in something that you do for a living, you become good at it by default because you're thirsty for the knowledge.

Paul Povolni (08:54.687)
So what interested you about branding Like that's so different from finance. Like that's so left brain, right brain kind of thing.

Stephen Houraghan (08:58.742)
Yeah. Well, it's, it's, it's funny because like the design side of things, it's all about the visuals, but then I was bringing my experience in boardrooms to the table. So I had the kind of thinking of, well, how does this translate into business or why would we do this? I always, I always ask the question, why, why, why, why, you know, you would get a design brief and

you'd be asking the questions, okay, well, all right, I understand why you want, I understand that this is what you want, but why is it that you want and who is this for? So there was always that kind of business aspect. And then when I understood how audiences worked and why brands existed for the audience and was able to tie all of those together.

and then bring my business kind of background to the table. It all made sense. And I felt that I had an upper hand on the designers around me who were coming at it from more of a visual artistic perspective. And when I realized that, it was clear to me that having my own agency on my own business and working for clients rather than working in an agency for somebody else was the way to go.

Paul Povolni (10:18.367)
So what piqued your interest in design? Was there a moment? Was there a book? Was there a video? Still, it is such a different thing.

Stephen Houraghan (10:25.606)
I don't know. Creativity is kind of in your bones or it's not. I don't know if there's an alternative to that argument because all I know is myself, whether it was drawing at school or even with language. Like I had an interest in don't tell anybody this poetry when I was a kid. the create and my daughter now, she just got creativity.

Paul Povolni (10:47.101)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Stephen Houraghan (10:53.624)
coming out of her, whatever she puts her hand to. So I kind of feel that that was always there. And the fact that I played around with Photoshop on the weekends, putting videos together, montages for like family member birthdays and things like that, it's just something that I did for fun. It was fun to me to do that. So I don't know why it was just kind of there. But then being able to bring the business side to the table with that and kind of merge the two together. And I found actually a

Paul Povolni (10:58.815)
I'm

Stephen Houraghan (11:23.486)
a gaping hole in the market, not a gaping hole. mean, it did exist, but there wasn't a shining light on it. And Marty Neumeyer is actually the one who turned my attention to it because I picked up the brand GAP and I was into design. was into to business. And then I read and I was into branding, but then I read the brand GAP and it highlighted what I, what I kind of learned then was this, this blind spot in the market.

Why was nobody else talking about this? Marty Neumeyer was talking about it and he's the one that kind of introduced me to it. But then I went online looking for all of this stuff and I couldn't find it. You know, I was trying to, I was trying to find a way to make myself different in the market because you had all of these other designers coming to the table and stealing my business for cheaper prices because they were in different economies with different costs of living.

Paul Povolni (12:03.037)
Yeah, yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (12:20.864)
So I came to the crossroads of, well, look, I want to do this. I want to offer these services, but if I'm competing on price and I'm competing with these people, then why would they choose me over them? if I can't, if I don't have a fundamental reason and a compelling reason to be able to say, well, this is why you should choose me. And, and I know in my heart that it is a valid enough reason for them to say yes. Well then.

Well then, why would I expect them to pay for my higher priced services when they can go over there? So that kind of opened the doors into the term differentiation and competitive edge. And that opened up the door into the idea of positioning, which I later learned was the center point of what brand strategy is all about.

Paul Povolni (12:56.733)
Right.

Stephen Houraghan (13:14.338)
But again, I didn't have all of that knowledge and information readily disposable online because it just wasn't there. So through reading a lot of different books and a lot of perspectives from the masters, I kind of started to cobble together my understanding. And I started creating content about it. And the more I created, the more things made sense to me. And a very...

kind of organized person in my head and I'm able to visualize that. And if I'm able to visualize it, then I'm able to understand it. And I just put that in and that became something that I knew was working for my business because it brought structure, it brought clarity. And in doing that, I created something that I knew that my clients needed. And that's what I began to start selling and I began to start talking about. And it attracted...

Paul Povolni (13:45.886)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (14:12.376)
people not just the likes of my clients who I wanted to work with, but other people who wanted to learn about these systems so that they could help other people through their work. And that's how Brandmaster Academy came about.

Paul Povolni (14:24.605)
Yeah, it sounds like you combined the, your previous job in the finance industry of thinking in spreadsheets and systems and things like that. And you brought that into the creative space of organizing thoughts and ideas and things into systems. And so, you know, when, you know, as a designer, were you, how long were you a designer before you figured out that you needed to add strategy to it?

Stephen Houraghan (14:53.678)
would say, would say five, four to five years, because when I went out on my own, as a freelancer, I didn't have a problem getting clients and I was loving my life. was, you know, the typical designer headphones on illustrator, coffee, music, just, you know, designing and, and I loved it. I loved that, that, that life. then when the, the, economics of it came,

Paul Povolni (15:10.857)
Ha ha ha.

Stephen Houraghan (15:22.88)
through and, and, you know, the, the clients that I had, were, were harder to come by or they were challenging me on why they should pay more for my services or asking the question why I should pay. And I didn't have a compelling reason. It forced me down that road. And I would like to say that it was all by design that it all came, but it wasn't, it was just a soup. It was just a soup of circumstances, experiences that kind of led me down this, this path.

Paul Povolni (15:38.003)
Yeah, yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (15:52.143)
And led me into this area that, I said before, the analogy that I use, it was kind of like a dark corner of the business world that didn't have much light on it. So slowly I started to shine light on it. And the more I did, the more people kind of came over and start looking. And the more I spoke about it, the more I formulated my ideas and I was able to kind of make sense of all of this stuff that

that didn't have sense or structure for me before. yeah, it's so many, it's still a gap in the market. Now there's still a blind spot, the education of branding, there's still a blind spot because people come into, it's so easy to create a business today, right? And people know about marketing. They know the idea that you need to, there's lead generation and that you need to market your business.

Paul Povolni (16:39.506)
Right, right.

Stephen Houraghan (16:50.264)
But even in the education world, you can take a marketing degree and they'll touch on branding. But to take a branding degree, that's still like, it's not really the common path to get to where you want to go. And branding has become this overarching discipline now that governs everything. It governs marketing, it governs business decisions. And if you're able to really understand branding at its core, because it is all about the audience, it's all about

Paul Povolni (17:03.004)
Right.

Stephen Houraghan (17:20.11)
appealing to that audience in a very specific way. And then you're able to bring that into your processes and your principles for what you do in business, then it's gonna stay with you as long as you're in that field because it's the fundamentals.

Paul Povolni (17:38.623)
So as we, as we continue the conversation of brand and branding and marketing, um, do you have a definition of those that you've settled on that you like for, the difference between brand branding and maybe even marketing? Cause for some people they're the same thing, you know, I have a logo, so I'm marketing or I have a brand, you know, uh, or I have a website, so I'm, I'm marketing or I have, I have branding or I have a brand. So, so do you have one that you've kind of settled on that you like?

Stephen Houraghan (17:52.846)
you

Stephen Houraghan (17:57.602)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (18:05.76)
Yes. And I've refined and shaped this quite a few different times. And there's not one that I go to time and again that I've kind of coined. But a brand is the reputation of your business. It's the reason that you give your audience to choose you over your competitors. That's your brand. At the core.

of what you do, is your brand. Branding is the methodology that you use to bring that idea to the market. And the marketing is the mobilization of your message. So your brand is not something that exists. It's not tangible. know, it's a brand doesn't exist in an office or a billboard. A brand exists as an idea.

Paul Povolni (18:50.931)
love that.

Stephen Houraghan (19:05.218)
You know, and if you put out the right messages, and this is what we have as brand builders, we have the ability to try to shape the image of our brand in the market. And if we do a good enough job, the perception of our brand is picked up on the other side by the audience as to how we want to be seen. So there is no, we don't go into the market and determine what our brand means in the market.

We try to shape our messages to get that message across. So the perception and the idea is picked up on the other side. And our brand is formulated as an image in the market. And if we do the right things and we're very, very clear on the image that we want to have, and we're consistent, and we send out consistent messages, and we scratch the right itches for the right type of people.

then that image will come together in the market. But it's not a thing that we can just pay an agency to do. Get us that image in the market. It doesn't work that way. You do the right things. You're very, very clear about who you are and that clarity is key. And you do the right things. You send out the right messages consistently. The market will pick it up. But you have to be consistent. It's like any reputation. You might want to have a reputation as a reliable person.

Paul Povolni (20:06.142)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (20:11.208)
Right.

Paul Povolni (20:23.827)
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (20:33.25)
Right? You want your friends to have the image of you as a reliable person. That's your, you know, that's what you aspire to. But that's only going to come together if every time you say that you're going to do something, you do it. Branding is the exact same.

Paul Povolni (20:48.435)
Right, right, right.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Cause I've wrestled myself with, you know, defining it. Cause I've heard so many great definitions and I love yours as well. for me, I've settled on that your brand is what people think and feel about what you say and do. And branding is everything you say and do, you know? and because, you know, in, today's culture, you know, it pretty much is everything you say and do because we're in such a.

Stephen Houraghan (21:13.688)
I like that.

Paul Povolni (21:20.407)
almost a, a, overexposed, culture where your brand is out there, whether you like it or not, your brand is out there either by default or by, you know, strategy and everything you say and do is playing a part in branding you, know, what you say, how you smell the sounds, the, mean, everything has so much to do with, with your brand that it pretty much is everything you say and do is branding.

Stephen Houraghan (21:39.384)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Houraghan (21:48.364)
Yeah. And I love that. And it aligns with my philosophy. And look, what we do as brand builders is simplification, right? It's all about making the complex very easy to understand in a way that's compelling and memorable. And if you do that well enough, then you can shape how people think and feel about your brand. And what I like to do is bring it all back.

to the human experience. whether or not you have a background in branding or business or whatever, you have a background in being a human. you know whether or not you verbalize these ideas or not. You know that having a sense of purpose in your life, something that you're excited to do when you get up every day, you...

You know inherently that that's important. You know that the principles with which you live your life by, how you want other people to see you, and the values that you have, that's important. You know how you speak determines how you're perceived on the other side. If you use foul language all the time and you say whatever...

comes to mind or if you're critical of other people, you'll have a reputation as that type of person. If you're more reserved in how you speak and you consider your thoughts and you're more insightful with the words that you say, you'll be perceived as that type of person. So bringing it all back to the human experience and how we want other people to see ourselves is a very good way to look at your brand.

Paul Povolni (23:15.006)
Right.

Paul Povolni (23:29.47)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (23:38.019)
Right. Wow. Absolutely love that. So going just a little, little back to the origins of you as a designer and then moving into adding strategy, how did you rationalize your designs before you started talking strategy?

Stephen Houraghan (23:53.326)
Yeah, that's a great question because the truth of it was that I reverse engineered meaning into my designs.

Paul Povolni (24:05.215)
Wow, that's good.

Stephen Houraghan (24:06.902)
Yeah, so I would design something that I liked. It could have been based on a trend. It could have been based on something that I got inspiration from. And I was like, that's a great idea. And then I tried to find meaning in my designs. And that's what a lot of designers do. And it's nothing on designers. As designers, we're taught to make something look visually appealing and to...

Paul Povolni (24:21.161)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:35.059)
Right.

Stephen Houraghan (24:36.888)
to try to embed some kind of meaning. But when you end up with the final result, you try to add more meaning to it. And look, as I said, I'm a designer by trade, I've been there. However, when you start from the other side, you start with the meaning first, you start with the strategy, and you think about the people who you're trying to influence. Now you're not trying to influence those

Paul Povolni (24:59.412)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (25:06.774)
those people just with a logo. You're trying to influence those people with a brand image. And yes, the logo and the visual identity will get that attention. But then underneath all of that, there has to be substance. There has to be a meaning. And if you know what that meaning as you go into design, you'll do a much better job. But as I said, over time, I've moved more into strategy and

Paul Povolni (25:24.157)
Brian, Brian.

Stephen Houraghan (25:35.656)
Yes, I've come from the background of design, so I can still be the creative director guiding those designs and making sure that the meaning and the strategy is there. But what excites me is really the challenge at hand, know, who these people are, what their life is like, what is it that they're trying to achieve? Why are they trying to achieve that? You know, what's the end goal that they're trying to achieve? And then what other options do they have in the market?

Paul Povolni (25:52.041)
Right.

Stephen Houraghan (26:05.078)
And if they have option A, B and C, you know, what are, what are A, B and C missing that I could say that's, that's a little bit more relevant, maybe not to the whole pie, but to a smaller segment of that pie. How can I be more relevant to that group of people? So when you, when you speak about brand like that, you can see how deep it goes.

Paul Povolni (26:34.384)
Right, right, yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (26:34.412)
You know, it's so much more than the visual aesthetics. And that's how most people interpret branding. That's how most people know branding. But when you go beneath the surface and you start to understand the psychology and the human behavior behind it, and you're able to connect those dots, that's what gets me excited about the discipline now.

Paul Povolni (26:59.443)
Yeah. And so when you first started introducing strategy to your design, what were some of the first things that you started talking about with clients? Is it just what you shared there or was there something else that you start with when it comes to first of all doing the discovery of so can build a strategy? What do you start talking about with clients when you're at that point of they say, hey, I need...

Stephen Houraghan (27:19.822)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (27:25.841)
a brand, want to create a brand or I want to, you know, I want to do a, branding. where do you start with? that who they are is where you start with, or do you start somewhere else?

Stephen Houraghan (27:35.034)
Yeah, so it started off as a very, very rough thing. And it was natural. It was kind of inherent. It was the why question, you know? And I picked up the technique, the five whys, okay? That was very kind of surface level for me, but it really did help me to get beyond...

the initial reasons that clients give you for why they're doing what they're doing. When you ask why enough times you get to a deeper level, but you can only ask why so many times without them thinking that you're crazy. that has to be, that has to be kind of sectioned off to the different areas that you're trying to understand. So the DNA of the brand, okay. So, so forgetting about the audience for a second, then looking internally at the leaders of this brand.

What's important to you? know, if you didn't have money or revenue as an objective for this brand, let's say, let's say it was a nonprofit. Why would you continue to do what you're doing? What's, what's the reason underlying like who you're trying to help and what are you trying to help them with and why are you trying to help them? So when you start to get down to, to

the internal questions and you're able to really solidify them early with the leadership team and they're able to connect with them. That goes a long way. The idea of purpose, vision, mission and values, mean, everybody has heard about them, but the percentage of leaders that actually use them in a way that has any kind of meaning or any kind of impact is minimal. So many business owners will go, okay,

Paul Povolni (29:02.781)
Right.

Stephen Houraghan (29:23.542)
What's now? All right, I've written my purpose statement. What else? I've written my mission statement, my values. Okay, they're all done. What's next? They go into a drawer, they never see them again. There's no real connection there. But if you really dig deep enough and you actually have those workshops and those conversations with leaders, you can get to the real core of why they're doing it. And if they really connect with it, then that will stay with them because that...

It'll be more than just the revenue. It'll be like, this is why we're here. We know who we are. The real center point of brand strategy then and the most important questions are in and around who that audience is. know, what I spoke about before, what they're trying to achieve and exactly how you're going to help them. And this is an art. This really is an art. up with a

a solution that you can help them to achieve their goals with that is super relevant to them and their particular situation. And the broader you go, the more difficult that is, which is why the term niching is so very important. The more narrow you go to a specific group of people, the more specific you can be with their life and their situation, which is why

Paul Povolni (30:34.644)
Right.

Stephen Houraghan (30:45.098)
You can have an edge over your competitors who are trying to appeal to that broader audience, but aren't really hitting the notes with this narrow segment. That's where the real juice of, of strategic branding is. It's drilling down into those important questions. And then it's still a creative discipline is branding. It's not just in the visuals and the logos and the color palettes. It's in the strategy.

You know, coming up with that creative way to say, this is how we're going to help you to your destination in a way that's different to competitor A, B and C. And this is why you want to choose us over them. And that's, that's an art to be able to do that in an effective way. It's a real art.

Paul Povolni (31:31.785)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (31:35.465)
So I'm going to drink from my, I brought this out in honor of you because I knew where, where you spend time at Starbucks from Sydney. but, so, so when, you know, for a company that says, I don't need strategy, I just need a logo. so what, what are the consequences of not starting with strategy? What are some of the, the, the, ways that a company is going to, face trouble?

Stephen Houraghan (31:40.417)
beautiful. You day, mate.

Paul Povolni (32:05.255)
in the road ahead when they don't start with strategy.

Stephen Houraghan (32:08.3)
Okay, so this is why I love the human brand philosophy because for every question like that, you can always, always bring it back to the idea of being a human. So let's say for example, I say, I'm gonna run a marathon. Okay. There's no fundamental reason for me to necessarily want to run that marathon. And unless I can connect

to a reason and I'm able to put meaning into actually running that. I'm never gonna run that marathon. I can dream about it. I can get up early for the first week. But if I'm not connected to why I'm actually doing it, I'm never gonna do it. And business owners who start out with the idea of building a brand and they, again,

This is the problem with the education gap in the market because the idea of brand is so convoluted and so fuzzy. And so many people from my perspective had the wrong idea of what a brand is. know, so many steps are missed and starting out with your brand as a visual perception or a visual representation of your business.

you're never really going to have a brand that's effective because it's only going to be a paint job. If all it is, is about looks, then you could paint the front of any building, but what goes on on the inside of that building doesn't really have any weight. It's really what's underneath the surface. It's again, so let's say for example,

I'm a wellness business, okay? And I decide that I want to have a certain type of look because, you know, I think it's nice. I like this color palette and I get my designer to put together this look that I got off the web. Now I have my brand, don't I? No, I don't. I have some visuals. I have some assets that I can use as a visual...

Paul Povolni (34:22.559)
You

Stephen Houraghan (34:33.08)
point of difference to get attention. But when I get that attention and people come to my brand and there's nothing after that visual representation, they're going to leave as quickly as they came because the brand is far more than those visuals and those business owners who just focus on the paint job, they will come to the realization that, and they all do because I've seen this time and again.

Paul Povolni (34:48.446)
Right.

Paul Povolni (35:02.974)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (35:03.938)
that they wasted all of this money on a visual identity instead of actually starting from the beginning and building a brand through strategy by considering, okay, who am I actually trying to appeal to here? Who are they? What challenges are they having? What outcomes do they want to achieve? And unlike all of those other competitors who are offering these solutions,

why are they going to choose me? When you have all of that aligned and you have your messaging, your positioning, the personality that you're going to show up at, then you can talk about, you're going to be represented visually. But if you don't have all of those ducks in a row, then you're just painting a shell. And very soon people are going to find out that there's no substance behind that.

Paul Povolni (35:37.267)
Right.

Paul Povolni (35:47.027)
Right.

Paul Povolni (35:55.889)
Right, right. Well, and one of the things that I found, even when, you know, as a younger designer, as an earlier designer, you know, I'd create a logo and then I'd email it to them and say, Hey, what do you think? You know, and then I'd come back with feedback, you know, create another logo, send it back to them. Hey, what do you think? And it wasn't until I started doing strategy and, you know, doing presenting logos as opposed to emailing logos. And then starting off with,

Stephen Houraghan (36:21.262)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (36:24.499)
talking about the strategy, you know, through, through meetings and making sure that things were aligned. And then even in presenting the logo is presenting here's the strategy that we came up with. Here are the goals. Here are some, you the vision that you wanted and then presenting the logos. I've had a lot more success with the clients liking what I presented. And instead of doing 50 rounds of iterations and throwing stuff up against the wall, hoping it would stick.

A lot of times it would be the first version, the first logo would nail it because I started from a point of strategy. so, you know, for the designers that are listening, know, rethink the way you're, you're doing your design because you're not serving the client fairly and correctly and rightly. If you're just throwing stuff up against the wall, as you said, you know, add meaning after the design and, and you're just kind of throwing cool stuff out there and just creating stuff and just emailing logos.

Stephen Houraghan (36:58.094)
Mm-mm.

Paul Povolni (37:20.137)
You're really not serving the client well because they're not, they're not getting the vital part, which is the strategy that's going to actually help them build the right kind of brand and branding. And the other thing you would mention is also the waste of money. You know, one thing when it comes to branding is it, helps you spend money in the right way. When you have strategy attached to your, your branding.

Stephen Houraghan (37:31.31)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (37:45.583)
Otherwise, you you don't know who you're trying to reach. You don't know what you're trying to do. You don't know your audience well, you haven't differentiated. And so you're wasting a lot of money and you know, the money that you could have spent on strategy would help augment your efforts when it comes to putting your brand out there through marketing.

Stephen Houraghan (37:45.614)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Houraghan (37:54.86)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Houraghan (38:04.27)
Yeah, well, 100 % and I'll kind of double down on that because it's something that I speak about as well because there's this idea of metrics. It's not an idea. There are marketing metrics that business owners live and die by these days. you know, that's the likes of cost per click or cost per acquisition because it allows us to quantify the money that we're putting in versus the money that we're getting out, right? Now, if you go to market with

a logo and a website and $10,000 to spend on Facebook ads.

Versus if you go to market with a clear strategy for your brand, a visual identity and $5,000 to spend on ads. The metrics that you would see on one versus the other provided the strategy is done well and you're tuned into exactly who your audience is and your messaging is there and your personality is there. The metrics.

for the marketing with the brand strategy behind it are gonna be far more favorable, but it's difficult to attribute marketing metrics to the brand strategy because the marketing goes on top of it. But all of these metrics, look at how much, and you can Google the statistics, but the marketing dollars that are wasted in the market every single year,

Paul Povolni (39:20.285)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (39:37.506)
because especially the likes of small business owners or business owners that really don't have that grounding or don't have that guidance of the right people behind them, having this idea that all you need is a business idea, then you need yourself a logo on a website, then you need to go to Facebook ads. That's the quickest way to lose whatever budget you've set aside for this business venture. That is the quickest way.

Paul Povolni (40:00.735)
Right, right, right. Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (40:05.918)
It's in taking the time and really understanding. something that you said before kind of brought the term to the surface for me, which is buy-in. So we've got buy-in not just on the customer side of the business, we've got buy-in from the client side. And if you go to them with your designs the way you did before and you email them a logo, then you're gonna get this back and forth. And the reason that the first time designs always work

was that you had buy-in from the client before you presented any kind of visual work. And the reason that you had buy-in is because you understood the circumstances of the business. You understood the circumstances of the market and the audience, and you provided a solution that they could attribute meaning to. And because they understood it, because they had that clarity, because they had that meaning upfront, then the visuals made sense.

Paul Povolni (40:41.138)
Right.

Paul Povolni (40:58.448)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (41:05.33)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (41:05.4)
And that's why you got so much, so less pushback. So that buy-in is critical for the designers listening on the client side and the buy-in is critical on the customer side on the other side.

Paul Povolni (41:17.095)
Right. Well, and then also with the visual strategy alone is actually having a plan for that creates a consistency. And one of the things that I like to talk about is, you know, it creates this omnipresence feeling when you have a consistency with your visuals, with your branding as well. makes you feel like you're everywhere where all you are is everywhere consistent. so, you know, having a strategy around even your visuals

on choosing the same messaging, choosing a color palette, a font palette, choosing all of those things augments your efforts so you're not wasting money and being inconsistent. You give it to one designer, one designer puts their creative flair on it. The next designer says, well, I can make this better. I'm going to add my creative flair to it. And then suddenly each piece of work that you're putting out there is having to work on its own power.

as opposed to being everything unified and kind of helping itch it out. And then you start feeling omnipresent. I do that with my orange, you do that with your pink. That's one way to do that, but there are several other strategies around that. I do wanna talk a little bit about that part of the strategy. And I do wanna get into talking about messaging and positioning personalities, but just that visual strategy as well.

Stephen Houraghan (42:22.862)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Stephen Houraghan (42:30.306)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Houraghan (42:39.998)
Yeah, so it's the idea and it's the principle of familiarity. know, when we see something time and again, it becomes familiar to us and less of a threat. And this plays into our primitive instinct, you know. It's why people don't like change. You know, we fear things that we don't know. And the more we see things and the more familiar they come, the more that fear reduces. And this is what

consumer psychology is all about. It's all about that, that fear desire dynamics. And if you're able to show up consistently time and again, then you're going to become more recognizable. So somebody sees you, they recognize that. And then if they, see you time and again, and then they learn what you do. And they see you time and again, time and then they have a challenge or a problem that they have.

Paul Povolni (43:25.362)
Ryan, Ryan.

Stephen Houraghan (43:39.746)
and they're able to tie the recall or the memorability of your brand back to what you do, then you're on the map and you're in contention for the buying decision. These are all little micro moments that happen throughout the buyer's journey. But it's, again, it's coming back to that human personality, that idea of the human. You you see,

You go into an office every day and you see this person. The first time you go in, you don't know them. You've never seen them before. You walk past them. By the third or fourth week, you've seen them quite a few times and you're starting to recognize them. see them. By the sixth month, you're walking past and you're smiling at them. That sense of familiarity and that consistency, you know that they're not a threat. They've been there for six months every day. They've never said anything bad to you.

Paul Povolni (44:35.711)
Right, right, right.

Stephen Houraghan (44:38.926)
This just happens over time and the more consistent you are with your visuals, the more consistent you are with your behavior, the way you show up, the way you put out messages into the market, the more familiar you become to your target audience, the less they fear you, the more likely they are to engage you. And it's just an organic, it just unfolds organically, but the core of that is being consistent and showing up. And if you're consistent and you show up,

you become familiar and you reduce that fear.

Paul Povolni (45:12.199)
Man, that is so good. So good. So let's talk a little bit about messaging. You know, you mentioned it earlier. How does, how does a company or how does a business, whether it's a startup, whether they're doing a rebrand refresh, how did they start nailing down what their messaging is? Like what are the first steps? are they need to do? Maybe they're not an expert, they're not a copywriter. They need to engage somebody. What should they be looking for and how do they get started in coming up with the right messaging?

Stephen Houraghan (45:15.446)
Ahem.

Stephen Houraghan (45:41.614)
The center point of this is positioning. If you don't have your positioning dialed in, you shouldn't be touching messaging. Your position is the core reason that your audience is going to choose you over your competitors. If you don't know that, your messaging is going to confuse the life out of everybody. You don't know what you want to say, you don't know what you want to tell them, or what you want them to remember.

So before you get to messaging, nail down that positioning. And that is what is the meaning that we're going to give to the market to choose us over them? It's a very simple statement, but it's very, very, very hard to do. It's very hard to do a hack there. I don't like that word, but a way to get closer to what your meaning is, is getting more dialed in to exactly who your audience is.

Paul Povolni (46:23.529)
That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (46:41.622)
let me be upfront with anybody who's entering the market. Small business is not a niche. It is probably 70 % of all businesses on the planet. Okay. You need to get really, really specific with, with like niche segments. So not just the type of business that you're, that you're, you're wanting to target, but maybe

Paul Povolni (46:49.243)
Ha ha.

Stephen Houraghan (47:11.084)
the life cycle stage of that type of business. Maybe the life cycle stage of that type of business in this specific area. Maybe the life cycle stage of that specific business in this type of area for this type of leader. That's the type of specificity that I'm talking about. If you can get... So we could be talking about an accountant.

Paul Povolni (47:27.785)
What do mean by life cycle?

Stephen Houraghan (47:38.104)
business type that we're going after. We're going after this segment. But we don't want to be dealing with accountants who are in the startup phase. We want to be dealing with accountants who are established and have a minimum of 10 to 50 employees. we know that we're not, we know that we're for accountants, but we know that we're not for this type of accountant. And we know that we're not for this type of accountant either, we're for this group here. And the more you're able to dial that in,

Paul Povolni (48:00.83)
Right, right.

Stephen Houraghan (48:08.226)
and the more you're able to really get down to those types of people, when you put your pin in that and say, we are for this type of person to help them overcome this type of challenge in this type of way, that's when you're able to start on your messaging.

Paul Povolni (48:26.495)
That's so good.

Stephen Houraghan (48:28.076)
and your messaging will be so much more focused. And when you put out those types of messages, that type of business leader in that type of area with that type of business in that type of life cycle will see that message and know that that's for them instead of the other competitors who you're competing against targeting a broader business type that don't have the messaging dialed in in that same way.

Paul Povolni (48:45.811)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (48:57.9)
Your messaging comes from your position. It's all about knowing why you're different and why your audience should choose you over your competitors. When you know that, your messaging becomes so much easier.

Paul Povolni (49:01.279)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (49:11.187)
Now, would you also insert deciding on your brand personality? that critical at this point? Is that something that evolves? Where would you insert, because you had mentioned it earlier about your brand personality, where would you insert that into the brand strategy developing, the brand strategy that you need to have and kind of the step-by-step process? Where would you insert that?

Stephen Houraghan (49:34.988)
Yeah, so funnily enough, in between positioning and messaging. the reason that we do that there is that before we put together the messaging, the messaging is what we say. But there's also the way we say it. And the way we say it is our personality, okay? So imagine two people in a room, okay?

Paul Povolni (49:39.283)
What?

Stephen Houraghan (50:00.02)
you turn up to this place and you speak to these two different people. Now they're talking about the same thing, but one has a buttoned up tie and he's speaking very articulately and he's focusing on the articulation of his words and the structure of his sentences. And the other guy is more laid back and he's like, yeah, you know, like this is how I like to do things.

He's more clear in his words, but he's speaking in a way that feels conversational and it feels more like the way you would kind of speak. Maybe he's got an Australian accent. And so the difference between these two people, they're saying the exact same thing, but the way they're saying it influences how you feel about it. So that's your personality. You need to dial in.

the type of brand that you want to be. And this is the image that you're putting out there in the market. Yes, we're going to do this thing for this very specific group of people, but this is the way we're gonna show up. This is the way we're gonna look and your personality feeds into your visual identity later on. These are the attributes that we want to represent. This is the way we're going to speak.

then you use that to dial in your messaging. So it's not just what you're saying coming directly from your position. It's also the way you're saying it coming directly from your personality.

Paul Povolni (51:33.053)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:42.333)
Yeah. And that's, and it's a great way to differentiate yourself, you know, in the marketplace is are you the, the casual fun loving, easygoing, type, brand, that attracts a certain type of people that, that feel a little more comfortable with that, or are you the more, you know, process driven, formal, you know, tie wearing type thing that would attract a whole different kind of an audience. So it's, it is a great way to, to differentiate yourself.

Stephen Houraghan (52:06.184)
Yeah. And, and to add to your point, I love the example of Gillette versus the Dollar Shave Club. So again, they're selling razors. Okay. Gillette approach it, speaking about razors through the technology and the four blades and, you know, their language and what they're saying is, different, but the way they're saying it.

Paul Povolni (52:19.667)
Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (52:35.276)
is completely different to the Dollar Shave Club. Of course, what they're saying is also about convenience and it's about quality, but it's also the way they're saying it. We're not gonna try and bamboozle you with talk of four blades and a back scratcher and all of these things. And it was so refreshing. They're both selling the same thing, but the way they do it is completely different.

Paul Povolni (52:37.726)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (52:52.353)
Ha

Paul Povolni (53:00.659)
Yeah, that is, that's a perfect example. Another example that I've used inevitably anytime I talk to a branding person is Liquid Death. You know, they very clearly have a brand personality that they've created. They're selling water, you know, and, you know, I hate to throw in puns, but they entered a saturated market, you know, and, and, shh, I've got another one. It was flooded with water brands.

Stephen Houraghan (53:16.014)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Houraghan (53:22.19)
But I'm just

Stephen Houraghan (53:27.569)
here we go. You could go all day,

Paul Povolni (53:29.629)
I could go all day on that, but you know, they did enter into a market that really did have a lot of competition and they decided our personality is going to be this rock and roller, you know, tattoo-y type brand and they're a billion dollar company. I don't know what they're evaluated at right now, but they just blew up. They're just amazing. Absolutely. Yeah.

Stephen Houraghan (53:46.198)
Mm-mm. More than our pay grade, my man.

Paul Povolni (53:52.155)
And so, so yeah, it's absolutely a great way to differentiate yourself and also in being consistent and you know, people know that when you're putting out something, that's you, you know, they, they see your posts, they see your advertising, they see your videos and they know, yeah, that's totally them. That's their style. and that just becomes that, way that they recognize you and separate you from everybody else that, you know, might be a very different style that they're uncomfortable with or they don't like, or doesn't attract them. And so we've talked about.

Stephen Houraghan (54:06.894)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (54:21.395)
positioning, we've talked about differentiation, we've talked about those things. So when it comes to the messaging, know, that's the, obviously a pretty big deal. Is that the next step or do you, is there something else that you fit in there before you start talking about messaging?

Stephen Houraghan (54:36.012)
No, so to kind of lay it all out and if you do after visuals for this, even if you don't, you can send them to a link that I can send you to. So you nail your audience who they are, you understand your competitors, what they're doing, you define why you're different to your competitors, and you define the way you're going to show up into the market. Once you've got all of those ducks in a row,

Only then are you ready to start on your messaging and your messaging becomes about how many different ways using this style can we tell our audience about this position and the way to do that framing is a great technique. Framing is understanding the position from as many different angles as you can. So we're going to do this thing for this person in this way. Okay, well let's understand this thing a little bit more.

What exactly are we gonna do? So of course you can talk about the features and the benefits, but there's also the experience. What are we gonna take them through? There's also the person. Okay, so who is this person? Who is this business leader for this accounting firm in this life cycle at this stage? What are their challenges? What specifically are the granular challenges that we can talk about?

So when you understand the dynamics and all of the, think of your position as a mind map, okay? At the cornerstone is the reason that you're gonna give to your clients. How many arches can you bring away from that about the things that are related that the audience would think are important to them? You bring all of those over here and you articulate what that means to you as a brand.

Paul Povolni (56:19.935)
Right

Stephen Houraghan (56:28.482)
and then you layer on top of that your personality, you've got messages for days. And if you build that into a set of guidelines and you live by that and you apply consistency to that, then that familiarity is gonna show up in the market every single day. What you're saying is gonna resonate with who you're saying it to. The way you're saying it is gonna resonate with who you're saying it to and the rest just falls into place.

Paul Povolni (56:34.395)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (56:57.777)
Wow. Wow. That is so good. Well, man, we have already run out of time. I know you have a hard out. And so I want to honor that time. Who do you help? And we're going to have to do this again. Who do you best help? Who do you not help? And how do they get a hold of you?

Stephen Houraghan (57:06.008)
Thank you.

Stephen Houraghan (57:13.934)
It's a great question. I help brand builders, both professional offering those services and in-house, those leading brands and building their brands from the inside. Who don't I help? I'm not for, you know, your average business leaders who are not focused on brand or for marketers who are, anybody who doesn't have a focus on brand.

That's who I'm not for. If you are interested in turning inside and looking internally and building brand from the inside out, then I'd probably have some content that can help you. So best place to reach me is brandmasteracademy.com. We've got a thriving YouTube channel that's attached to that. We've got a podcast. I've interviewed the likes of Seth Godin, Marty Neumar, David Acker.

Browmasteracademy.com and follow the breadcrumbs.

Paul Povolni (58:17.971)
Yeah. And your content is what first got my attention. Absolutely amazing super value. Just a masterclass in branding. so definitely check out Steven and we didn't even get a chance to talk about brand builder AI. So maybe we can save that for another time. And so I definitely want to do that as well. Man, this has been amazing and thank you so much for coming on.

Stephen Houraghan (58:34.518)
Yes, yes.

Stephen Houraghan (58:40.758)
Yeah, no problem at all. I'm happy to jump on again and we can, we can, we can do this the next time and we can go off down. As you know yourself, Paul, this goes down many different rabbit holes and you can talk about it and slice it and dice it in so many different ways. And it's actually something that I enjoy. So yeah, happy to do it again, my man.

Paul Povolni (58:56.937)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I could do it all day, man. Well, thank you so much for being on and you have an amazing day.

Stephen Houraghan (59:04.214)
You too, Paul. Cheers, woman. Bye bye.